His scream is chilling. He tries to jerk away, but I grab his hair in my free hand and hold his face to me. He swats wildly, mostly hitting air. I don’t stop. I stab him in the eye and cheek, everywhere my hand happens to fall. He throws back his head and yowls, stilling a fraction of a second in his strain to escape the assault. It’s enough to take aim. Putting all my force into it, I jab the long, sharp wire of the hairpin deep into his ear.
The piercing cry of a man pushed beyond the threshold of pain rips through the room. It’s not a scream but a thin wail, a sound that goes hand in hand with torture. Nothing hurts like a ruptured eardrum. Nothing makes a person go crazier than a needle in the inner ear.
I pull out my weapon. He lets go of me to slam a palm over his ear. A rivulet of blood oozes through his fingers. It’s the longer pause I need to locate the jugular vein in his neck. The prick from the pin in a vein is nothing compared to the pain in an eye or ear, but his good eye grows large while the bleeding one bulges as the hairpin sinks into his neck. Like all animals, he knows instinctively when the end has arrived. Defeat is written on his face, but like all overconfident men, he battles to believe it. He stares at me in shock. The fight has gone out of him completely. He doesn’t approach death gracefully.
He greets it screaming and crying.
Shoving a slobbering Dimitrov onto his side, I crawl out from underneath his semi-naked body. He’ll bleed out. With Dimitrov eliminated, the mousy sociopath is now my biggest immediate threat. I aim for the door, ready to jump like a tiger, but the man is gone.
Pop! Pop!
I have to get to Yan. I have to help him and Ilya.
My ribs protest when I move. Dimitrov must’ve cracked one or two with his punches. Ignoring the pain, I hobble away from the bed, but stop as something hard presses against my temple and the unmistakable click of a safety being cocked sounds in my ear.
“Not so fast, Mink,” the mousy man says. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Several questions run simultaneously through my mind. Why didn’t he help Dimitrov? Who the hell is he? Why isn’t he shooting me already?
I’m contemplating the answers, trying to piece together a puzzle while searching for a way out of this new dilemma, when my gaze falls on the broken bottle on the floor. I can knock the gun out of his hand and stab him with the bottle before he knows what’s happening.
Another gunshot.
Lifting my hands, I play for time. “Don’t shoot. I’ll do what you want.”
He chuckles. “I doubt that.”
My muscles tense and my body draws tight, preparing to attack. I’m about to move when the wood around the doorknob explodes and the door falls into the room.
A tall figure appears in the frame, and everything inside me goes still, the earth seeming to stop moving. Even time itself stops as Yan stands there with a cold, fierce look on his face. He’s covered in blood and aiming a pistol at the man, perhaps one he took from the guards.
My heart at a standstill, I shift my gaze from Yan to the mousy man and the gun in his hand. His finger is curled around the trigger.
The trigger indents the slightest fraction. The spring being pushed back is amplified in the silence that rings in my head. Maybe it’s imaginary, but what’s real is the bullet in the barrel.
My world starts turning again when Yan speaks.
“Let her go.” His gaze sharpens, his eyes tightening. I recognize the intent in those jade-colored pools as he calmly keeps his aim and says, “Now.”
The man snickers. “I don’t think so. Throw down your weapon or she’s dead.”
“You’re not going to shoot her.” Yan pulls his lips into a thin smile. “She’s your only ticket out of here.”
Yan doesn’t look at me, nor at the now-quiet-and-still Dimitrov, who’s lying on the bed half-naked, his flaccid cock exposed. All of Yan’s attention is focused on the man pressing a gun against my head.
“Let her go,” Yan says again, “and I’ll kill you fast.”
The man laughs. “You’re making premature assumptions. I’m not dying today, and I’m not letting her go. As you said, she’s my ticket out of here.”
Yan’s smile turns condescending. “Do you always hide behind a woman’s skirt?”
The man folds his fingers around my upper arm, holding me in a tight grip. “She doesn’t count for a regular skirt. I’ve seen her in action.”
It’s then that Yan looks at me, and what I see in his eyes chills me to the bone. He’s going to shoot the man.
The message passes between us. It’s an unspoken language only two people who are as in tune with each other as we are can understand. There’s the slightest flicker of a smile in Yan’s eyes, a smile that’s meant just for me. With that single look, Yan tells me everything he showed me this morning. The sum of my life is condensed in that look. Everything I’ve ever wanted is distilled into this single moment.
Now.
Moving fast, I shoulder the man hard before ducking. He loses his footing, taking a step to the side. The barrel of the gun swings up into the air as he lets me go and tries to find his balance with flailing arms. The shot goes off, the stray bullet hitting the ceiling. Bits of plaster sift like snowflakes to the ground. Before he finds his equilibrium, Yan fires.
Click.
A blank.
I stare at Yan in incomprehension while horror transforms his face. Cold realization settles in my stomach. The chamber is empty. The man registers the knowledge at the same time. A
