My instincts have never failed me.
So when I made the decision to get the fuck out of here, I wasn’t doing it arbitrarily. This is an emergency situation—escaping is a necessity, not an option.
However, Sasha didn’t listen to reason and insisted on going back to the old couple. A decision that landed us straight in the middle of this fuckery.
Three armed men in gas masks open fire, then disperse as soon as we approach the house.
The critical part is that they came from inside the house.
The worst part, however, is that they’re wearing gas masks, which means some sort of chemical weapon is involved.
At my shout, Sasha drops to the ground behind a tree, but her eyes are shifty and her hold on her rifle is unsteady.
She must be mulling over everything that I just thought of in her own mind and coming up with the worst possible scenario.
Two elderly people have no chance when faced with terrorists with firearms and chemical weapons.
When I was with Nicholas in the market earlier and felt eyes on me, this is precisely the turn of events that I dreaded the most. I promptly cut the trip short and insisted we go back to the house, but maybe that wasn’t the right decision either.
“Lipovsky,” I call with an authoritative tone, but that barely gets her attention.
“Sasha!”
She jerks, her eyes growing in size as they fly back to me.
I stop behind her, taking note of her chaotic reaction. “Are you there?”
She nods once. “Nadia and Nicholas, they…they…”
“We have to get rid of these men to be able to find them. I’m going to need you to cover for me so I can go inside. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need your head in the game, soldier.”
Her chin lifts slowly, subtly, before she nods with tangible determination. “Sir, yes, sir.”
She leans against the tree trunk, and I slip around the house, using the wall as camouflage. I shouldn’t trust her to cover me under the circumstances, but I do.
Because here’s the thing about Sasha. She works best under pressure, and even though she’s worried about the old couple, she won’t make a mistake that will cost them their lives.
Sure enough, as I steadily move in the direction of the house, she takes one of the men down.
My movements are easy, confident, and without an ounce of second thoughts. She’s an excellent shot and won’t allow any miscalculations. At least, not when it comes to this.
When I reach the entrance, I kill a man in black on the spot. One thing nags at me, though. I can’t locate the other one. Considering Sasha’s lack of action, she probably can’t either.
Still, I continue to use the wall as cover and advance toward the house. The moment I step inside, I hold my breath. I can take it for five minutes, which should be long enough to find Nadia and Nicholas—
My movements jerk to a halt in the middle of the green living room that’s fogged up with gas.
Two bodies sleep over each other on the floor, a pool of blood forming beneath them.
I rush to their sides and check their pulses. As the seconds tick by, the finality of the situation hits me upside the head like a motherfucker.
Even in their last moments, they’re holding hands and leaning against one another.
Nadia’s eyes are rolled back, showing more white than the irises. Her husband’s eyes, however, stare at nothing, completely devoid of the life I was witness to not an hour ago.
I close their eyes, lost for words. They believed in a divine being and kindness, so hopefully, that being is now taking care of them.
A rustle comes from behind me before a haunted whisper follows, “No…”
I whirl around to find Sasha standing on the threshold, wearing a gas mask and holding another that she probably removed from our victims.
Directly behind her appears a shadow of movement, and I don’t hesitate as I lift my rifle and shoot him between the eyes.
She doesn’t look back, doesn’t even think about her carelessness that almost killed her just now.
Instead, she runs inside and falls to the ground, in the middle of all the blood, not caring that her clothes are soaked with it.
“Nadia…Nicholas…wake up…” Her voice shakes, and so do her hands as she grabs the nurse’s wrist. “No…no…”
I pull the free mask from her hand and strap it around my face, then suck in a generous inhale. “They’re dead. We need to go.”
Her head jerks up in my direction, and I could swear she’s about to point her rifle at me. “That’s it? They’re dead and we need to go? What type…what type of an unfeeling monster are you? These people saved our lives when they didn’t have to and they’re now dead because of it. They’re dead, Kirill!”
“If you don’t move, you’ll also be dead, and all their efforts will be for nothing. Get up. Now.”
“No.” She shakes her head, voice filled with a brittleness I’ve never heard before.
It’s not so much weakness as it is rage against that weakness, mixed with a hint of self-destruction.
“They’re…they’re like this because of us. Those men, they’re here for us, not them, and we…we…”
I grab her by her good arm and haul her to me so fast and hard that she’s stunned into silence. She crashes against my chest, and I shake her for good measure. “Listen to me and listen good, Sasha. If we don’t leave right now, we might be ambushed. There’s no telling how many men were on this mission or if they have backup. We need to leave this town before we get anyone else killed. So either you follow me, or I’ll knock you out and take you by force.”
Through the glass binoculars of the mask, I can see the tears clinging to her eyes and the red-hot anger flaring to the surface.
But I don’t wait for her. I don’t give her another chance, and I certainly do not offer her pity.
I release her with a shove and turn around to leave. At first, I think she’s chosen to stay, but when I glance back, she places a blanket over the old couple’s bodies and clasps her hands together in what seems like a prayer.
The moment I’m out of the house, I remove my mask and throw it down. That’s when Sasha catches up to me.
Her shoulders are drooped, and her rifle hangs loosely around her chest, lifeless, almost as if it’s lost purpose.
She robotically removes her mask, showing a pale face, red eyes, and tear marks streaking down her cheeks.
I start to reach a hand out for her, but stop midway. Not only do I have no clue how to comfort people, but even if I did, it’d serve no purpose in this situation.
Sasha is a soldier and she needs to act the part before she gets us into deeper shit.
Our priority is to get the fuck out of here before we’re ambushed again.
Wordlessly, I turn around and start the careful but strategic retreat into the woods. Sasha follows behind, her movements robotic but focused. She doesn’t waver or trip, but she’s also not paying enough attention to her surroundings.
Once we’re far enough from the village, I break into a jog, and she follows suit. I keep a steady pace to avoid her feeling any discomfort from her injury.
We continue running for two hours straight until we get to the pickup point—a cottage in the mountains that’s owned by Viktor’s family. We could’ve set the meeting at one of the military safe houses, but I’ve completely lost faith in the institution after the planned setup during the mission.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it was a setup, and that fucking cost me the men I grew up with. Men who were supposed to be under my protection.
I control my breathing as I find the key under the flowerpot and push the old door open.
“We’ll stay here for a few hours until Viktor comes to get us.”
Sasha nods and strides inside, her movements mechanical. Her expression looks dissociated from reality.
She remains standing in the middle of the shabby cottage with old furniture and threadbare rugs for one second.
Two.
Ten.
Thirty.
In fact, she doesn’t move for a whole minute before her shoulders shake and she grabs her rifle with both hands.
Then, all of a sudden, she turns around and starts heading toward the door.
I step in front of her, effectively making her come to a halt. That’s when I get a close look at her face. It’s hard and tinted red, even though her lips are turning blue from the cold.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask in a collected, completely detached tone.
“I’m going back to bury Nadia and Nicholas, and if I’m ambushed, I’ll kill every last one of those fuckers. I’ll spill their blood and crush their hearts.”
“No, you won’t.”
She physically jerks forward. Admittedly, she’s strong, probably due to the adrenaline and the anguish that’s creasing her brows. But she’s not strong enough to push me away.
When that tactic doesn’t work, she uses her rifle to try to hit me, but I easily grab the end of it, wrench it out of her hold, and throw it on the nearby sofa.
So she goes for my rifle like a fucking survivor with no care for her life. I remove it from around my shoulder and throw it onto a chair.
Does that stop her? Of course not.
She all but engages in hand-to-hand combat with me, knowing full well that she can’t win.
Her blows are vicious, full of contempt, and focused on one mission—getting through me to the door.
I kick her in the shin, and she falls to her knees on the wooden floor, but she promptly jumps back up, fists protecting her face.
So I do it again, harder this time so that the thud resounds in the air around us. If I hit her for real, I’ll definitely reopen her stitches, so this is probably the only way to make her give up without my resorting to bodily harm.
The little shit actually stands back up, though slower this time, and resumes her combat stance. Guard up, shaky legs barely holding her upright, and face red.
I give the illusion that I’ll go for her legs again and she steps back, but when she does, I grab her by the throat and push her against the nearest wall.
Her whole body goes slack, whether due to the blow or my closeness, I don’t know.
She doesn’t even attempt to fight my grip, but she does try to kick me. I tighten my hold on her neck, giving her enough room to breathe, but not enough to encourage a fight.
“Snap the fuck out of it. If you go, you’re dead.”
“So be it.” The resignation in her tone is final and resolute as she holds her head high. “What’s the point of living if I can’t even protect myself or anyone around me? If I’m supposed to live on after losing so many people, then I’d rather not!”
Angry tears stream down her cheeks and cling to her chin before hitting my hand.
“Let me go, Kirill.”
“I didn’t save you so I could personally send you to your death.”
“Why did you save me?” Her tone weakens. “You shouldn’t have. If you hadn’t, Nadia and Nicholas would still be alive.”
“We don’t know that. No one does. But there’s one thing for certain. If you go back there, all the effort they put into you will be for nothing.” I release her. “If that’s what you want, go right ahead.”
Her lips purse, then she grinds her teeth and releases a sound of absolute desperation.
This time, she can’t seem to control the tears that pour out, soaking her chin. She tries to wipe them away and miserably fails to put an end to them.
“Why am I so weak?” She dabs at her eyes with both hands even as she cries like a baby.
“You’re not weak.” I pat her shoulder. “You’re just human.”
It’s only a simple gesture and a few words to make her snap the fuck out of it, but it’s as if I’ve opened Pandora’s box.
Sasha throws her whole weight against me. Her head leans on my chest, and her sniffles echo in the air.
“I can’t…I just can’t stop thinking about how it’s all because of me… Everyone dies because I exist in their lives…”
Who’s everyone?
I don’t ask that, though, knowing full well that she’s not in the right state of mind to answer. Or that if I do ask, she might pull away, and that option doesn’t necessarily appeal to me.
She places her chin on my chest, staring up at me with eyes so wretched and full of pain, they nearly appear black. “Am I cursed?”
“Only if you believe you are. Try to think that you’re not.”
An ironic smile lifts the corner of her full lips. “You make it sound so easy.”
“You can make it easy.”
She buries her face in my chest again and nuzzles her nose in my clothes. My hand twitches, but I have no fucking clue if it’s to remove her or hold her closer to me.
One thing’s for certain, her closeness has become fucking unbearable ever since the day she ‘unknowingly’ dry humped me.
I was seconds away from pinning her down, tearing her clothes off, biting her skin, and fucking her until she cried and screamed.
Every time she’s come close since, I’ve been having the same images. Only, they’ve intensified tenfold.
Like right now.
It doesn’t matter that she’s grieving or having a weak moment that she hates so much. All I can think about is biting, marking, and sucking on her skin. Maybe even confiscating these tears so that they belong only to me.
So no one else but me will be able to see her in this state.
My body goes rigid despite myself. The weight of the image and the need to act on it are clashing, and the only loser is my resolve.
If Sasha notices the change, she doesn’t act on it and continues crying in my chest.
I close my eyes and tip my head up.
Fuck.
These are going to be the longest few hours of my life.
