Kissing My Killer

by Newbury, Helena

  “You’ll die if we don’t!”

  He started to say something, but then his head lolled and his body went limp.

  I felt the Dread start to build. I’d been okay as long as he was by my side but now it was back. It was on every side of me, seeping into the car from the darkness outside, where anything could be lurking. Rushing towards me from the vanishing points—the distant road junction ahead, the streets stretching off to the sides. Everything was too big and safety was much too far away.

  It was the most total fear I’d known since leaving my apartment. I’d been lulled into a false sense of security by having Alexei as my own mobile safe place. I’d thought the Dread had gone, but it had been hiding inside me, biding its time.

  Alexei’s foot had slipped off the gas. The car rolled to a stop and I sat there, in the middle of the street, paralyzed with fear. I was on my own, in the middle of a strange area of the city, and no one was going to save me.

  I felt myself slide. I could feel myself getting smaller and smaller in my seat, until it felt like I was going to shrink right down into it.

  No one was going to save me. No one was going to save me and he was going to come. He was going to come and take me and—

  A horn blared behind me. I was blocking the street.

  I knew what would happen now. I could see it unfolding in my head like a movie. Another few seconds and the driver behind me would get impatient and stomp around to my window to see what the hell I was doing. They’d see an unconscious man bleeding in the driver’s seat and a near-catatonic woman beside him and they’d call the police. And somewhere between the emergency room and prison, Alexei’s people would find him and kill him.

  He was going to die unless I did something right now.

  The Dread screamed at me, telling me how tiny and insignificant I was. But the fear of losing Alexei was even stronger.

  I took three more panicked breaths and then climbed out of my seat and slid onto Alexei’s lap. I gripped the steering wheel, found the gas pedal with my foot and stamped on it.

  I knew what I had to do.

  Alexei

  I half-opened my eyes. Bright lights. Was I in heaven?

  Then I heard the yapping of dogs. Lots of dogs. Maybe all dogs did go to heaven.

  I opened my eyes a little further and then I knew I was dead because an angel was before me. A soft-skinned angel all dressed in white, with hair the color of walnuts. I was lying down and she was bending over to kiss me—

  She didn’t kiss me. She pushed a metal thing into my chest and I felt a dull, faraway ache.

  I blinked a few times and my eyes started to adjust. There was a dazzling lamp right above me but the rest of the room was in darkness. I could make out cages and each one had a dog in it. That explained the yapping.

  I looked down. I was on a vinyl-covered table. No, two tables, pushed together.

  Gabriella followed my gaze. “They were made for dogs,” she said. “I had to get creative.” Her voice was raspy, as if she’d been crying.

  It took an effort to make my tongue work, but I managed to ask, “Where am I?”

  She looked exhausted but relieved. Triumphant, even. “A veterinarian’s office. I figured they’d have all the stuff we needed.”

  I tried to look down at myself but I was too weak to lift my head that far. “It doesn’t hurt,” I said.

  “That’s because I shot you up with enough morphine for a horse.” She held up a vet’s dosing chart. “Literally.” She reached into my chest again. “The bullet must have clipped the door frame because it shattered. Good news—that slowed it down enough that it didn’t go too far in. Bad news—it made a lot of holes, which is why you bled so much. And I have to get the bits out.” My shirt had been cut away and there was a green cloth over me with a hole through which she was working. The white coat she’d put on, the cloth and—I looked down—the floor were all stained with blood.

  “How do you know how to do this?” I grunted.

  She glanced to the side.

  For the first time, I saw her laptop, the glowing screen facing her. I swore in Russian. “Please tell me you’re not learning this from internet.”

  “I found a site for army field medics,” she said. She actually sounded excited. “It’s not all that hard. The hardest part is keeping the patient alive while you operate. Luckily for us, you’re built like a rhino.” She dropped a piece of metal into a bowl. “There. I can’t guarantee I got every little bit, but I got all the big ones.” She put down the forceps and raised a needle and thread. “I’m going to sew you and then use adhesive sutures as well, because I want it to hold together and you’re not going to be able to lie here and rest.” She looked off to the side, where there must have been a window. “The sun’ll be up soon.”

  I nodded weakly. “Good plan,” I rasped. I could feel myself getting light-headed. I didn’t know how much all the blood on the floor and my shirt and her coat added up to, but it must have been a lot. I started to doze off as she sewed me. Each time the needle entered, there was pain...but the morphine blunted it to a dull throb.

  “Gabriella?” I said as I drifted off.

  “Hmm?”

  “Well done.”

  Gabriella

  Thanks to the blood loss and the morphine, Alexei spent the next few hours in a dreamy, hazy half sleep. I managed to wake him just enough to get him off the table and back into the car, then returned for my laptop. The examination room was a wreck. There was blood on the floor and table and the vet’s coat I’d thrown on to protect my clothes was covered in it. Packaging from the drugs and syringes and bloody gauzes littered the place. Even if I cleared everything up, they were going to notice the missing drugs and the broken door lock and report it to the police. At this point, though, that was the least of our problems.

  I was in a pair of medical scrub pants and flip-flops I’d found in the vet’s office and my blouse. My jeans and sneakers were still somewhere on the dock—Alexei had dropped them when the shooting started. I was glad now that I’d brought a few pairs when I fled my apartment.

  I’d figured out driving a little more, on the mad dash to get Alexei to the vet’s. By now, though, the car was pretty much a write-off: two windows were shattered, it was full of bullet holes, and almost every surface was dented from me hitting things. We’d have to steal another one tomorrow.

  I caught myself. When did stealing cars become so normal? Bar the hacking, I’d never even broken a law until a few days ago.

  I found a cheap motel, got a room, got Alexei and our bags onto the bed and then drove the car a few streets away. I left the keys in it in the hope that someone would steal it, but it was such a wreck that it seemed unlikely.

  By now the sun was up and it had started to drizzle. I hunched up my shoulders, wrapped my arms around myself and walked back to the motel, shivering and exhausted. I realized I’d been on my feet for almost twenty-four hours. I’d been to a diner and a strip club and a steam bath and a college and a ship and done surgery and—The weight of it all hit me and I had to force my feet to go on. We had Seventeen’s real name, now. Would that be enough to track him down and figure out what was going on?

  I staggered through the door of our room and sat down heavily on the bed. God, I was sick of motels.

  Alexei stirred, roused by the moving bed. He muttered something, still halfway between sleep and waking. I put my hand on his forehead but I couldn’t decide if he was running a fever. I’d shot him up with antibiotics but I was still worried about infection.

  “Mhuhhh….Gabriella?”

  “Right here,” I told him.

  “I’m sorry for falling….” he drawled.

  “It’s okay. Fall asleep. Sleep is the best thing for you, right now.” I needed to sleep, too. I kicked off my sneakers and lay down on the bed next to him.

  “I’m sorry for falling...in love with you.”

  I sat bolt upright. “What?”

  But his breathing deepened a
nd he slipped into sleep.

  Alexei

  I woke up and it was morning. But not the morning I expected. The wound on my chest had changed from a searing pain to a throbbing ache and my muscles were stiff—far stiffer than they should have been after just a few hours. I sat up—which hurt—and frowned.

  Gabriella was sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, watching me. And she was smiling in a way I’d never seen before.

  “It’s Saturday,” she said by way of explanation. “You’ve been asleep for three days and nights. Well, mostly asleep. But you were pretty groggy even when you were awake because I was keeping you dosed with morphine. And I’ve been feeding you soup. Do you remember that?”

  I frowned. “No.” The last thing I remembered was the vet’s, and even that was hazy. There was a fresh dressing on my chest and, when I cautiously peeled it back, I seemed to be healing well. As she’d said, the wounds had been bloody but not deep.

  She shifted closer on the bed and gave me that smile again. “Hungry? There’s a diner next door and they’re still serving breakfast.”

  I frowned at her, trying to work out what was going on. She was acting weird. “Yes,” I said at last.

  She helped me get dressed. My white shirt was a ruined, blood-stained rag so I had to wear the shirt we’d bought for the university. It was blue and I stared at it in the mirror, unable to get used to it. I’d never worn anything but a white shirt with my suit.

  “It looks good on you,” she told me. And smiled.

  Walking around hurt a little, but it wasn’t too bad—the three days in bed had healed the worst of the damage. In the diner, Gabriella handed me a menu but I shook my head and tossed it down. “Oatmeal,” I said.

  “But there’s so much choice!” That smile again. Why was she so excited?

  “I always have oatmeal. You know this.”

  “Exactly. You always have oatmeal. Alexei, maybe it’s time for food to be more than fuel.”

  Someone else in the diner had ordered bacon. I could smell it as it passed by our table on a waitress’s tray. It did smell good. But taste, enjoyment, choice...those were all civilian luxuries. Things that made you lose your edge. I shook my head.

  She leaned across the table towards me. She was wearing a low-necked red sweater I hadn’t seen before and I tried not to stare at her soft, pale cleavage. “Your body needs to rebuild itself. You need protein for that. Eggs are protein.”

  There was definitely something strange going on. She was suddenly so relaxed around me. Closer, somehow. I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t help it—I found my eyes dropped to those full, mouth-watering breasts and I felt my resolve weakening. “I do need protein,” I mumbled. “Maybe some eggs.”

  “And some bacon, because it goes with eggs,” she said.

  “...and some bacon, because it goes with them,” I said, defeated.

  She sat back in her seat and grinned like a delighted child. What the hell was going on? I could still feel all the tension I had before: my lust for her, fighting against the need to keep away. But for her, it all seemed to have disappeared.

  We ordered and, when the food came, it was amazing. Soft, creamy scrambled eggs and crispy bacon that melted in my mouth. Coupled with the glorious sight of Gabriella across the table, it was the most enjoyable breakfast I’d ever eaten.

  “What’s our next move?” she asked when we’d finished.

  I thought about that for a while. Petrov had given us Seventeen’s real name but I’d been hoping to get a location as well. Tracking him down was going to be difficult. And the way that Nikolai had quietly tempted Seventeen away from his employer made me uneasy in a whole new way. I was starting to get the sense of something really bad brewing.

  “I should probably rest a few more days,” I said. The food had made me feel a lot stronger, but I knew I wasn’t up to a fight.

  She grinned as she paid the bill. “Just the two of us, in the motel room? I can live with that.”

  And she squeezed my hand. Not in a comforting way, more like—

  I looked down at our joined hands and then frowned at her. “What’s going on?”

  She looked confused. “What do you mean?” She led me outside, heading back towards the motel.

  I broke free of her grip. “All morning, you’ve been...weird.”

  She gaped at me. “Weird?”

  I cursed in Russian. “Different!”

  She frowned at me and then slid her arm around my waist. The nearness of her, the scent of her, had me instantly hard...and my heart seemed to swell in my chest—

  I broke away again. Why was she suddenly throwing herself at me, when all I’d done was push her away? “What are you doing?”

  This time, she didn’t try to approach again. She just stood there with her mouth open, as if I’d done something wrong.

  “You know it’s not like that,” I told her.

  “But...it is like that,” she said in a small voice.

  “It’s not.”

  “But...before. When you—”

  I shook my head. “In the steam bath, that was—” I hated to lie, but I couldn’t let her know how deep my feelings ran. “That was me losing control, because you’re so beautiful.” I forced myself to harden my heart. “But that’s all it was.”

  “No, I meant—when you….” Shit, she had tears in her eyes. She stared at me beseechingly.

  I became aware of something right on the fringes of my memory, a ghostly fragment that wouldn’t get any clearer no matter how hard I concentrated on it.

  I gently shook my head, not understanding.

  She turned from me and stormed down the street to our motel room, slamming the door as soon as she got inside. When I got there, I realized she had the only key. I lifted my hand to knock, then let it fall again. Better that I give her some time to cool off.

  What the hell had I done wrong? I sat down with my back against the door and reflected that I’d never, ever understand women.

  Gabriella

  lilywhite > He did WHAT?

  diamondjack > He apologized...for falling in love with me

  yolanda > OMG!

  lilywhite > *squee!*

  diamondjack > But now he’s denying everything. It’s like it didn’t happen. He’s gone back to strong and brooding.

  I’d avoided contacting the others until now. I didn’t want to draw them into it and I’d had no idea what to say. But I couldn’t keep everything bottled up any longer.

  yolanda > Where are you now?

  diamondjack > crummy motel. A *new* crummy motel. I’m so sick of crummy motels.

  lilywhite > I want to know how Nikolai knew where you lived

  I’d been wondering that myself.

  yolanda > You took all the normal precautions, right?

  diamondjack > duh.

  yolanda > Then how the hell did he find you?

  lilywhite > No clue. But diamondjack knows her stuff. Nikolai couldn’t have traced her on his own. Don’t go near his computer again until we figure it out.

  diamondjack > I won’t.

  yolanda > So what now?

  diamondjack > I searched for this “Seventeen” guy - Slava Federoff - but there’s nothing useful online.

  lilywhite > So your Russian’s going to have to beat his location out of someone?

  diamondjack > He’s not *my* Russian. At least, not as of this morning :(

  yolanda > So what now?

  She sounded so helpless. Both of them did. They were doing their best, but this whole thing was way outside any of our scope of experience. We dealt with virtual threats, names on a computer screen, not actual violence.

  diamondjack > Let him heal and then track down Seventeen and try to put this whole thing straight.

  yolanda > I meant you and him.

  I stared at the screen for a while.

  diamondjack > I have no idea. Look, I have to go. Need to think.

  lilywhite > Yell if you need us. Or if you need to get ou
t of the country. I can get you passports.

  I blinked at that. She was good with government databases but actual, physical passports? I wondered how much I didn’t know about lilywhite.

  diamondjack > OK thanks.

  I cut the connection, lay back on the bed and thought. After my breakthrough in the car, when I’d overcome the Dread for a little while and saved Alexei, I thought I’d made some sort of huge forward leap. And then, when Alexei declared his feelings for me...God, I hadn’t been ready for how much that would affect me. All of the feelings that had been building inside me had swelled up...but then I’d had to wait, because he was still in too much of a stupor.

  I’d spent three long days and nights nursing him, the anticipation growing and growing. He’d slept most of the time, waking only to drink the mugs of soup I brought him. That morning, when I’d finally stopped the morphine and he’d fully awoken, I’d imagined us talking and kissing. I’d imagined all sorts of things...except what actually happened. I’d never dreamt that he’d just deny saying he was in love with me.

  He’d been in a drug-induced haze when he said it. Maybe he remembered saying it and was regretting it, or maybe he plain didn’t remember. Either way, he clearly didn’t feel that way about me now. I’d been ecstatic all that morning, following him around in a lovesick haze...and then it had all been ripped away from me.

  I was sick of this whole thing. Sick of running, sick of dirty clothes and living in motels, sick of being afraid for my life.

  There was a knock at the door.

  I knew I couldn’t just leave him out there. We had to work together until we resolved this thing, however awkward it was. Well, at least I knew where I stood, now.