by Lea Griffith
“It is time to run, Asinimov. I would not have another on my conscience.” Her tone was harsh above the sound of the men outside the door reloading.
“Fuck your conscience, ubiytsa. Stand and fight with me. If Joseph is on the other side, we can take him together,” Dmitry shouted above the renewed gunfire.
She shook her head. “It is not time. The empire he’s built is shaky, but it is not quite ready to tumble. There is more work to be done. Now let’s be gone from this place. You are injured and I’m tired of arguing with you.”
First Team was playing with Joseph. It was more than dismantling The Collective, it was about destroying their creator. He didn’t agree with it, almost opened his mouth to berate her, but gunfire littered the room, the furniture, and the walls, and finally the doors fell. He took off, and then they were through the window and headed toward the woods. She disappeared in the darkness, blending in seamlessly with the night and he thought that as it should be.
He was winded and his left arm was numb but still he ran. He hadn’t endured years of training to die so easily.
“You need to move, Asinimov. They are hunting with Vadim’s hounds,” Bone said from the shadows. “Follow me,” she urged.
Dmitry knew the land well, scouted it each time he’d visited Vadim, plotting the many ways he would take the man who sold innocents to Joseph Bombardier. Vadim’s property bordered the eastern edge of the Neva River and that was the direction she was headed.
“I don’t swim,” he murmured.
She stopped. “What the hell do you mean, you don’t swim?”
Anger burned through him, replacing the pain. “I fucking mean I don’t swim.”
He would have laughed at the expression on her face but it wasn’t funny. The baying of Vadim’s dogs in the distance lent credibility to her assertion they, whoever the hell “they” were, were hunting them.
He huffed. “I’m from the Ural Mountains, Bone. We do not fucking swim in the Ural Mountains.”
“Then I will pull you. Can you at least float?” she asked, impatience in her tone.
He didn’t answer and the sound of pursuit prodded him to move again. He passed her and took off running, calling on his reserves and hoping against hope he did not have to go in the cold-as-hell Neva River.
“I will divert them,” she said, not sounding winded at all.
“No! You will come with me,” he ordered.
“There is no time for this petty squabbling. They will find you and Joseph will kill you to spite me. Do not be another tool he uses to hurt me,” she pleaded.
Her words stopped him for a moment. “I’m not so easy to kill and I don’t know why you would care about my end either way.” He glanced at her, noticed her blank face and bright eyes and then he nodded.
He understood he would get no reaction from her, though some nameless emotion twisted her lips as if she was acknowledging he mattered but did not like it one damn bit. It would be the same for him if she were taken. He didn’t like being tied to her with these invisible strings of emotion but they were there, something he could not avoid. There was some satisfaction that she was in the same boat.
“Take the river, stick to the bank. I will find you.” She paused, and the growling of dogs rent the air. “Run.”
He would slow her down, possibly lead them straight to her. It went against everything he was but he ran, knowing Joseph wouldn’t eliminate one of his prize killers. At least he hoped not.
With the sound of hounds crying in the night, blood dripping down his arm, and fear for her life in his heart, Dmitry ran and fell into the loving embrace of the Neva.
Chapter Four
Bone climbed the pine with ease, using her legs to hold herself aloft, as the branches were too high to be of any help. The bark scraped her palms and the cold teased her face. The dogs had passed one minute ago, their handlers unable to keep up.
But soon they’d be beneath her and she would dance with death again. It was inevitable. She rested her forehead against the tree trunk and mused that perhaps she was weary of killing. The need to distribute endings no longer brought the glorious, painful rush of completion it once had. Now it was simply a necessary evil.
She wondered, not for the first time, if that was how she managed to catch Abela Badr. Had he too grown tired of the game of life? Maybe he’d allowed her to take him?
She shook her head, denying it. No, she’d caught Master unprepared. The student had become the teacher. The look of surprise on his face still haunted her dreams. She usually woke satisfied from those dreams. Lately, she was nothing more than drained.
The first man burst into the small clearing before her and turned in a circle. His flashlight tracked the shadows. Then another man and another made an appearance until the clearing held at least ten men. She would get her fight it seemed.
If only Joseph had come. But she didn’t smell him in the air, didn’t feel the horror of his presence flaying the skin from her bones. He’d stayed at the house, possibly understanding that if she met him tonight, she would kill him.
She’d take his head—deny her sisters their piece of him. She would have no choice because the demon inside her was becoming a demanding bastard. It only silenced when Dmitry was close and while entirely unacceptable it was her truth now.
She’d allowed the big Russian inside and he’d commandeered a part of her she’d not realized was there.
Bone dropped without a sound to the ground, shaking off the effects of Dmitry Asinimov. She had to focus so she pulled herself inward and concentrated on the hate. It was a silken shroud on her mind and a battering ram against her heart.
Kill, kill, kill, it taunted.
So she obeyed.
She took the first man in silence, using his inattention to step behind him and pinch his carotid, incapacitating him. She took the knife in his side scabbard and stroked it over his neck before she turned and began the hunt.
She kept to the periphery of the forest clearing and took two more men before their presence was missed. When the hue and cry was raised, she stepped into the meager moonlight and waited.
They approached, not as unified front, but one by one. None of these then were Joseph’s men. More than likely they were Vadim’s, untrained and simply muscle for hire. She took them as they came at her, eliminating them with an ease that did nothing to silence her demon. She killed the second to last man with a slice over his abdomen, leaving his guts spilling from his body.
The final man stepped forward, thought better of it and then turned and ran from the clearing.
Her senses flared out. A twig snapped behind her and Bone turned, meeting the rush of a fist and ducking to avoid a solid blow. Now here were Joseph’s killers. His Sicariorum. The man’s silence was all she needed to realize these were First Team’s male counterparts. Their presence spoke volumes about Joseph’s desperation.
She took a fist to the cheek and twisted to miss the follow up. Blood welled, the copper scent of it a blessing in the crisp air. This was what she knew…this was where she found herself.
He was large man, compact but at least twice her size and so quiet she wanted to commend him. He too had been conditioned in the fires of Hell though she was sure hers had been hotter. Bone’s gaze narrowed as she picked him out of the darkness. She watched his motions, judging his timing. Then she waited.
He stilled and it seemed neither would move but then a second man rushed into the clearing. Joseph sought to end the game. He’d sent them to kill her this time.
“You cannot kill what you cannot see,” she whispered. She took a single step into the man and punched once, leveling him with a single blow to his side.
The thudding crunch of his ribs sounded loud as he fell to his knees, gasping for breath. She turned to meet the second assassin. He struck her in the leg and she was grateful for her training. Had she not learned to absorb these types of blows he would have snapped her thigh.
That was how hard he’d kicked her.
“Do not make me kill you, sister,” the man urged in a low voice. “Go with us in peace.”
“There is no peace with The Collective, brother,” she spat.
She side-stepped, kicked, and met his advance with a foot to the head. He staggered but didn’t go down. The first man stood then and they were in a circle of sorts. A ring of killers.
Bone laughed, her thoughts fanciful as she caught them looking at each other.
“Ring around the rosie,” she sang to the sky.
She attacked then, moving between them like water, a foot to a knee, a punch to a shoulder. A finger to an eye, an elbow to the head, and the dance became vicious. Bone became again what Master had taught her. She became death, let it flow through her body and out of her fists. It was systematic, her retreats and advances, a coordinated play that resulted in one man on his back, gasping for air and the other on his knees, waiting for the end she would give him.
They were worthy opponents but they weren’t her. She’d dealt with the first man at a distance in Moscow, just days ago. He could be their team’s sniper but he wasn’t Bullet. His movements had been easy to track, the light bouncing off his scope a clear indication he was nowhere near the killer Bullet was. When you trained with the best and encountered less than that, it was easy to evade the death they sought to bestow upon you.
The second man, though she had never seen his face before, was bigger than the first. His voice was distant as if the humanity had been carved from his chest bit by bit. Rough and bitter, he reminded Bone of herself but again, not as good.
“Tell me, who trained you?” she asked the man on his knees.
She didn’t venture close because while they might not be First Team, they were some of the best she’d come across in her lifetime. Joseph tried so hard to mimic the success he’d had with she and her sisters. The difference was the Sicariorum didn’t have a purpose. They didn’t have Ninka. They didn’t have a young boy who’d been born in the dark of night, fragile and innocent and theirs.
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I am no one,” the man said.
The words she’d been conditioned to speak from the moment Joseph Bombardier took her all those years ago brought wrath that grabbed at her heart and shook until she thought she would expand and explode. It gnawed at her stomach, biting and rabid. She couldn’t ignore the need so she opened her mind and accepted it. She wrapped her hand around his throat and squeezed. He did not fight her.
“Do not do this, kostolomochka,” Dmitry said at her side.
She turned her head, sure she’d imagined his deep, soothing voice. But no, there he was, dripping wet, steam rising from his head, his face hard, his words even harder.
“Poshel ti na huj,” she spat at him.
His face hardened and his eyes, those alluring blue, blue eyes that reminded her of Arequipa and Ninka, burned.
“Perhaps,” he murmured. “But not here and not now. Let him go. He is at Joseph’s mercy. Let the monster have his creation.”
She almost broke at his words—almost splintered apart. Would he do that to her if it came down it? Just let Joseph have her so she would be no more?
She didn’t release the assassin in her grip and his breathing slowed, wheezing in and out of his mouth in a death rattle. She raised her face to the star-shrouded sky and yelled, “I will not break!”
Dmitry grabbed her hand, a foolhardy move if she’d ever known one. One by one he released her fingers from the man’s throat and she allowed it.
She fucking allowed it. What was he doing to her?
“I will not break,” she vowed again, this time in a brittle whisper that scraped against her vocal cords.
He nodded as the man fell to the ground gasping. Then he looked at her, on his face a promise given life by his words. “I will not let you.”
The dogs had returned, their incessant barks and howls growing closer. Dmitry took her hand, the same one she’d been about to kill with and lifted it to his face pressing it against his cheek.
“Feel me,” he urged.
She cupped his face in her hand, the beginnings of his beard soft against her palm. Bone knew then what it was to want. The fight left her. As quickly as it had come upon her, the need to kill dissipated.
She swallowed hard. “I can’t.”
“You will,” he said and it was a promise.
The dogs entered the clearing and the man at her feet, gasped, “Leave, sister.”
She gazed at the man she’d almost killed. A man much like her. “Was Azrael yours?”
“He was and he was not,” the man responded.
He even spoke like she and her sisters…always it was riddles. They’d learned early to wrap their meaning in words that delivered everything but nothing.
“Joseph will punish you,” she told him. Had he been one of Azrael’s team she would have killed him. She made a promise to the other assassin before she took him and she would keep her word above all things.
He nodded slowly. “He will try. But you can’t kill what you can’t see.” His lips curved as he gave her words back to her. “Next we meet, I will not hold back. Death stalks us all and for First Team it is closer than it has ever been. Run, sister, while you can. The devil is not far behind.”
His threat did not move her. He’d done nothing more than speak the truth. “We will kill him first and free you all. Stay alive until then, brother, and know we are all killers at heart.”
Dmitry did not speak, just took her hand in his and started to run. She released his hand as soon as he grabbed it and followed him. Fatigue pulled at her but she was in much better shape than he.
When they made it to the banks of the river, he sighed. “I really fucking hate water.”
“So does Bullet,” she mused.
He laughed, the sound rusty but rising above the trees. The dogs began to bark again.
“We must swim, Asinimov. Can you do it?”
“I said I didn’t swim, not that I couldn’t.”
“Ah, doublespeak. Perhaps if I stick around you long enough I can learn this art form you excel at?”
He grinned and for some reason her heart unclenched in her chest. She carried the weight of the deaths she was responsible for this night and yet a simple smile from the big man made her burden…lighter.
“Perhaps,” he answered. “Though I think you’re already a master at it.”
He dove into the river and she followed, stroking hard for the middle currents before she rose and searched for him. He was there then, at her side.
His face in the moonlight was wan, pale. He was fading. She grabbed him under the armpits and rolled to her back, pulling him on top of her as she floated, riding the current. Hypothermia would set in shortly. They wouldn’t be able to go far but any distance from Joseph had to be enough.
“Stay with me. If you die, my sisters will kill me,” she said in his ear.
“So I’m your responsibility?” he asked with a smile in his voice.
Oh, the man was stronger than he let on. She released him and he laughed again before he grabbed her hand and pulled closer to her. “It is much warmer on top of you.”
She would never admit it but his words stoked the fire inside her. Lust of a different kind rippled through her from head to toe. These were teasing, playful, flirting words and she had no experience with them.
“Nothing to say, Etzem?” he taunted.
“I should have let Azrael kill you,” she murmured, though a smile creased her face. Always this man found a way around her.
She had asked Bullet what love felt like. Bullet responded that it was the worst pain, a burning and tearing in your chest and a pick axe in your mind. Bone had determined never to feel it. Love was a weakness and her sisters needed her to be strong. Bullet had broken. Arrow had softened. They remained killers but someone else resided in their hearts now. Not broken but divided and they always would be.
Bone had watched Arrow’s face that morning as Bone stood behind Minton. Arrow had given a piece of herself to the one called Adam Collins. She’d watched Bullet the night they’d sent Damon to the afterlife, the wonder and relief that masked her face when she saw Rand Beckett knew no bounds. She did not doubt either sister’s dedication to their ultimate goal but the path would be much rockier because the weight of their burden was heavier.
It was best Bone shied away from the threat of softer emotions. She’d never known them and now wasn’t the time to learn. Now was the time to kill. Revenge demanded reckoning and Joseph’s was close.
“Who holds your mind?” he asked, his words slurring dangerously.
“I do,” she returned and tugged on his arm, pulling him out of the current and to the opposite bank.
The Neva River was wide in certain places and the current was strong. She’d lucked into a place that was a good distance from the other side of the river. Once they were on the bank, she pulled herself out of the water and helped him stand.
His weight was such that had she not prepared he would have taken her to a knee. As it was she struggled to help him into the woods.
“I must go back,” she told him once he settled.
“What? No!”
“Yes, I need my bag. Can you stay alive long enough for me to do this?” she questioned.
His brows lowered and his mouth flattened into a straight line. It was sad, that line. His full lips should never be compressed that way. “I’ve managed to live thirty-two years without your help, woman.”
She nodded. “Good. Then this should be easy.”
Bone took off before he could voice any opinion. Her bag was too important to leave behind. She was bereft without it.
It took her an hour to make the round trip.
“Well, well, well, glad you could join us,” a husky male voice said in the darkness.
She sighed. Loudly. “Lucky me.”
“Damn straight,” Grant said as he stepped from the tree line. “Your boyfriend would be dead of hypothermia had I not managed to stick around and find your asses.”