Chapter 28 Holly
HOLLY
The floor beneath me is cold.
It’s numbing my skin, but I don't dare move. Don't dare breathe. I lie on my stomach with Nikolai's gun clutched in both hands, my elbows pressed into the carpet, my eyes fixed on the sliver of moonlit room I can see beyond the edge of the bed.
Two gunshots cracked through the silence a few minutes ago.
Then another a short moment later.
Then nothing.
The silence is somehow worse than the gunfire. At least when the shots rang out, I knew Nikolai was fighting. Now I don't know anything. I don't know if he's alive. I don't know if he's hurt. I don't know if the men who came for us are dead, or if they're on their way up the stairs right now.
I don't know if I'm about to die.
My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat. In my temples. Behind my eyes.
Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay.
I think of my parents.
The memory comes rushing forth, sharp and clear despite the terror clouding my mind. I'm ten years old, standing at a shooting range in Connecticut, my father's hands adjusting my grip on a handgun.
"Again," he said. "Until it feels like an extension of your arm."
I hated it. Hated the noise and the recoil and the way my ears rang even with the protective gear. I couldn't understand why my quiet, art-loving parents insisted I learn to shoot. Why they made me take self-defense classes every Saturday morning when I wanted to be with my friends.
"You're being ridiculous," I told them once. "I'm not going to be a spy. I'm going to work in an art gallery."
My mother just smiled. That sad, knowing smile that I never understood.
"Humor us," she said. "Please, sweetheart. Just humor us."
I hear a noise somewhere in the hallway, and every muscle in my body goes rigid.
They’re not Nikolai's footsteps.
I know this instinctively, the way you know when a stranger is watching you across a crowded room.
The bedroom door opens wider.
I stop breathing.
Through the gap between the floor and the bed skirt, I watch a pair of black boots enter the room. They pause just inside the doorway, and I can picture the intruder scanning the space, taking in the empty bed, the rumpled sheets, the open bathroom door.
Looking for me.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are."
The voice is male. Low and cruel. Amused. The kind of voice that's used to inspiring fear and enjoys it.
My finger finds the trigger.
"I'm going to find you anyway." The boots take another step. Then another. "It's only a matter of time."
He's circling the room. Moving slowly. Hunting me.
"Holly."
My name in his mouth is like ice water in my veins.
He knows who I am.
How?
"Your boyfriend put up quite a fight." The boots stop beside the dresser. I hear a drawer open, then close. "But I'm afraid he wasn't quite good enough."
No.
He’s lying.
"Nikolai is dead, Holly. I did it myself. A bullet between the eyes."
His words hit me like a physical blow. My vision blurs with sudden tears, and I have to bite down on my lip to keep from making a sound.
He's lying. He has to be lying.
"No one's coming to save you now." The boots start moving again, closer to the bed. Closer to me. "It's just you and me."
I can see his legs now, black tactical pants tucked into those black boots. He's standing at the foot of the bed, probably looking down at the space where Nikolai and I made love just hours ago.
"I'm going to find you," he says, and there's a smile in his voice. A terrible, hungry smile. "And when I do, I'm going to enjoy what Nikolai enjoyed."
Bile rises in my throat.
"Except you won't like the way I take my pleasure." He moves around the side of the bed. "I like the pain. I like the screaming."
I can barely breathe. Tears roll down my cheeks, and I have to use every ounce of willpower not to let out a sob.
"And I promise you..." He stops. His boots are right there, inches from my face. If he bends down, he'll see me. If he lifts the bed skirt, it's over. "You're going to feel pain when I'm inside you."
He laughs.
And it's the most evil sound I've ever heard. Cold and delighted and utterly devoid of humanity.
I grip the gun tighter, ready to fight.
Because if this is it, I’m not going to die without putting a bullet in him first.
He knows where I am. He’s just toying with me.
When he looks under the bed I will shoot him in the face.
I hold my breath.
Then I hear a shot.
I brace for the pain. For the bullet to tear through the mattress above me and into my body.
But the pain doesn't come.
Instead, there's a heavy thud.
And then the intruder falls.
He lands face-first on the floor, his head turned toward me, his dead eyes staring directly into mine. There's a neat hole between his eyes, and blood begins to pool beneath his face, dark and spreading.
A scream tears from my throat.
I can't stop it. Can't control it. All the terror I've been holding back comes flooding out in one long, ragged wail that scrapes my throat raw.
"Holly. Holly, it's me."
Nikolai's voice cuts through the panic.
Alive. He's alive.
Strong hands reach under the bed and grab my arms, pulling me out. I scramble on all fours, dropping the gun, desperate to get away from those dead, staring eyes. Nikolai wraps his arms around me and holds me against his chest.
"You're safe now," he says against my hair. "You're safe. It's over."
I can't stop shaking. Can't stop crying. My hands find his face, his shoulders, his chest, checking for wounds, for blood, for any sign that he might be injured.
But he's solid and warm and very much alive.
"I thought you were dead." The words come out broken, barely intelligible through my sobs. "He said… he said you were dead."
"He lied." Nikolai cups my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. Those piercing eyes bore into mine, fierce and full of something that looks like desperation. "He lied, solnyshko. You can't get rid of me that easily."
I kiss him. It's not graceful or sweet. It's messy and desperate and tastes like salt from my tears.
He kisses me back just as desperately, his hands tangling in my hair, his body pressing against mine like he's trying to absorb me into himself. Like he was just as afraid of losing me as I was of losing him.
When we finally break apart, I'm still trembling. Still crying. But the worst of the terror is starting to fade, replaced by something else.
Questions.
So many questions.
"Who were they?" I ask, my voice hoarse. "What did they want?"
Nikolai goes very still.
I pull back enough to see his face, and what I find there makes my stomach drop. There's guilt in his expression. And dread. And something that looks almost like grief.
"Nikolai?"
He doesn't answer.
"Please." I take his face in my hands and force him to look at me. "Please tell me what's going on."
"There are things I should have told you before now,” he says quietly. “Things about who I am. And things about who you are."
"What do you mean, who I am? I know who I am."
But even as I say it, a cold tendril of doubt curls through my chest. I think of my parents and their insistence on self-defense training. Their sad, knowing smiles. The way they always seemed to be preparing me for something they refused to explain.
How my mom never spoke of her past.
"Holly." Nikolai takes my hands in his. His grip is gentle but unbreakable. "Your parents... there are things they never told you. Things about your family. Your real family."
I stare at him.
The room feels like it's spinning.
"What are you talking about?"
He hesitates. And in that hesitation, I feel everything shift.
And I know the dreamy bubble we've been living in is about to pop and shatter into a million pieces.
"What are you talking about?" I ask again, and this time my voice is sharper.
Because I'm starting to understand that whatever comes next is going to change everything.