Chapter 20 #2
The SUV stops fifty meters away. Doors open. Two figures emerge, dressed in the same black tactical gear I wore for thirteen years. They take cover behind their open doors. Sidearms drawn. Stable stances. Professional.
A third vehicle is approaching; I can hear the roar of the engine from the east. Thirty seconds until the engagement zone is saturated.
Two targets now. Minimum two more incoming. Twelve rounds.
"Alexei Morozov." A voice comes from the SUV, amplified by a speaker. "Ivan wants you breathing. A live asset can be reconditioned. Surrender the Petrenko and submit to extraction. Non-compliance will result in terminal sanction."
Terminal sanction. Execution. The order is absolute.
I don’t respond. I am counting. I am calculating the trajectory of the wind and the angle of the light. The speaker is on the left. The second operative is on the right. They are overconfident. They assume a sleep-deprived defector with a wounded captive is a low-threat target.
I will use that assumption to bury them.
"Final warning. Surrender the asset."
I fire.
The first round takes the speaker in the shoulder.
Center mass was the goal, but the angle of the SUV door limited the target area.
He spins, his weapon clattering to the gravel as he drops.
The second operative returns fire immediately—two shots that punch through my windshield, the glass shattering into a thousand diamonds that rain down onto the seats.
I’ve already moved. I roll around the rear of the sedan, finding a new line of sight. The operative is still tracking my previous position. He realizes his error a fraction of a second too late.
Third round. Center mass. He staggers.
Fourth round. Head. His skull snaps back, and he collapses into the dirt.
One neutralized. One incapacitated.
But the noise comes from behind me. A roar of an engine. Vehicle Three—the interceptor—has bypassed the road and flanked us through the farmhouse ruins. They were faster than the manual predicted.
Tactical error. My perception is degraded. I should have anticipated the flank.
I pivot. The vehicle is thirty meters away, bouncing over the ruts. A passenger is hanging out the window, a submachine gun in his hands.
My sight alignment lags. I fire anyway.
Five. Six. Seven.
The SUV’s windshield spiderwebs. The driver swerves, but momentum is a relentless force. Twenty meters. Fifteen.
The passenger fires a burst. The world goes white.
The impact hits my left side like a sledgehammer swung with full force. It is a hot, spreading sensation that numbs my arm instantly. I can’t feel my fingers. The pain exists, but it is queued for later; my brain cannot process it yet.
But I am still standing. The Kennel does not allow for falling.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
The driver of the second SUV slumps over the wheel. The vehicle veers hard, missing our sedan by inches to crash into the collapsed barn with a shriek of twisting metal and the groan of falling timber. The passenger is thrown through the glass. He doesn't get up.
Three down. One wounded.
I turn back toward the first SUV. My left side is heavy, wet. My vision is narrowing, the edges turning into a dark, pulsing vignette.
Behind me, the wounded operative has recovered. He is on one knee, his left arm hanging useless, but his right hand is steady. He is aiming at my chest.
Nikolai screams. A warning. My name.
I try to turn my weapon. I am too slow. The machine is running on empty. The gears have finally seized.
Eleven. Twelve.
The slide of my Glock locks back. Empty.
The operative’s finger is tightening on the trigger.
Something whistles through the air. A flash of rusted metal in the morning light.
It doesn’t need strength. It needs the timing Nikolai learned on the tennis courts of the Petrenko estates—the snap of the wrist, the perfect release. A heavy, jagged chunk of an old plow blade arcs through the space.
The operative jerks. The metal is buried in his throat. He looks down at it, his eyes wide with a profound, final confusion, before his knees hit the gravel.
I turn, my legs feeling like they are made of water.
Nikolai is standing by the passenger door, his arm still extended. His face is the color of bone. He is trembling so hard I can hear his teeth. But his eyes are locked on the dead man.
He killed someone. The man I unmade just saved my life with a piece of junk.
"Are there more?" His voice is a thin, high-pitched thread.
I try to answer. The words don't come. The gray sky is beginning to rotate, the horizon tilting at an impossible angle.
Assess. I need to assess.
Threats: Neutralized.
Status: Compromised.
Injury: Left lateral torso. Significant hemorrhage.
The ground is approaching. I don't remember the act of falling, but the frozen dirt is suddenly against my cheek. It is cold. Hard. Oddly comforting.
"Alexei!"
He is moving toward me. I hear the shuffle of his feet, the gasp of his breath. He falls to his knees beside me, his hands fumbling at my side.
"Alexei, you're bleeding. God, you're bleeding so much."
I look down. My black sweater is soaked. It clings to my skin, heavy and hot. The blood is spreading across the dirt, a dark, expanding shadow that marks the end of the mission.
This is problematic. The clinical assessment remains, detached from the man dying on the ground. Blood loss of this volume will lead to hypovolemic shock in approximately twelve minutes. Heart rate will spike, then fail.
"No." Nikolai’s hands are on my face. His palms are warm, the only heat left in the world. "No, no, no. You don't get to die. You don't get to leave me here after everything."
His voice is fading. Or I am. The borders of my consciousness are dissolving.
"Alexei. Stay with me. Tell me what to do. Interrogator! Give me a command!"
A command. Yes. I can do that. I am a process.
"Pressure," I slur. The word feels like it's full of lead. "Apply... direct pressure. Stop the flow."
His hands move. He tears at my sweater, the wool ripping with a sound that seems far away. He presses down on the wound.
The pain is a distant signal, a flickering light at the end of a long tunnel. He’s pressing hard. I can feel the weight of his body leaning into the injury. My nervous system is shutting down non-essential sectors, pulling the power back to the core.
"What else? Alexei, talk to me!"
"Stay... awake..." I try to say it. The letters are falling out of order. "Must... stay..."
"I'm staying! I'm right here!" His face is a blur above mine. Gray eyes. Wet. Tears are tracking through the dust on his cheeks. "Please. Don't leave me in the dark."
The irony is a faint spark in my mind. In the Tower, he begged me not to leave him. Now, the wheel has turned. The Monster is the one in the dark.
"Phone," I manage. The word is a struggle, a final exertion of the will. "Duffel... back seat. Emergency contact."
"I'll get it! Just stay with me!"
"One number," I whisper. "If she... answers... say 'K-7.' Only... 'K-7.'"
"Who is she? Alexei?"
I can't answer. The darkness is a physical weight now, pressing down on my eyelids, filling my throat with the taste of copper. The name is there, buried under seventeen years of silence, but the pathway to speak it has been severed.
The last thing I hear is his voice—frantic, desperate, and yet holding a core of iron I didn't know I'd left him: "I've got you. I'm not letting go. Do you hear me? You're mine now. I'm not letting go."
The machine shuts down.
But somewhere, in the deepening quiet, I know he is still there. Still pressing. Still fighting. The asset has become the operative. The broken thing I made is the only thing keeping the world from going black.
Perhaps this is what I was making him for all along.
To be the one who doesn't follow the manual.
To be the one who stays.