Chapter 37
ADRIANNE
The despair in Nikolai’s shout was more than enough to force my tired legs and numb feet to move. Picking up the damn skirt again, I spun on my heels and ran as fast as I could through the destruction.
Shards of glass slashed the skin under my feet, the pain making tears free-fall down my face. Terror had a part in it, too. But I kept going.
Hot blood melted the ice where I stepped, leaving a trail of red behind me. Ominous. Like the ellipsis that came before my real fate.
I was going to die today, and the sun wasn’t even up yet.
A shot rang behind me, my head snapping back while my legs kept on running as fast as they could.
Panic tore through my chest at the sound, not knowing who’d been on the receiving end of that shot. Another one echoed out as I reached the tree line, and I fought against the urge to turn around instead of keeping on running like a damn coward.
I ducked, avoiding the branches and pushing past the trees that shadowed the morning light like a shadow of darkness looming over my head. Because, in reality, there was one, and I wasn’t sure I could ever escape it.
The ground was rocky, my toes hitting branches and scraping on sharp edges that made me stumble. Each breath pained, like I was inhaling needles that stabbed their way down my throat, only to settle in my burning lungs.
I can’t go on. I’m so tired.
Right before I gave up, the trees were at my back, opening up a blanket of white before the glassy surface of the lake just ahead.
Another shot rang in my ears, only this time, it was much closer. Right behind me, in fact. I ducked on instinct, spinning my head back to see Vladimir coming for me.
“It’s time, you little Italian suka.” bitch.
Without breath, I sprinted forward, trying to escape a fate that seemed inevitable. Vladimir was going to kill me. I found myself hoping he’d do it fast, because I was too tired to endure torture.
I looked back and saw him emerge from the trees, gun raised, his face twisted with rage and satisfaction.
Further behind, Nikolai was running, but he was too far. Stumbling as he made his way towards us. He was hurt.
Reaching the edge of the lake, I didn’t hesitate. There was nowhere else to go, anyway. I’d walked on it before, and it held my weight. It would hold again. I stepped onto the ice, my bare feet slipping a little before I found my footing and kept walking straight ahead.
Vladimir reached the edge of the frozen water and paused, looking down at the ice and hesitating.
“Clever girl,” Vladimir called out, his voice carrying across the distance. “But not clever enough. You just made this so much more poetic than I’d thought it could become after spoiling my little party inside. This is perfect.”
He looked back to where Nikolai was tumbling out of the trees and onto the white landscape before the lake. I could see the red on his shirt, the slump of his shoulders as he powered through his own pain, one hand perched on his chest as he ran towards us.
Vladimir looked back at me, a sly grin on his face that dripped with menace and satisfaction. How could another human being be so cruel and sick?
We stood there for a moment, twenty feet apart, but he never stepped onto the ice. Then, that grin turned into something even more sinister. A full smile, his eyes glinting in the faint sunlight.
“When in Russia…” He started, rolling the cylinder of his gun, “Be a Russian.”
I took another step back as he aimed at me. The ice creaked beneath me, but didn’t break. He looked back again, taking in Nikolai’s approaching figure, Matt and Max breaking the tree line a few feet back, too.
“Close enough,” he murmured before lowering the gun and shooting at the ice beneath me.
“NO!” I yelled.
He fired, the sound echoing in the open space like thunder. In my chest, like the end.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The ice spiderwebbed beneath me too fast to track. Cracks spreading out like lightning, dark lines racing across white. Then, it gave way, and I fell, the sharp, ragged edges tearing a gap open on the side of my thigh.
The water hit me like a thousand knives, driving the air into my lungs in one violent gasp. Cold. So damn cold it felt like fire, like my skin was being flayed from my bones.
I tried to scream, but water rushed into my mouth instead.
Down.
I was sinking.
The dress, so damn heavy, became an anchor now that it was wet. It wrapped around my legs, pulling me deeper into darkness.
I kicked. Clawed at the water, wasting the last ounce of strength I still had in me.
Above me, I could see the hole in the ice. Light filtering through. So far away already, while my lungs screamed for air that never came.
This was it.
This was how I died.
Drowning in a frozen lake while Nikolai watched. Just like his sister. History repeating itself one last time.
My vision started to go dark at the edges. My body convulsed, trying to expel water, but there was only more of it coming in. More cold. More darkness reaching up to claim me with claws too sharp to escape.
My eyes closed as I gave up, trying to find solace in the darkness as I sank in slow motion.
But then, his lips settled on mine, breathing life into me as he filled my lungs with air. I opened my eyes again, being met with pale eyes that, under water, seemed to be completely white.
Nikolai’s arm wrapped around my waist, kicking his feet as fast as he could, trying to pull me to the surface.
The light above us got brighter. Closer. I kicked my feet as hard as I could, helping him in his struggle to take me out of this frozen nightmare.
We broke through, and I was being lifted, shoved upwards with desperate strength. Hands grabbed me from above, pulling me onto solid ground.
I choked and sputtered as water poured from my lungs. Someone’s mouth was on mine, breathing air into me. One breath. Two. Forcing oxygen past my frozen lips.
I gasped, coughing violently, water spilling from my mouth. My body convulsed with cold and shock, curling in on itself.
“Nikolai!” I tried to say his name, but it came out as a choked gasp.
I turned back toward the hole in the ice, expecting to see him pulling himself out behind me.
But he wasn’t there. I looked at all the faces surrounding me, but none of them were his.
“NIKOLAI!” The scream tore from my frozen lungs, ragged and hoarse.
I tried to crawl toward the hole, but my brothers grabbed me, holding me back.
“He’s not coming up!” I fought against the arms restraining me, my frozen fingers clawing at the ice. “He’s still down there! He saved me, but he’s… NIKOLAI!”
He couldn’t die like this. He couldn’t die to save me.
“NO!” The scream ripped from somewhere deep inside me. “No, no, no! Someone help him! PLEASE!” My voice cracked, broke. I couldn’t form words anymore. Could only scream, raw and agonized.
Adrik appeared in my blurring vision, running onto the ice and plunging in without hesitation.
I stopped screaming. Stopped breathing. Just watched that hole, praying to any god that would listen.
Seconds ticked by.
Five.
Ten.
Beside me, Sasha was counting under her breath, her hands pressed to her mouth.
Fifteen seconds.
Too long. They’d both been under too long.
“Come on,” Matt muttered, crouched at the edge of the hole. “Come on, Adrik. Come on.”
Twenty seconds.
The hole was still. Dark. Empty.
“No,” I whispered through numb lips. “Please, no. Please.”
Twenty-five seconds.
The water remained still and peaceful. Like glass. Like it had swallowed them both whole and wasn’t giving them back.
Thirty seconds.
Then, the water exploded.
Adrik surged up, gasping, his face a mask of pain and desperation.
But his arms were empty.
“I can’t…” he choked out, “he’s too deep.”
“No!” The word was a sob, falling from my lips.
Adrik sucked in a massive breath and dove back under.
We all watched. Waiting. Hoping. Dying inside with every second that passed.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Fifteen.
My vision was tunneling. The cold, the shock, the terror, it was all too much, catching up now.
Twenty seconds.
Sasha was crying, her hand gripping mine so tight it should have hurt, but I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
Thirty seconds.
Thirty-five.
Forty.
Nothing. I watched the damn water and cried, helplessly feeling like I’d be better off dying myself.