Chapter 29
twenty-nine
I come back ugly.
Then the pain hits. Every sinew is on fire. My eyes drag open. Rope burns my wrists until I realize there’s no rope and Dmitry’s palm is pushing a field dressing onto my chest, all his weight holding it down. Doors slam.
“Derzhis’, bratan,” he grinds out. “Ne otklyuchaysya.” *
“I won’t,” I manage.
Nikola has me under the arms. Marco’s holding my legs. They lift and my ribs scream. I hate this. Being carried. Being useless.
Vanilla hits my nose. Coffee. Strawberry shampoo that shouldn’t make sense in a place like this. It stakes me to the leather seat.
“Lindy,” I rasp.
My vision punches in and out. For a second I see her. Sava braced over Lindy, hand packing gauze, applying pressure. It’s so vivid I lunge to get to her.
“Careful,” Dmitry warns, pushing harder into my chest. “You tear that seal, you drown in your own blood.” The entry’s low left. If the seal slips, I’ve got ten breaths max before the wet gurgle starts.
I’m shut inside this fucking car, and still in my head, Lindy chokes when the gauze goes in and I buck again.
I taught Sava to pack a wound the same way Leven taught me: fast, brutal, tight.
I never taught Lindy to choose herself. Never thought I’d need to.
She stayed in my lap and chose me. Bled for it. Saved me.
Nikola’s grip turns iron. “Стой*,” he bites out. “She’s with Sava.”
“She’s with me,” I growl. She’s been with me since she stood under that streetlight, her face hidden in the glow, and I forgot how to be anything but hers.
Dmitry leans more weight into me, pinning my shoulder with his forearm, never easing the pressure on my chest. “And you’re with me, Machine. She shot you in the fucking chest. I don’t know how you’re talking. So stubborn even the Devil won’t take you.”
Nikola lifts a phone to his ear. “Status? The status is a hole in his chest. Jesus, Adrian.”
Dmitry grabs the phone and hits the speaker. “LVPD is less than two minutes out,” Adrian says. “Detective Blake included. Get out of there.”
“Hole in chest,” Nikola repeats.
“Hurry the fuck up,” Caleb’s voice. “Elsie’s scrubbed in and waiting in the OR.”
“Did you get her?” Adrian asks.
“No,” Marco says. “La Viuda is in the wind, but we have her face now.”
“La Viuda,” Dmitry echoes and slaps fresh gauze against my thigh. “You’re going to hate this,” he says, and yanks tape tight.
We have her face, but she’s got ours too. And by morning, the whole fucking web will have them.
“More pressure,” Nikola tells Dmitry. “Don’t let him talk you out of it.”
“I’m right here,” I mutter. My voice sounds far away.
Dmitry presses harder. “Shut up.”
“Adrian,” I say. Dmitry holds the phone closer to my mouth. “Make sure Blake can’t get to us at the hospital, bury our identities so deep she’ll think we’re recovering in Russia.”
“On it,” Adrian says before the call goes dead.
Lindy’s face is white around the mouth in my mind. Her eyes are open. She’s counting in odds.
“Cassius,” Nikola says, low enough only I can hear. “Don’t fight sleep anymore. We have you. She has Sava.”
“I can’t—” trust sleep. I swallow iron. “Keep her safe, alive.”
Darkness pulls at the corners, a silhouette in a Bolo-Hat rides the glass. I pin my eyes to the slice of night in the back window until it’s gone. If this is the wave that takes me under, I go with one thought branded into bone: She’s breathing. And I’m not done killing for those breaths.
* “Hold on, brother,” he grinds out. “Don’t give up.”
* “Stop,” he bites out.