Chapter 42
vera
Walked right into the trap. I was getting rusty.
No. I was getting emotional. Never would have cared before. If I got caught like this and died, it would have just been my debt catching up.
But not Elaine.
Never Elaine.
Glenn’s smile was predatory as he stood suspended over us. “I’ll give you to the count of three, Vera,” he said. “At which point—”
“Save your breath,” I said. “I’m never handing her to the likes of you.”
He smiled sadly. “It’s a shame to lose you, Farkas.”
“So you can feel shame after all. I guess I’m always learning something new.
” I drew my gun, and in one quick motion, I fired—Glenn ducked, but I wasn’t aiming for him.
With a crash, a window shattered outside of the lot, and a vat broke open, a heavy machinery alarm wailing deafeningly through the yard. Glenn grimaced.
“Dammit. Quayle! Kill them all, and be quick about it, before the authorities show!”
Quayle jumped down, landing smoothly in front of the three of us, his eyes fixed on me. If he felt anything about being ordered to kill me, it didn’t show on his face.
But I doubted that man had ever felt a thing in his life.
The crane groaned as it lifted Glenn away, and Elaine stepped back, her hands shaking. Petra and I closed rank to shield her.
“Finally time for you and me to dance, huh, Quayle?” I said.
Quayle spoke for what might have been the first time in months. “Change your mind at any point. Glenn wants her alive if possible.”
“Sure, let’s talk diplomacy,” I snorted. “Let’s put our guns down and be friendly. You first.”
“Vera, Petra, please,” Elaine whispered shakily. “I don’t want to see anything happen to either of you. I can go and talk…”
“Never,” Petra said.
“Not happening,” I agreed, gripping my gun tighter. “It’s two against one. Your move, Quayle.”
“Vera,” Elaine said, but Quayle moved—he fired a shot, and I shoved Elaine back and ducked out of the way, but the shot hit a pipe behind us, an eruption of thick black liquid gushing out over the yard, a plume of heavy gas spilling out over us.
Petra lunged for him, grappling, but he deflected the blow, twisted with her momentum, and threw her to the side, into a pile of boxes that collapsed.
I dropped to one knee and took aim, firing a series of shots, but Quayle was faster than belief, and the bullets plinked off the wall behind him—I was getting sluggish. The gas in my lungs.
He was on me in an instant, and with a swift strike, he sent the gun out of my hands and grabbed my wrist, wrenching me off my feet with the cold steel of his gun barrel pressed into my stomach, but I twisted as he fired—not enough to get away, just enough for the bullet to graze off the protective vest under my shirt, a force like a punch to the stomach, and I hit him in the arm, twisting the gun out of his hand.
He managed to get off another shot before I disarmed him, and I felt it tear like a knife across my arm, a grazing shot that seared on my skin, but his gun clattered out of his hand, and I kicked it away, into the caustic black flow.
Quayle twisted me around and shoved me back against the wall, and I dropped to the ground just as he swung with a metal hand guard and punched a hole in the wall behind me.
Petra lunged at him from behind, but he moved faster, turning around and catching her hand as she swung at him, and with the sick crunch of bones breaking, he twisted her wrist around and threw her to the ground, where she hit hard with an anguished scream.
My head was spinning now, the caustic gas overloading my senses, and I felt like I was moving through water as I flipped a switchblade and attacked.
Too slow still—he deflected it, and when I went in for a follow-up attack, he twisted the blade out of my hand and sent it to the floor, throwing me down after it, where I hit hard and rolled, jumping up to my feet.
Dammit. We couldn’t do a thing to him. We had to escape.
“Petra—take Elaine and go!” I shouted, and she grimaced, staggering to her feet.
“Vera, no!” Elaine shouted, but Petra swept her up and took off racing for the front of the lot, back towards the car. Quayle moved to stop them, but I cut in front, catching him in a quick grapple where we both got sent backwards.
“One at a time, Quayle,” I said. “If you’re going to kill someone, at least pick the dead woman walking.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. Elaine screamed from the other side, calling out to me, and I tried not to think about it. About Elaine getting back to the manor, having to figure out what to do next now that I was dead.
Now that I’d finally fallen.
He moved in one motion so quick I couldn’t follow it—another flashbang, and I shielded my eyes and turned to guard one ear just in time before it went off, and he was gone, the snap of his coat as he went after Elaine, clearing the fence in one vault off a crate.
“Dammit,” I called out into the night, scrabbling after him. My head was still fuzzy, and he was faster than me when I was at my best, but I couldn’t let him catch up to the others.
I picked up one of the discarded guns, and I stumbled out of the yard, vaulting over the fence after him, and I saw him down a stretch as he had another gun in hand and took a shot after Petra’s car, hitting a back tire and sending it squealing, hitting a fence and struggling to recover.
I grimaced, and I aimed a shot upwards, shattering the band on a crane hook and dropping a beam.
He leaped back out of the way, and I chased to catch up as he vaulted on top of the beam instead, sprinting and catching the loose band as it swung back the other way, towards the others.
It took everything I had in me to catch up, the gas clearing as I got further away from the pipe breach, the wailing of alarms getting louder around us, but Quayle swung higher up to a catwalk above me and slammed his fist on a panel, shattering it and releasing a pyramid of steel pipes that came tumbling down after me.
I leaped out of the way, hoisting myself up onto a container, but I let my guard down, and this time when he fired a shot, it landed—I felt it stab into my leg, and I gasped as the pain surged through me, and I dropped to the ground below, hitting hard next to the pile of steel pipes, and when I saw him aiming down at me from above, I grimaced and pushed myself inside one of the pipes instead, the bullet ringing off the steel inches from my face, the ringing sound deafening all around me.
I heard him taking off above me, still trying to catch up to the others. Leaving me for dead.
Dammit. With a bullet in the leg, I wasn’t catching up.
I dragged myself out of the pipe again and stumbled up to my feet, running as best I could, and I grabbed onto a chain, climbing up to the catwalk level and above, up to a long row of shallow metal roofs.
In the darkness below, amidst the tangle of machinery, I saw glimpses of Quayle moving after the others, sparks flying from the car as one wheel was catching on pavement, and another gunshot took out another tire, with a bang that echoed off the machinery.
The network of chutes.
I grimaced as I took a spool of cable and threw it up over one of the chutes, and I gripped it tightly in both hands and faced the drop below.
Ziplining was the worst thing I could do for my fear of heights. But I thought about Elaine trapped in the car as Quayle approached, and I stepped off from the roof.
Everything was a blur as I went, panic pooling in my stomach as the dizzying drop below me streaked past, and I came flying towards where a third tire exploding sent the car drifting and slamming sideways into a concrete wall, just short of the road out of the yard and to safety.
From the catwalk above it, Quayle lowered his gun, and he put his hand on the railing to vault, but he must have heard the sound of the cable on metal—he looked back up at me just as I released from the zipline, and he braced just as I released with an attack, slamming into him and knocking him down onto the cold metal of the catwalk, both of us sliding as our guns scattered to either side and fell off the catwalk into the churning industrial equipment below.
“You’re not getting them,” I gasped, pushing myself up to my knee, my other leg not cooperating as I felt blood pooling on the back of it.
“You’re too late, Farkas.” Slowly, he stood up, bearing down on me. “This is your chance. Surrender Elaine.”
I smirked.
Here on a high platform… just like where it all began. Back then, I loved people. I was supposed to die like that, capable of love.
And now I was here, to die on a high platform, for the sake of love.
“Over my dead body, Quayle,” I said, and I pulled the detonator.