Ruslan #2
Dima snaps, “You think you’re innocent?”
“No.”
That shuts him up for half a second.
I say, “I know what I am. I also know what I don’t do. I don’t drag children out of bed.”
His mouth tightens.
Ilya presses the gun closer to Mila. “Careful.”
Mila whimpers.
Everything in me goes still.
I say, very quietly, “Take the gun off her.”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll find out why all these men needed to stand around you before you felt brave.”
That wipes the smile off his face. Good.
I look at Mila again. She’s terrified, but she’s listening.
“Mila,” I say.
Her lips tremble. “Papa.”
“I’m here. You’re going to run when I tell you.”
Ilya says, “She isn’t going anywhere.”
I ignore him. “Straight to the trees behind me,” I tell her. “Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Find Mama.”
Mila nods once.
Small. Enough.
Stepan says, “Ruslan.”
I don’t look at him. “If you point that gun at her, I’ll kill you too.”
He goes quiet.
Ilya laughs once, but it sounds forced now. “You’re not in a position to kill anyone.”
I take one step forward.
Every gun lifts.
I stop. Then I look at Ilya and say, “Let her go and take me. That’s what you wanted anyway.”
Ilya’s eyes narrow. That’s the opening. His grip loosens for half a second.
“Mila,” I say. “Run.”
She slips out of Ilya’s grip, stumbles once on the loose gravel, and then throws herself toward the trees exactly the way I told her to.
Her little coat flashes pale in the dark.
Her feet are too small for the uneven ground, but she keeps going, arms pumping, crying openly now because there’s no reason to be quiet anymore.
Ilya turns his gun after her.
I hit him before he can line up the shot.
Not clean. Not graceful. I don’t have enough strength left for either. I slam into him with my shoulder, all weight and bad temper and fear, and the force drives him sideways. The gun goes off, but the shot cracks into the sky instead of the trees.
Mila screams.
I don’t look at her. If I look, I’ll lose the second I have.
I grab Ilya’s wrist and twist hard enough that he curses. His other hand catches my shirt, and we crash together near the edge of the quarry. Gravel slides under my boots. My injured leg buckles immediately, but I keep my grip on him because if he gets free, he gets another shot.
Behind me, Dima shouts, “Get the girl!”
I hear movement from the right.
Someone starts after Mila.
Stepan moves too. I don’t know which direction he goes at first, and that’s the worst part. For half a breath, I think he’s running after her with the others. Then he cuts across their path and raises his gun, blocking the man closest to the trees.
“Leave her,” Stepan snaps.
The man stops, confused.
Dima swings his gun toward Stepan. “What are you doing?”
Stepan doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t look at Mila. His eyes stay on the men in front of him, and his gun stays steady. “I said leave her.”
Ilya tries to wrench free of my grip. “You picked a strange time to grow a conscience.”
Stepan’s face tightens, but he says nothing.
That answer tells me enough. He was in this. He let it happen. Maybe he tried to draw a line too late, maybe he thought there was still a version of betrayal that didn’t touch children. It doesn’t matter now. A late conscience is still a debt.
Ilya drives his elbow into my ribs. Pain bursts through my side, and my grip slips for half a second. He uses it, twisting away and bringing the gun back between us.
I catch the barrel with my hand. The metal is cold. His finger is already tightening.
I force the muzzle down as he fires. The shot cracks into the dirt near my foot. Heat and powder sting my hand. My bad leg gives again, and this time I go down to one knee.
Ilya smiles because he thinks that means he has me.
He steps closer. “You should have stayed away from her,” he says.
I look up at him. “From who?”
His smile widens. “Both of them.”
That’s the first time I truly want to kill him slowly.
I move from my knees. It’s ugly and desperate, but it works because he expects me to protect my leg. I don’t. I drive upward, catch him around the waist, and throw my full weight into him. We hit the ground hard, roll once, and come up too close to the edge.
The quarry drops away beside us, black and deep. Loose stones spill down into it, hitting rock below a moment later.
Ilya sees it too. For the first time, fear breaks through his face.
He punches me in the wound. White pain tears through me so sharply that I nearly lose my grip. My vision narrows. My stomach rolls. I can feel the stitches pull, feel warmth spread through the bandage.
Somewhere behind me, men are shouting over each other.
Mila is still running. I can hear her crying getting farther away, thin and frightened but moving. Moving is all that matters.
Ilya crawls backward, trying to get space. His gun is gone now, kicked somewhere in the gravel between us. I grab his ankle before he can stand.
He kicks me in the face.
My mouth fills with blood, but I hold on.
He kicks again, and the heel catches my shoulder. I pull hard, dragging him back toward me, then climb over him with my good knee planted in the dirt and my hand around his throat.
He grabs my wrist with both hands, eyes wide now. “You don’t have the strength,” he chokes.
He’s wrong. I have exactly enough strength for this.
Then a gun cocks behind me.
“Let him go,” Dima says.
I don’t move.
Ilya’s breathing scratches under my hand.
Dima steps closer. “Ruslan.”
I turn my head just enough to see him.
Dima has his gun pointed at me. Kirill stands behind him, shaking so badly the weapon in his hand keeps dipping toward the ground. Lenkov is farther back, watching the tree line where Mila disappeared. Stepan stands between two of the warehouse men, gun raised, his face hard and blank.
No one is in control anymore.
I release Ilya slowly.
He coughs and rolls away from me, one hand at his throat.
Dima says, “Stand up.”
I laugh once, because the order is absurd with my leg half-open and the ground sliding under me.
“I’m serious,” Dima says.
“I know.”
“Then stand.”
I push myself up. My injured leg trembles. Blood runs hot down the inside of my trousers. I keep my face still anyway, because they have already taken too much from me tonight and they don’t get the satisfaction of seeing the rest.
Ilya gets to his feet beside me, still coughing. His face is red, his eyes wet with rage.
“Shoot him,” he says.
Nobody does.
That’s useful.
I look at Dima first. “You want to do it?”
His jaw tightens.
“Go on,” I say. “You’ve been waiting years to see if I bleed like everyone else. You’ve seen it now. Finish the work.”
Dima’s gun stays up, but his finger doesn’t move.
I look at Kirill. “You?”
Kirill looks like he might vomit.
I look at Lenkov. “You brought me to a school and then to a quarry. Surely you had an ending in mind.”
Lenkov says nothing.
Finally, I look at Stepan.
His face changes. Just a little. Enough.
Before he can answer, Ilya lunges for the fallen gun.
I move at the same time.
He gets his hand around the grip, but I get my shoulder into his chest and drive him backward. He fights hard now, panicked, clawing at my coat, trying to turn the barrel between us. His heel catches loose gravel. Mine does too.
The ledge is behind him.
Ilya’s face is inches from mine, twisted with fear and fury. His hand finds my wound again, and the pain blanks everything for one short second.
In that second, the gun comes up.
Not toward me. Toward the trees.
Toward where Mila ran.
No.
There is no thought after that. Only the simple, brutal decision.
I wrap both arms around him and drive forward.
He understands too late. His eyes go wide. His mouth opens, but whatever he says disappears under the sound of gravel breaking loose beneath us.
For a moment, we hang there at the edge, weight shifting, the world balanced on one bad leg and one final choice.
Then the ground gives way.