38. Elena #2
I glance up. Ready to take my next move when a fistful of dirt hits my face.
I gasp, recoiling as grit burns into my eyes. My vision blurs instantly, instinct taking over as I raise my arms…
A kick slams into my ribs.
I hit the ground hard.
“Something you failed to learn from your mother…” Her voice curls near my ear, too close, too sharp. “…is when to play dirty.”
I don’t see the strike, but I hear it. A shift in air. The scrape of her shoe against dirt. The subtle intake of breath before impact.
My arms come up on instinct, forearms crossing as the blow crashes into me. Pain jolts through my bones, but I hold.
Adapt. Alexei’s voice lives in my head. If you lose one sense, sharpen another.
My vision is still smeared with grit and tears, the world reduced to shapes and shadows, but sound… those are clear.
And she’s close. Too close.
She thinks I’m done.
I move before she can adjust.
My leg sweeps out, hooking behind hers. I twist hard, dragging her balance out from under her. Her body hits the ground with a heavy thud, the breath leaving her in a rough grunt.
I suck in air, wiping furiously at my eyes until the blur fades enough to make out movement, her shape, the ground, the dark outline of trees beyond.
“Do something!” Oksana screams.
I lift my head, but Wendell doesn’t move as Oksana expects him to.
The realization settles coldly in my chest. She was never his partner. Oksana was another piece on his board.
“Wendell!” she shrieks again, desperation cracking through her voice.
Silence answers.
I push to my feet slowly, my body coiled, ready. “It’s time you answer for what you’ve done,” I state, my voice quieter now, steadier in a way that surprises even me.
She laughs, breathless, unhinged.
My hand tightens, then stills. For a heartbeat, everything narrows; her, the distance between us, the easy, irreversible end within reach.
I see it play out. One move. Done. My fingers loosen.
I step back instead.
Air drags into my lungs, sharp and grounding, as I shake my head once, more to myself than to her.
“Then do it,” she spits, dragging herself up just enough to face me. Dirt clings to her skin, her hair half-fallen from its perfect hold. “Because if you don’t, I won’t stop. I will take everything from you. Everyone you love…I will?—”
The sound splits the air. Sharp and final.
I flinch, instinct dropping me into a crouch.
The silence that follows is heavy and absolute.
Slowly, I rise.
Oksana’s on her back. Still. Eyes wide, fixed on nothing.
The forest around us holds its breath.
I take a step forward, but I already know. There’s no rise of her chest. No movement.
Nothing.
I don’t feel the grief I expect. Only a quiet stillness settles in its place, like something that had been screaming inside me has finally gone silent.
I turn.
“What?”
Clara stands a few feet away, gun still raised, her stance firm, unwavering as she lowers it slightly and steps closer. “She asked for it, and you couldn’t do it,” she remarks, her tone blunt, not unkind. “I could. I’m a spy, Elena. Judge. Executioner.”
Her gaze flicks past me, sharpening instantly.
I follow it.
Wendell’s moving. Slipping back, inch by inch, toward the cover of the trees.
“Take another step,” Clara warns, lifting the gun again, her voice cutting clean through the space, “and you die too.”
Wendell turns slowly. Measured and calm. Too calm. “I would relieve you of that confidence before you can even stop me,” he retorts, his voice smooth despite the blood soaking his sleeve.
Clara scoffs, lifting her chin. “I’m faster than?—”
The rest of the words don’t leave her lips, even though we both know what she was going to say.
Faster than Fletcher.
Wendell’s hands are raised, slowly and carefully, blood dripping from his fingers, dark against his skin.
My chest tightens, with the overwhelming sense that something is wrong.
Wendell’s gaze narrows, tracking every inch of Clara, because she should have been afraid, but he isn’t.
The world flickers, a flash before my eyes, a tree. There’s a crack right above Clara, and then there is her scream.
The weight of something impossible bearing down?—
I blink, and the flash is gone. But the feeling lingers, sharp and certain.
My breath catches. “Clara?—”
The branch snaps before I can finish.
A deafening crack splits the air as the tree behind her wrenches free, tilting, falling…
A curse rips from her lips as she turns to avoid the crash, but it’s already too late.
The trunk slams down, pinning her legs beneath it with a sickening force. Her cry tears through the woods as she twists, pushing, straining, it doesn’t budge.
I surge forward?—
“Don’t.” Wendell’s voice cuts through me. Cold and precise.
I stop.
My eyes flick to the gun lying slightly out of her reach. She sees it too.
“Take another step,” Wendell adds softly, “and the next one finishes her.”
My jaw clenches. I don’t move.
“Russian,” he calls.
Ruslan steps into view, weapon raised, eyes sharp.
His gaze flickers briefly to the body on the ground, then away, dismissing it just as quickly.
When he sees Clara pinned, something tightens in his expression.
Pieces of bark have embedded themselves into her skin, blood already seeping through her pants.
“Clara,” he calls, his accent thickening around her name. “You okay?”
She lets out a strained breath. “Do I bloody look okay?”
He shifts his grip on the weapon. “Let her go.”
“Walk away and you live,” Wendell replies, almost lazily. “You got what you came for.”
Ruslan doesn’t answer.
I study his face, searching for something, anything that doesn’t feel so final.
It’s there. Not anger. Not even rage. Something colder. Set deeper. The kind that doesn’t flare, it stays.
Alexei and I had circled it before, in quiet conversations that never quite landed. There was always something missing from his story, something that didn’t fit neatly under Oksana’s corruption.
Now it does.
He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t look away. And in that silence, in the way his jaw locks slightly, it settles into place.
Wendell wasn’t guessing.
Vengeance. So that is what drove Ruslan here.
“Don’t be foolish,” Wendell continues. “You got your vengeance. Don’t lose your life for something that doesn’t concern you.”
Ruslan’s jaw tightens. “Let. Her. Go. Or I put a bullet in your skull.”
A quiet click.
“Weak, every last one of you,” Wendell mumbles.
A finger twitch.
“No—”
The second tree above Ruslan and Clara gives. It snaps with a groan, tipping toward Clara, toward her head…
Ruslan moves.
His weapon hits the ground as he lunges forward, arms shooting up to catch the falling weight. The impact drives him down with a grunt, knees bending, muscles straining as the full force of it bears down on him.
The sound that leaves him is raw. Animal. But he holds. Barely.
“Don’t move,” Wendell demands of me, softer this time, almost amused.
I freeze. “Ruslan?—”
“I’ve got it,” he grinds out, shifting, trying to brace the weight against his shoulder. His arms tremble, veins standing out, his entire body shaking under the strain.
Not for long. I can see it. So can Wendell.
“The Russian has a few minutes left,” Wendell says lightly. “Maybe less.”
I drag my gaze back to him. “What do you want?”
He smiles. “I leave,” he answers simply. “You don’t follow.”
My stomach twists.
“For now.” His eyes gleam. “We both know this doesn’t end here. We will meet again, Elena. That is inevitable. Only one of us can survive in this world, and it will be me.”
“You’ve been wrong before,” I point out, my voice steadier than I feel.
He laughs. “Look around you.”
I do.
Clara, bleeding, trapped. Ruslan, shaking, buckling under the weight bearing down on him. The echo of Fletcher’s last breath hits me like a blow to the chest.
My fingers curl into fists. Loss presses in from every sides.
I have lost so much.
But something else rises with it. I’ve also gained more family, friends, and community than I ever thought was possible in my life. And I will not let anyone take it from me.
“How many more?” Wendell presses. “How many do you lose before you call it justice?”
The words hang, but I’m already looking past him. A flicker of movement slips along the tree line, over his shoulder. Low. Controlled. Closing in.
I don’t react.
A strained sound to my right snaps my focus sideways.
Ruslan.
He’s buckling; shoulders bowed under the weight bearing down on him, boots grinding into the dirt as his knees dip lower, inch by inch. His grip shifts, slips, catches again, but barely.
Not much longer.
I lift my chin. “You want your freedom?” I ask. “Take it.”
His brows lift slightly.
“I won’t follow.”
He studies me for a moment before he murmurs, “Finally. You do have some common sense left in you.” His eyes glance around as if in that moment something is missing.
No…someone.
“Heed me,” I caution, the words low and steady. “You’ll answer for everything you’ve taken.”
Silence stretches between us for a moment before Wendell laughs. Soft and sharp. Unimpressed. “Will I?” he drawls, a mocking tilt to his head. “I doubt it… Your Majesty.”
But I don’t look at him anymore. I’m watching the trees behind him. Watching the shift. The movement. Quiet. Precise.
“Go,” I add.
He smirks, stepping back. “One day,” he threatens, “you’ll regret that.”
He turns—and slams into something solid. He stumbles back, caught off guard for the first time.
Alexei.
He stands there, unmoving, a wall of muscle and fury, his gaze locked on Wendell with a cold, unyielding intensity I’ve only seen a handful of times.
“I told you,” Alexei voices, his voice low, deadly, “this ends with you.”
Wendell blinks, the last trace of surprise flickering out.
He’s too slow.
Alexei is already moving, and Wendell is too far behind. A strike snaps in before Wendell can reset, sharp and concise. He lifts an arm to block, but Alexei pivots, faster, another hit driving through his guard, forcing him back a step, then another.
No wasted motion. No hesitation.
Alexei’s hands come up, gripping either side of Wendell’s head…
“No—!”