Kiara
Present
“Come here,” he says.
He’s always so calm. Even now. I’m not sure if it should calm me down or the opposite.
I quickly close the distance between us. He grabs my waist, takes his knife, and cuts my dress right above the knee, turning me around with force and ripping the rest of the fabric, throwing it on the ground, everything done so quickly as I still can’t catch my breath.
“Get on and take this.”
He takes his suit jacket off, leaving himself in the crisp white shirt, gripping his tie and loosening it with such force it finally gives me a glimpse of nervousness from his side.
I get on, circle my hands around his torso and we get off in seconds.
“How long until they realize we’re gone?”
The moment the dumb question leaves my mouth, the garage door explodes open behind us, men tumbling in, but we are already on the driveway, gone, speeding out on the road.
We hit a hundred in seconds and merge onto the highway, but a black sports car is already glued to us. He pushes to two-fifty, the bike trembling under us, but they still won’t drop.
The blood on my skin feels like ice. The engine beneath us growls like it’s ready to tear the asphalt in half.
He leans forward, pushing the bike harder, and the world turns into wind and blurred white lines.
My arms lock around his torso as the torn dress slaps against my thighs.
Then I see it, ahead of us—two massive cargo trucks side by side.
“Kasien!” I scream.
“We’re going through,” he says, calm as a scalpel.
There isn’t even space. Jesus, we’re going to die. He tilts the bike, threads us between steel walls with millimeters to spare, so close I feel like the cargo trucks are squeezing us in for a second, and then we burst out into the light.
I look back just in time as the left truck slams its brakes and opens just enough space for the car to slip through. And suddenly, another car follows.
“Two of them,” Kas mutters. My stomach drops. “I need to take them down,” he says, voice low.
I squeeze his waist until my nails dig into him. “But there are two—”
Another bike bursts onto the highway from the on-ramp on our right. Adrien, moving like someone who’s done this a thousand times. He yanks the bike beside us and Kas breathes out.
“Thank fucking God.”
Adrien lifts two fingers, Kasien returns the gesture, a silent plan that I don’t understand.
“Kiara,” Kas says into my helmet, “don’t let go.”
I don’t even breathe. I just hold tighter.
Both bikes drop into a hard sideways slide at the exact same second.
Kasien to the right, Adrien to the left, tires screaming, as the bikes skid on the asphalt.
Both of them straighten in the same heartbeat, and in one flawless synchronized motion both draw their guns, firing instantly, two shots each, right through the windshield of each car. Perfectly timed, perfectly placed.
The cars instantly lose control and start violently rolling toward us. The first car slams into the guardrail and rolls, metal shrieking. The second folds into itself, flipping twice. We instantly rocket forward before the wreck can swallow us and kill us.
The road ahead is empty. Kasien’s voice fills my helmet, steady again.
“We’re good,” he breathes out, with a glint of relieved laughter.
Thank God. No other car follows us before we take the turn toward the woods.
We slow down after maybe fifteen minutes, turning into a dark garage beneath a huge farmhouse drowning in woods and open meadows.
The moment the bike stops, Kasien lifts me off, keeping me against him for a second until my legs stop trembling. Adrien is already loading the black SUV, tossing a sports bag into the backseat, his movements sharp and jittery.
“I have the passes, all covered. We need to go now,” Adrien instructs as he nervously rubs his curly hair, his usual boyish expression now looking tense and stressed. Blood is dripping from his face, his lips swollen and cut open. I grab Kasien’s hand and turn toward the SUV, but he doesn’t move.
I spin back. He’s watching me, eyes soft, the green slipping through, and then he pulls me in and cups my face.
No. No way.
“Kasien, let’s go,” I demand, though my voice cracks and my eyes burn.
This cannot be happening.
“Kasien, you promised, let’s go!” I pull on his hand, but he’s carved from stone, he looks as if he’s thinking, going through some scenarios in his head.
“They won’t kill me, I promise,” he murmurs, and the certainty in his voice terrifies me.
Adrien grabs Kasien’s shoulder.
“Stop fucking torturing yourself. We can have a life. All of us. We’re not going without you. I’m not going without you. Now move!”
Kasien drags a hand over the bridge of his nose in frustration and Adrien uses the moment to grab me by the waist and shove me into the backseat. Kasien slams the door shut and spins around to the driver’s side.
I finally exhale in relief.
He needs to stop doing this. He needs to stop giving me heart attacks.
Adrien throws himself into the passenger seat and we shoot out of the garage, Kasien tapping nervously on the wheel as he speeds through the empty road. The blood on my skin is almost dry now, the torn dress glued to me and my insides burning.
We’re okay. We made it.
“Where are we going?” I ask, trying to break the nervous silence.
“We need to get Natalya,” Adrien mutters.
“No,” Kasien snaps without looking at him. “She thinks we’re dead. And it stays like that.”
“Fuck that. I’m getting her.” Adrien spits more blood and his voice cracks with anger and something else.
“We’re target number one, Adrien.” Kasien reins himself in and continues, calmer. “Staying dead to her is safer.”
Adrien drops his head against the headrest, gripping his hair, shaking, as Kasien adds with a whisper, “I’m sorry.”
I tear a strip of my dress, lean forward between the seats, and try to wipe the blood pouring from Adrien’s lip. The cut is deep and it won’t stop bleeding. His eyes stay shut, his face smeared with crimson—I can’t read a damn thing on him.
“Yeah. I might actually be dead soon anyway,” he mutters.
What?
I slowly drag my eyes down on his body, the blood is everywhere, but I thought it’s not his. I start panicking, nervously opening his shirt, ripping it open, running my fingers over his skin, looking for something I wish is not there.
Fuck.
“Kasien!” I cry out when I find a fucking bullet wound on the side of his waist.
“Why didn’t you say something you fucking idiot!” Kasien yells at him and hits maximum speed.
“Maybe I would’ve got to that,” Adrien grits out, “if you hadn’t started with the whole sacrificing-yourself bullshit,” Adrien slurs, but his words are barely coherent.
“Hold the wound, Kiara. We’ll patch him up on the plane,” Kasien instructs me while gripping his hair with one hand and driving with the other.
“It’s okay. It went right through, no organs hit,” Adrien explains and chokes on the blood again. “Stop panicking. Jesus, both of you,” he keeps mumbling something, but his head is falling to the side.
No.
He can’t pass out. I slap him. He flinches but doesn’t open his eyes.
I slap him again—nothing but a weak groan.
The bile in my throat climbs. Tears burn their way out despite me.
“Kasien, he’s lost a lot of blood.”
My voice breaks in half. This is all my fault.
I keep my fingers pressed deep into Adrien’s side, trying to hold the wound together, when headlights explode across the windshield, too close and too fast.
“Kas—”
I don’t get to finish, a hit slams into us from the side. Metal screams. Glass bursts. The SUV tears through the guardrail and the world tips violently as we tumble off the road. My body whips sideways, weightless, air ripped from my lungs.
We’re falling.
The car crashes into the water below the cliff, rear-first, the back end plunging down like an anchor. The car tilts vertically, nose upward for a split second before it levels slightly, groaning under the weight of the black salty river dragging it down.
Freezing water floods in through the fractures in the side windows and front vents.
The water level rises fast, reaching our knees, then our waists, cold enough to steal breath.
Adrien is fully unconscious.
Kasien’s head is bleeding, eyes unfocused, but he’s awake, barely, gripping the wheel to stay oriented. The windshield is cracked in a spiderweb, bowing inward under the pressure. Not broken. Not yet.
“Seatbelts,” I rasp, dazed but functional.
My fingers fumble with the buckle, then tear it free, Kasien doing the same. I lean over Adrien, unclipping his belt too as icy water reaches my waist. The car lurches again, dipping steeper.
We’re going under. We don’t have time.
I yank the gun from Kasien’s belt with shaking hands.
I brace myself, aim straight at the fractured glass and shoot twice, breaking it completely.
The underwater retort is a brutal, muffled blast that shakes the whole SUV.
The windshield caves instantly, blowing inward as a violent surge of black water explodes through the gap.
The force punches me back against the seat, knocking the breath from my chest.
The car fills fast. Chest, shoulders, throat.
Kasien reaches for me, grabbing my waist with his good arm, anchoring us together as I sneak my arm under Adrien’s and twist toward the broken front, letting the flood drag us through the torn-open space once the car is completely filled with water.
We’re forced out of the SUV just as the last pocket of air collapses behind us and the car tilts again, sinking tail-first into the darkness below.
The world is cold, crushing silence. Kasien’s hand stays locked on my waist, steady.
We kick. My lungs burn, vision tightening, pressure screaming inside my skull, I have no idea how deep we are. The water feels heavy all around us, as if it’s pushing us down.
Then finally, we break the surface. I gasp, coughing, dragging air into my chest as I seize Adrien’s body, locking my arm around him. Kasien surfaces beside me, breath ragged, stroke uneven but determined.
“I’ve got him,” I rasp, voice shredded.
Kasien moves ahead, guiding us toward the rocky shoreline. Every stroke is agony, but we make it. He takes Adrien and drags him up onto the stones, I’m following, scraping my knees raw.
Kasien stumbles beside me, pushing with what strength he has left before collapsing onto the ground, one hand pressed to his bleeding head.
“Kasien,” I breathe.
“I’m fine,” he mutters, but he isn’t.
Not at all. His voice is slurred, distant. His body sways as he tries to stay upright, blood mixing with river water on his shirt. He tries to stand but fails. He drops onto his back, chest heaving shallowly, the fight draining out of him second by second.
“Kasien,” I crawl to him, pushing wet hair from his forehead, shaking him gently.
His eyelids flicker. He reaches toward me, fingertips brushing my arm, then slipping away as his hand drops to the stone.
Behind me, Adrien still isn’t moving, his blood stains the rocks beneath him.
My chest tightens, breath catching as I try to get up, slipping on the wet stone when someone catches me, gripping both of my arms, yanking me upright with brutal strength, another hand circling my torso and ripping me away from Kasien.
I scream, but my voice breaks as I reach toward Kasien.
Kasien tries to rise, pain twisting his face, but his body won’t respond. A cold hand clamps over my mouth, cutting off my scream as I’m dragged up the slope, away from the river, away from them, my bare feet ripping on the sharp wet stones.
The last thing I see is Kasien lying there, chest trembling, eyes barely open and helpless, Adrien motionless beside him, before something sharp stings my neck, my chest starts to burn and I can’t see anything anymore.