Forty-One
New York, New York
Shards of glass blanched the air like a snowstorm. Nadiya shielded herself and Giselle as the guests screamed in panic. When
she lowered her arms and blinked to sharpen her vision, she smelled the copper tang of blood.
Over the heads of the guests, she managed to see Chane collapse on the stage. He wasn’t dead; he didn’t even appear severely
injured, but he was writhing and moaning like a child in the throes of a tantrum. Several of the security guards rushed to
his side and lifted him into a sitting position. Blood trickled from his nose.
She didn’t see Julian and Klaudia, or Deckard, anywhere.
Nadiya found Giselle’s hand and gripped it tightly. Blood flecked her face and her eyes were wide.
“Come on,” Nadiya said, raising her voice above the clamor. “We have to get out of here—now!”
The guests were in a stampede, pressing toward the door. She and Giselle ducked beneath elbows and between silk-clad bodies,
fighting their way toward the side door where the caterers had been slipping in and out throughout the evening. They stumbled
through the kitchen and out into the corridor.
Nadiya still had the security guard’s gun in her other hand. It felt good to be holding one again.
Once they were in the corridor, they broke into a run. The heels slowed their pace considerably, and made the sprint more
arduous. By the time they reached the stairwell, Nadiya was panting hard. Doubled over, Giselle wheezed.
Maybe they should have taken the elevator, but the crowd was too thick around it. With another pause for both of them to catch their breath, she and Giselle bolted up the stairs.
There was no way to talk, the frantic ascent requiring all their focus and strength, but Nadiya’s thoughts raced in a wild
gambit. What if the door to the roof was locked? What if Julian and Klaudia hadn’t managed to get out?
One flight, two, three . . . eventually Nadiya lost count. Her throat was tightening like a vise. She felt Giselle’s grip
on her hand slipping, weakening.
Nadiya allowed herself a brief pause to look back. She couldn’t hear any footsteps or see anything in the stairwell below.
No one was following them. Yet.
More flights. Nadiya’s mind emptied of all thoughts. She focused only on the path before her, the fluorescent lights spasming
off the gray concrete walls, and the door to the rooftop at the end, finally—
Nadiya collapsed against the door and it burst open. She and Giselle stumbled out into the dusk.
Giselle bent over, gasping. Her hair was loosening from its braided crown and the blood was now smeared across her mouth.
Hoarsely, she said, “There’s no one here.”
The rooftop was empty. There was no helicopter on the landing pad, and Julian and Klaudia were nowhere to be found. Nadiya’s
stomach dipped.
“Not yet,” she replied, her own voice a rasp. “There’s still time. . . .”
Neither of them had a watch, so there was no way to tell how many minutes remained. How long they waited, staring up at the
sky. It was a navy blue painted with striations of orange-gold.
And then—there it was. The sound of helicopter blades.
Relief almost made Nadiya slump to her knees. She held her breath as the helicopter came into view. It was a plain, gleaming black, not unlike the one they had arrived in, but she didn’t know what else she had expected—the Joyce-Young crest painted on the side like a sports team logo?
The helicopter hovered just above them and began its slow descent. The wind whipped Nadiya’s hair across her face, partially
obscuring her vision.
“Hey! Get away from there!”
Chane’s security guards burst through the door and onto the roof. Four of them, guns drawn. Their chests were heaving, and
their clothes were spattered with blood.
Nadiya considered lunging for the helicopter, but it wasn’t close enough yet. Instead, she grasped Giselle’s hand and ran, as fast as she could to the other end of the roof
The darkness and the wind gave them some cover. Nadiya ran in a darting path, dragging Giselle after her. Bullets cracked
the air. She darted behind one of the box vents and pushed Giselle onto her knees.
“Stay down,” she ordered.
Giselle whimpered. Nadiya peeked over the top of the vent. One of the guards was charging, his lips pulled back in a snarl.
Nadiya cocked her gun and aimed. She had done this a hundred times before—a thousand. In the shooting range, staring down
the steel target. But none of that had been real.
The man before her was flesh and blood. If she landed her shot where she aimed it, in that small groove between the Kevlar
padding, the bullet would slice apart his muscles, splinter his bones, and stop his heart.
Her grasp on the gun faltered. What was wrong with her? Why was she hesitating now, when it really mattered? A powerful surge
of anger rose up in her. Nadiya adjusted her aim and fired.
The bullet flew. Blood spurted. The guard crumpled to his knees, gripping his shoulder and moaning. Nadiya had only clipped him. He would survive.
As she lowered her gun, fingers shaking, the guards converged on them. Her heart skipped its beats. One of the guards fired
and the bullet whizzed past her head, making her ears ring. She wanted to fire back, but she couldn’t find the shot.
“Turn yourselves in!” one of the guards shouted, over the roar of the helicopter blades. “We’re shooting to kill!”
It was a bluff—it had to be. But Nadiya’s stomach dropped.
She fired off another shot, a warning, a distraction. Then she grasped Giselle by her wrist and hauled her to her feet.
They ran. Ducking behind vents where they could, heels scuffling in the asphalt. Nadiya skidded to a halt at the edge of the
roof just before they toppled over it.
There was another roof below, but it was a fifteen-foot drop. Maybe twenty. The wind raked over them. Nadiya turned to Giselle.
Tears glistened on her cheeks but her gaze was set.
“Bend your knees,” Nadiya told her.
And then they jumped.
Time seemed to warp, to slow. The wind was so strong that it held them momentarily in suspension. Nadiya was only vaguely
aware of another bullet slicing the air.
They landed on their feet, with a single heavy thud. Giselle was panting, shaking, but she looked unharmed. Nadiya felt the
briefest flicker of relief.
“Come on,” she urged, tugging at Giselle’s wrist.
There was a door just ahead and all Nadiya could do was hope it wasn’t locked. She tried to run, but Giselle froze in place
and gasped out, “Wait, Nadiya! You’re bleeding!”
Nadiya looked down. Blood was rushing in a torrent down her thigh.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Come on, let’s go!”
“But—”
Nadiya jerked Giselle roughly forward. The door was almost within reach. But then, without warning, Giselle planted her feet,
forcing Nadiya to a halt.
“Nadiya,” she cried, “you’re hurt. Please, you have to . . .”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nadiya bit out.
“But—”
Nadiya tried to tug Giselle along again, but then she felt a sudden bolt of dizziness. Her vision blurred and she stumbled,
falling forward onto her knees.
Giselle dropped to the ground beside her. The blood was soaking her dress, turning the silk an even darker black. Carefully,
Giselle peeled up the fabric, exposing the wound. The bullet hadn’t grazed her; it had gone straight through and buried itself
in her thigh.
“No,” Giselle whispered. “No, no, no—”
Nadiya stared down at the blood pooling on the rooftop. Even the wind couldn’t disperse the scent of it: acid and heavy. And
familiar. Memories flowered up. Her father, splayed on the floor, clutching his chest, crying weakly, Nadiya, help me.
She blinked and the memory dissipated. But her eyes were wet.
Giselle was pressing down on the wound, trying to stanch the bleeding. Her fingers were shaking and blood still poured from
the gaps between them.
“It’s all right,” said Nadiya. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded frail and faraway. “Giselle, it’s okay.”
Giselle’s head snapped up, gaze flashing. “What are you talking about?” she said, almost angrily. “Nadiya—”
“It’s all right,” Nadiya repeated. “I can’t feel it. I can’t feel any of it.”
Giselle just stared at her, eyes wide and uncomprehending.
“I’ve never been able to.” More memories flooded back. So many doctor’s offices, so many needles in her arm. Lab results printed
on slippery coils of paper. White-gloved hands prodding her. What about this? Or this? Perplexing diagnoses given and then recanted. Nadiya remembered the quivering of her mother’s chin as one doctor finally
uttered the words degenerative condition. Her father had gripped his cross.
Nadiya let the memory fade and refocused her gaze on Giselle. Voice more even now, she said, “I can’t feel any pain. I’ve
never been able to. It’s why I was able to get away that night.”
That night. The shadows of strange men dancing on the walls. Her father’s blood flowing in rivulets. The bullet like a clap
of thunder. And Nadiya—she hadn’t knelt there, hadn’t held her father’s hand as he died. She had run.
Like a coward, she had run. She was too small, too quick, and the men couldn’t catch her. She hadn’t even noticed the blood
pouring from beneath her nightgown until she was locked inside her closet, knees pulled to her chest, head buried between
them. Vaguely, Nadiya recalled that she had prayed.
That bullet had only grazed her, but the blood loss had been so great that she would have died. Should have died. She should have fallen to the ground there beside her father, and then she could have comforted him, in his final
moments. But because she hadn’t felt it, she had run.
Like a coward.
Slowly, Nadiya peeled back the sticky fabric of her dress. The white mass of scar tissue on her abdomen shone in the dying
evening light.
“So you understand now,” Nadiya said. She tasted copper on her tongue. “I’m not brave. I never have been.”
Giselle’s lips parted. Her brow was still furrowed. And then an incandescent glow descended over her face, transforming its features. Her gaze turned fierce.
She said, “I love you.”
Nadiya felt the wetness of the tear trickling down her cheeks, but not its warmth. The truth. At last, the truth. Her chest
was strangely light. If she was going to die, at least she would die with someone who knew her—knew all of her—and loved her
anyway.
Chane’s guards dropped onto the roof. Their guns were still drawn. Nadiya’s had slipped out of her blood-slicked hand. The
hem of Giselle’s white dress was drenched in red.
One of the guards jerked Giselle roughly to her feet. Two more knelt at Nadiya’s side. They each slid an arm beneath her body
and, together, they lifted her. It was as if she weighed nothing at all.
Static crackled through the radio on the guard’s chest. “Got them?”
“Yeah,” the guard replied. “We got them.”
“Where are Julian and Klaudia?” Giselle demanded, voice tremulous.
The guard wrenched her arms behind her back and laughed. “Don’t worry about Julian. He’s going to be fine.”
Nadiya lifted her head, blinking back the darkness that edged at her vision. “What do you mean?”
“He’s gone. Left with his father. Bad idea, hitching your wagon to his. Once a two-faced prick—”
The guard’s voice faded into the background. Blood roared in Nadiya’s ears. Julian had betrayed them. Why had she trusted
him to be the one to make the phone call? He could have said anything to anyone. He could have sold them out in seconds.
She searched for the well of anger within herself and found only despair.
The same boy who she had watched weep on the other side of the glass in Deckard’s cell had turned on them.
How could she have ever trusted him? After all her training, after all the pains she had taken to make herself ruthless and invulnerable, she had let her guard down at the worst possible moment. He had made her look like a fool.
With that thought, Nadiya found her anger at last.
I’m coming for you, Julian Joyce-Young III. I’m going to make you suffer.
Giselle’s words were strangled. “Where’s Klaudia?”
“You’ll see.”
The radio crackled again. “Are you bringing them down?”
“Yeah,” the guard answered. “But one of them needs to get to a hospital.”
In her last moments of consciousness, Nadiya watched the guard shove Giselle toward the rooftop door. She let out a broken
sob of protest, but it was swallowed up by the wind. Nadiya reached out her arm, blood dripping from her trembling fingers.
And then the world shuddered away.