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Right into the line of fire.
I nod and raise my Glock. Victor slips forward, and I bite back a hiss. He’s sneaking closer to get a better shot at hitting the booby trap but also to cover any other hidden exits Stephanos might use. My instinct is to call him back and tell him to stop, but I don’t.
I trust him.
He raises the knife and pauses. I reaffirm my grip on my gun.
His throw is so quick and smooth I don’t see the knife. But the instant it hits the trip wire, there’s a discordant twang, and a tower of boxes comes crashing down.
Stephanos is up and racing out the door toward me. His yellow-white shirt fills my vision, and I brace myself and take aim.
Crack!
The force of the shot reverberates up my arm. Acrid smoke fills my nose. I fire again and again, my ears deafened by the noise. The pulse of the gun is a steady heartbeat against my palm. In the distance, through the gray clouds, Stephanos jerks and dances.
There’s a clap of noise and an explosion of heat that sends me staggering to the right. The world is muted beyond my buzzing ears.
Something else knocks into me, and I crash to the floor. The weight isn’t sharp or too heavy, and I understand what it is as the dust settles. Victor. Covering me with his huge body.
He’s on his feet in the next second, peeling me off the floor and backing me into a safe corner. I keep my Glock out, pointing into the dancing dust cloud at his back. Covering him like he covered me.
My back hits a corner, and a breath escapes. The warehouse area we’re in is wrecked, with clouds of sawdust threatening to make me cough and debris littering the floor.
“Stephanos?” I manage to say without hacking on the heavy particulate hanging in the air.
“Hurt, but he managed to trigger the explosion.” He pauses, and we both hear it: a labored wheezing a few yards away.
The hunt is not over yet.
Victor helps me step over splintered wood and creep closer to our quarry.
Stephanos is a slight form on the floor, grunting as he tries to pull his leg out from under a fallen steel beam. Trapped by the explosion he triggered.
I pause and look up at Victor, waiting for his signal. His ski mask is no longer black but gray with dust.
After a sweep, he raises his hand and touches his forefinger to his thumb, giving me the go-ahead.
I raise my hand and offer him my Glock. He understands instantly and trades my Glock for his knife.
For a moment, we stand together, holding our weapons and gazing into each other’s eyes. His gaze drops to my lips like he wishes he could kiss me. My body tightens. Okay, I signal back.
He touches my back gently. Go.
I step over a fallen board and stroll to the spot where Stephanos is pinned.
He’s smaller up close. Grooves line his face and sunken cheeks, surrounding his black, beady eyes. There’s an unhealthy pallor to his skin, and I know that time and heart disease would’ve ended him sooner rather than later.
But that won’t be his fate.
His eyes go wide, and he bares his teeth when he sees me. “You.”
“Me.” I sink down and plant a knee on his chest.
He blinks at me with sawdust-coated eyelashes. Up close and exposed like this, his ugliness is repulsive, like something crawling out from under a rock. He bats at me, but his arms are limp, weakened by the bullets he took to the chest. He struggles to breathe under my weight, his body fighting to stay alive.
I set the knife at his grime-streaked throat, ready to strike the way Victor took pains to teach me. “This is for my mother.”
Victor
