Page 58 of Deadfall

Sacha relaxed against the wall, relief on his face.

“You’ve been like a father to me,” I said. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve taught me. I won’t let you down.”

“I know,” Sacha’s eyes remained closed. “I’m proud of you. Now, you have to–let me–go.”

He pulled his hand from mine to wrap around the handgun that rested nearby.

“Let me–go out–on my terms,” he said.

My heart lurched, but I gritted my teeth and helped him hold the gun.

He met my gaze one last time. “Go.”

I struggled to my feet, every atom in my body warred with me to stay. The room flickered—dimmed, brightened and flickered again—

I backed toward the door, or the door rushed toward me, I wasn’t sure.

I reached the threshold, still holding Sacha’s gaze.

“Don’t look back,” he said in Russian.

I surged into consciousness with a cry on my lips and the echo of the gunshot in my ears. My lungs heaved in air, only to inhale water instead. Vertigo swamped me and the panic became a live thing under my skin. My lungs seized, and then I was pulled up, up, up—

I coughed and sputtered as my vision cleared and hands dragged me along the ground. The bite of the cold stones warred with the bone-deep chill of reliving something I deemed one of my greatest failures. The guilt, a wound reopened and scrubbed raw, festered anew.

I should have been there. I should have been there to help him.

Sacha’s death sat on my chest—a weight I had no hopes of alleviating in this life. Even though he’d told me it was his battle, his past, I saw it differently. Another person I loved was dead—killed—and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.

I lay on the ground, shaking as they cuffed my wrists and hauled me up by the chain again until I could only stand on the tips of my toes.

“Wonderful the way that works, isn’t it?” Mahoney’s voice drifted over the whisper of chains and the drops of water that ran from my hair onto the ground. “Psychological manipulation is so vastly underrated.”

My heart pounded in my ears as I lifted my head and glared at Mahoney. He stood near the entrance of the cell, hands in his pockets of that still immaculately pressed suit. Not a drop of water or dirt marred the creaseless fabric.

“It’s an amazing drug, really,” he continued. “It’s derived from the gases found on this island which already have potent hallucinogenic properties.”

Mahoney jerked his head toward a person in the room wearing a lab coat.

“Dose her again.”

The guards stepped away to give the man room as he filled a syringe. A prick in my neck and the room swam as I went under once more.

29

EMERSYN

The edges of reality blurred and softened, like something warm had been poured over every edge until it dulled. The shadows twisted and bled until they leaked into color and then—

Pine.

Like the previous hallucination, the scent of the forest sent a rush of longing through my body that ached. I swallowed, my throat tightened until it burned, and I opened my eyes. I wasn’t on the island anymore. Once again, I was in a forest—my forest—and for one precious second I let myself believe it was real. I wasn’t restrained. Instead I was on my knees on the cold earth. My fingers dug into the half-frozen ground beneath me, and cold seeped up through my veins and settled in my bones.

My mind glitched—

Again, this felt too real. A twig snapped behind me in a deliberate way. I turned too fast, the trees blurred, the earth tilted, and there he was, just the way I remembered him.

“Dad?” I breathed.