Page 90 of Till Death Do Us Part

“I’ll win by killing you.” He clenched tighter, bruising my neck. “It’s been a millstone around my neck that I missed the first time.”

“What?” My blood ran cold. His eyes darkened.

“It’s just right that it was because you were too slow. You were always slow, Farkas.”

No.

It had been the Whitecliffs’ doing. My father had said we needed to be ready for the next time they…

Or so he told me. Or so the Blackbirds had told him.

“It was… you,” I whispered. His cruel smile spread wider.

“And with three… they all… fall… down.”

He clutched tighter with each word, until the moment a machinery crash rang through the air, a spotlight shone casting his pale skin in ghostly pallor, and with one savage motion, he threw me down into the grinding machinery below.

And with a heavy lurching sound, the machinery screamed to a stop, and I slammed down onto a rotating pillar that just a second earlier would have crushed me in the middle. Quayle whirled back to the other end of the catwalk, and I dragged myself up over the edge of the machinery pit to where a figure stood at the circuit box, the emergency stop lever pulled. A spotlight swung on a trolley, glistening on the metal, and reflected to light her face.

Yulia.

“That’s enough, Blackbird,” she said, a gun pointed towards him. “I’m afraid you’ve become inconvenient.”

“Yulia Mikhailovna,” he said, speaking slowly. “So, you’ve decided to help these feral strays.”

“I’m on orders to make sure the South Yard doesn’t end up in Blackbird hands,” she said. “And that means protecting Elaine. Even from you. And even if that means working with Vera.”

Heavy footsteps clanged from the close side of the catwalk, and Petra lunged around the top on the other side, her gun out, trained on Quayle from either end. “It’s over, Quayle,” she said. “Nobody fucks with Penumbra.”

His expression darkened, drifting slowly between the two, before he let out a low, quiet scoff. In the moment where it seemed like he might speak, a shape went lurching through the night, a massive crane hook slamming into the middle of the catwalk where he stood, and he caught onto it as it smashed through the catwalk, climbing swiftly towards the top as Yulia and Petra both fired off shots, but he scaled quickly on top and disappeared into the night, bullets ringing off of metal.

Gone. Finally outmatched.

I grimaced as I hoisted myself out of the machinery pit, and as I struggled with my bloody leg, Elaine’s hand grabbed my arm, helping pull me out onto solid ground.

“Thought I told you to go,” I said, and she pulled me into an embrace.

“Vera… you’ve been working for so long not to betray the family, you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a family that won’t betray you. We’re never leaving you behind.”

Dammit. My insides were still churning furiously, everything turned upside-down, and I wanted to cry even before Elaine held me and said something like that. I squeezed her tightly, trying to figure out what to say, but I couldn’t work anything out before Yulia dropped down behind her, speaking quickly.

“Touching,” she said. “But there’s about six different organizations’ operatives en route, as well as port authority, police, and the industrial yard’s security force. I recommend we move.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Yulia Mikhailovna. Couldn’t bear for someone else to be the one to kill me?”

She pursed her lips. “Quayle is the only person I hate more than you, Wolf. And besides, Elaine would have been disappointed to see her wife killed.”

“It was Elaine’s idea,” Petra said, joining us while clutching her hand. “I hit a few channels to call up Mikhailovna and handed her over to Elaine.”

“I can’t help in a fight,” Elaine said quietly, her hand on my arm. “But I wanted to help you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Hate to say this, Yulia, but I owe you one.”

Yulia folded her arms. “Then pay it back by letting me come back to your stronghold. Clearly you cannot be trusted to keep Elaine alive on your own.”

“Tch.” I couldn’t help a dry smile, looking at Elaine. “Up to you.”

“Me?”