Days of terror and cold and adrenaline and wanting him too much, too fast, too deeply. The sound ripped out of her before she could stop it. Tears soaked through her fingers while her body bent tighter and tighter around itself, breath catchingwrong in her chest, every attempt to control it making the next sob tear out harder.
The other woman said nothing, perhaps because she’d heard women break apart before. Eventually the crying wore itself out and Harper dragged both hands down her face until the friction burned.
What it left behind was harder.
Anger.
At herself for sitting here crying while Pav might be bleeding out or dead. They’d locked her in a room. Taken her clothes. Her shoes. Her freedom. They hadn’t taken the part of her that kept moving toward wounded people instead of away from them.
“I’m Harper.”
The woman studied her for a long moment. “Olga.”
Harper nodded. “Olga.”
The room settled back into silence. Hours slipped by, marked only by the buzz of the fluorescent light and the cold inching higher through Harper's bare feet.
Sound echoed distant through the building. A gunshot. Muffled, somewhere below them. Harper’s head snapped up so fast her neck hurt.
No.Don’t do that.Don’t start hoping.
Another shot. Closer this time.
Something’s happening.
Shouts and the grind of boots on dirty concrete in the corridor outside the room. Keys jangled. Harper pushed to her feet. Her pulse hammered against the raw skin on her wrists. Across the room Olga rose too, eyes keen now beneath the exhaustion.
The odds were terrible. Doing nothing was worse.
Harper pressed herself flat against the wall beside the door, her hands trembling so badly that she curled them into fists to steady them.
The key scraped into the lock and the handle turned. The guard shoved the door inward.
If this failed, he would shoot her.
Harper hit the door anyway, giving it everything she had. The edge slammed into the guard’s chest and clipped his jaw.
A window.
Harper darted through the gap.
The guard grunted, and his hand shot out, locking around her forearm. He yanked hard, and she crashed onto the corridor floor. Pain exploded through her knee and hip. Before she could recover, his grip shifted downward, fingers clamping around her wrist.
Harper twisted onto her back and drove the heel of her free foot straight into his face.
Crunch.
A scream ripped out of him instantly, his head jolting backward.
His grip released.
Blood streamed through the guard’s fingers.
Harper stared. Her foot still hurt from the impact. She’d felt bone and teeth give.
I did that.
The world narrowed and sound pulled thin and distant. She’d never hurt anyone like that before. Olga dropped beside the guard, stripping the keys from his belt and wrenching his handgun free from its holster in one fast, brutal motion. She tore the radio from his shoulder, threw it down, and crushed it under her heel.
