A tiny motion at the side of Harper’s vision.
Olga.
The stolen pistol rose through the bone-white light.
Olga fired.
The shot cracked across the yard.
Stepan jerked sideways, confusion crossing his face before blood bloomed dark against his coat. He staggered, hands pressed to his chest, and toppled sideways with a grunt.
The yard exploded. One of the men at his side fired.
Olga jerked backward as rounds hit through her chest. The impact spun her sideways and threw her into the snow. The gun spun out of her hand and blood spattered crimson across the ice-crusted ground.
No.
Harper dove toward Olga.
Pav was a blur—the immediate translation of stillness into violence that Harper had seen in the stairwell and still wasn’t prepared for. He crossed the distance before the guard understood the threat had changed, knife already in his hand from somewhere Harper hadn’t tracked. He slipped inside the guard’s reach as if he’d measured the exact geometry of it in advance.
The guard’s knees hit the snow.
Before the body finished falling, Pav ripped the rifle from the man’s hands and drove the stock into the second guard’s face with a smash Harper felt in her teeth. The second guard’s head snapped back. Pav was already past him toward the third and fourth.
It wasn’t like the films. There was no elegance to it, or choreography. It was appallingly fast and completely without hesitation, and it was the most frightening thing she’d ever seen a human body do.
She couldn’t look away.
Gunfire erupted from somewhere high above. The guards behind them jerked under impact as gunfire ripped through them. Their bodies fell while Olga’s blood spread red beneath her.
Ten seconds.
Maybe less.
Harper crawled the last few feet to Olga. She triaged because that was what she did when the rest of the world stopped making sense. She pressed her hands into the warmth pulsing from Olga’s body, because she had to do something, even though the knowledge had already landed. There was too much damage, too much blood.
Olga’s eyes found her even as dark blood spilled over her lips. Still sharp.
“Hey,” Harper whispered, and her voice broke on the word.
“Hey.” Olga coughed. “That was a good shot.”
A laugh broke out of Harper and turned into a sob halfway through.
“It was,” she said, closing one hand around Olga’s. “Olga.”
Snow began to fall. Olga’s gaze moved past Harper to the flakes drifting through the glare. Her fingers twitched once against Harper’s, then loosened.
Harper sagged.
No.
A shadow dropped beside her, a firm hand gentle on her shoulder.
Pav.
He set the gun down. “I’m sorry.” His broad hand moved gently over Olga’s face, closing her eyes.
