I glance at Lev, baffled by what’s happening. What did I miss? I thought Seamus was a friend, and the other guy didn’t seem like a threat.
“What did you do?” Lev growls.
Defeat bleeds across Seamus’s face. “You were going to kill me anyway.”
Lev doesn’t deny it, which startles me. As much as I can be, in this current state of shock. I thought I’d hit my threshold for surprise a while ago.
“They paid me a lot. You can take half.” Seamus glances toward the doorway. “Fuck. Take it all.”
I follow his gaze to the dead man who let us in. His toothpick is on the floor beside his head, blood seeping steadily toward it.
I feel like I was just electrocuted; I’m so wired. Watching Lev shoot a potato was very different from this. I’ve never seen someone killed before. Never been this close to a dead body.
“Who contacted you?”
“No one. I recognized the photo you’d sent for the passport.” Seamus looks at me. “I like to stay informed on current events.”
Lev glances over as well. “Gun,” he tells me, and I hurriedly pull mine out, holding it the way he taught me.
Lev kicks the chair Seamus was seated in earlier, sending it skittering close to him. “Sit.”
Seamus listens quickly. The barrel of Lev’s gun hasn’t wavered from his forehead. His hand is perfectly steady, similar to a surgeon’s in its practiced inertness. He doesn’t look at me again before saying something in Gaelic.
Seamus shakes his head rapidly, hands still raised in surrender. He’s paled, too, giving his complexion a ghostlike appearance that makes his bright hair even starker by comparison.
Lev’s gun lowers. Fires.
I bite the inside of my cheek, tasting copper, watching blood gush down Seamus’s left leg. Lev shot him in the kneecap. My stomach heaves, threatening to spew out the fish and chips I inhaled earlier.
More Gaelic. Seamus’s eyes are wild, bouncing around the room desperately.
I want to turn away from the grisly scene, yet I don’t have to force myself to continue staring. There’s something fascinating about the brutality.
Lev keeps questioning him. Seamus keeps shaking his head. Begging, I think, based on the tone since I don’t understand the language.
It ends with Lev shooting him in the head. The entire exchange lasted a minute, maybe less.
Lev’s face resembles a statue’s stony, serious appearance as he turns back toward me. “Hallway is the only exit. Stay close behind me.”
“Okay.” I sound remarkably calm, I think, considering entering the hallway will require stepping over a dead body.
We both go still as the unmistakable sound of a door opening echoes down the hallway and into this bloody, silent room.
“Seamus?” someone calls. His voice has the same lilt that’s become familiar today. “Why’s the bar closed?”
“’E must be doin’ business,” a second voice says.
“Or drunk,” another adds.
Three men. We’re outnumbered.
Lev is already in motion, dragging the man away from the doorway. There’s blood on the floor, but the ground is dark enough that it’s not obvious at first glance. Then he points to some boxes in the corner. They were either pulled off the shelves or never stacked. They’re angled and tall enough that I could crouch behind and not be visible from the doorway. But Lev will be, and so will the bodies. Cardboard doesn’t stop bullets.
There’s no time to argue, and I don’t think I’m capable of talking anyway. It feels like a fist of terror is squeezing around my throat. The new arrivals are still conversing, but I can’t distinguish a word of what they’re saying over the roar in my ears.
Lev’s expression hardens even more, waiting for me to listen.
I can hear footsteps. They must be close, approaching the last corner, the one that leads directly into this room.
