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I scrambled up the embankment and stumbled into the street. I heard the shout before I saw the figures rising from the darkness. Pelting towards me with the barrels of their guns glistening. My finger itched to point my rifle and pull the trigger, to mow as many of them down as I could.
Duran’s words ran through my mind in a loop.
Don’t make Olivia a widow.
I whirled and ran.
They pursued me down the road, bullets striking the pavement in my wake. I burst back into the yard and headed directly for the north side of the house, where the shadows would keep me safe from their guns.
They hesitated, clearly nervous about running out into the open. Ahmed fired a warning shot over the lawn. I saw the shadow of his head and shoulders and I heard the crack of his rifle. Grass sprayed where the bullet tore through earth.
I seized my chance and sprinted into the safety of the north side of the house. My body hit the wall and my head fell back. My lungs screamed for air.
Ahmed fired another warning shot. And all hell broke loose. Bullets whizzed up at the roof and down onto the soldiers on the ground. I stayed where I was, pasted to the house. My heart hammering against my ribs so hard it lifted my t-shirt.
The bullets pelted the ground just beyond where I stood. I knew I was public enemy number one in this moment. They would abandon all other targets for a chance at a shot at me. I glanced up, the smell of hot metal and bullets filling my nose.
Perhaps that was just the blood spilling over the ground.
Olivia’s flowers would never grow here again.
My mouth was dry, but my senses were as sharp as ever. If I could draw the men out across the yard to the open area at the edge of the river, Ahmed and Viktor could pick them off in less than a minute.
I could do this.
I just had to keep from getting gunned down.
Right on cue, a bullet whizzed by overhead and killed the floodlight. The sudden plunge into shadow was all I needed to break from the corner of the house and run through the gap in the trees. There was a shout from the yard and the soldiers surged behind me, forcing us through the narrow opening.
Perfect. They couldn’t shoot past it, so they had to move through it to get to the clearing on the other side. The same clearing I was now running across faster than I’d ever moved in my life.
My lungs screamed. No amount of time in the gym or working on the island could have prepared me for this kind of strain. Not to mention, I was almost fifty and I could feel the multiple injuries I’d collected over the years begging for relief.
This was my last run.
Literally.
Bullets peppered the ground and flew by my head. Up ahead, there was nothing but darkness and the cliff’s edge over the river. Someone cried out behind me and I heard a body fall, but I didn’t turn.
I’d fucked the timing up. There were too many soldiers and not enough space to run to keep them out in the open. The edge of the cliff loomed up ahead. I didn’t have enough ground to cover. I would reach the edge and the soldiers would kill me before the snipers could take them out.
There was nowhere to go but over the edge.
I could do this with a clean dive. I’d jumped from much higher places and lived.
So I went. My boots left the rocky cliff and my body moved instinctively as I dived into the darkness. Falling, arcing through the night.
Pain exploded out of nowhere and broke me out of my dive. Like the hand of God had struck me out of the sky and sent me spiraling.
The burn was somewhere in my stomach.
I’d been shot. I knew the feeling well.
Stars burst like fireworks in my eyes. I plunged into cold darkness, twisting and falling through space. Olivia’s face swam before my eyes. Pale, eyes round, mouth parted. Looking up at me on our wedding night with the hope that she could trust me.
That vision shimmered, replaced by my wife on her back as she labored through the birth of our firstborn. I’d held her head for her, I’d pulled her body back against mine, I’d entwined my hands with hers while she cried in pain.
My body hit the water and shock burst through me like I’d collided with pavement. My arms and legs went limp and I flipped onto my back. Water poured into my nose and lungs, dragging me down, the faint, pale moon dwindling above.
