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He came at me again, getting so close that the knife slashed a burning line across my forearm: I didn’t dare look but I felt my arm turning wet. I could feel open space behind me. Water foamed around my knees and the current almost dragged me off my feet. I was at the edge of the waterfall. There was nowhere left to go.
And then I heard Tanya’s voice, still weak, from the river bank. “Get down!”
There’s a trust you get, when you’ve been working with a bunch of people long enough. When they tell you to do something, you just do it, no questions or second-guessing. I had it with my buddies in the Army. I have it with the Stormfinch guys. I shouldn’t have had it with Tanya. I didn’t know her, hadn’t worked with her, and she was the enemy.
But I had that same instinctive reaction. I threw myself full-length in the water.
A shotgun boomed and the guy went stumbling past me and over the waterfall.
21
TANYA
I knew Maravic wouldn’t be dead. I’d hit him in the back and his body armor had easily stopped the blast. I’d just been lucky that the force of it had sent him over the edge.
My hands and feet were still bound so I’d had to crawl all the way over to the fight on my hands and knees, Colton’s shotgun dangling from a strap around my neck. Now I raised my hands to Colton. “Cut me free!”
He hesitated, but only for a second. He waded over to the bank, pulled out a knife and sawed through the rope binding my wrists, then did the one binding my ankles. I jumped into the river, splashed to the edge of the waterfall and looked down.
Maravic had landed in the river, twenty feet below. He was already crawling to shore, dazed and bloodied but alive. I was white-faced and panting at the thought of going down there. Maravic triggered the same primal terror in me that a wolf triggers in a deer.
But he killed Lev.
I grimly checked the shotgun, then slung it on my back and readied myself to jump.
Colton grabbed me around the waist from behind and hauled me backwards. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, incredulous.
I didn’t look at him, my eyes locked on Maravic. “Let go of me.” My voice was still croaky and rough from being choked.
“You can’t jump down there,” Colton told me, “you’ll be killed!”
I tried to pry his arms open, desperate, now. “He made it!”
“Even if you land okay, he’s going to have the drop on you!”
I twisted and glared at him. I knew he was right but that didn’t matter. “He can’t get away!”
Colton frowned, trying to understand. “He said you were hunting him. Why? Who is he?”
I was almost hysterical, now. I could see Maravic moving towards the trees. If I lost sight of him… “Please,” I begged. “This is the closest I’ve been in two years!”
I tried to heave his arms apart but he had them locked like iron bands around my waist. One arm was injured and gripping me must have hurt like hell but he would not let me go.
“Please,” I sobbed. My eyes had filled with tears. “Please, Colton!”
He pulled me even closer, my back against his chest, and pressed his cheek against mine. That low, country rumble vibrated through me. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on here. But I know if I let you go down there, he’ll kill you. And I ain’t letting that happen.”
I screamed. I screamed in raw anger and frustration, because after two years I’d finally found him and now he was getting away. I screamed for Lev, for the vengeance that he’d been denied. But mainly, I screamed at myself, for not finding a way, for not sacrificing myself. For being alive.
Maravic heard the scream, stopped at the edge of the trees and looked up at me. His mouth twisted, sneering at me for being so weak.
Then he strode into the forest and was gone.
I went limp and, when Colton felt that, he hauled me gently over to the river bank, then lifted me up onto dry ground and sat us down with him holding me from behind.
And for the first time in a very long time, I cried.
22
TANYA
Being a spy is about being alone.
At first, it’s because you love people. You start to distance yourself from your family and friends because you’re worried for their safety, should your enemies come looking for you.
Then, as the job consumes you, you disconnect yourself even more, out of loyalty. Loving people makes you weak.
When you sever the last few connections, it’s out of shame: you can’t stand to be close to anyone because you don’t want them knowing what you’ve done.
Eventually, you’re like a comet, tumbling through the dark of space, completely alone and frozen solid. That’s how it should be because, when you’re completely independent and armored with ice, nothing can hurt you.
