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"Bryan," I whispered, as speaking any louder seemed like a bad idea.
"I don't know what it is, Mouse," he replied, clearly feeling and seeing what I was. "Never seen nothin' like this before."
"Is it Sergei?"
"Who else?"
And then we heard the gunshot. Not from outside the building, but from above us. Next floor up, I thought. We started running, not knowing what would face us but aware it could be an out of time bullet or a contemporary firing on a Lunik time traveller. Either was bad.
But when the surrounding air stilled, even though we were running for the stairwell, and the colours faded even further, even though the lights above our heads were still burning brightly, and everything seemed to slow down, even though my heart was racing inside my chest, I knew it wasn't a contemporary firing that weapon above us. It had to be Sergei. Or a member of my alternate family.
Because Time stretched, pulled taut like taffy, and then snapped back to its original configuration, sending Bryan and me tumbling back down the stairs.
I might have blacked out. If I did, it wasn't for long. Because a shadow appeared above me, one I could see clearly, although who it belonged to was still an enigma. Bryan didn't move or make a sound at my side, so I drew my gun carefully as the shadow paused overhead; intending to just threaten them if they turned out to be Russian.
"State your purpose," I ordered in Russian. One of the few sentences they'd drilled into me since Day One.
You could fool a lot of people with that command in their native tongue. Said with an authoritative air, most contemporaries ignored the fact that you didn't look quite right or were in a place that you shouldn't be, and automatically answered; giving you enough time to escape or incapacitate the contemporary.
Instead of answering me, though, the shadow stepped down a single tread, bringing their face into a beam of light.
"Miss Wylde," Sergei Ivanov said above me.
He was alone. He was clearly escaping the scene of the crime. Time wasn't happy about it, and funnily enough, neither was I.
I raised the muzzle of the gun until it was centred on his chest.
Sergei chuckled. "You're going to shoot me? Without reading me my rights first?"
I hesitated. He, of course, pounced.
And the gun went off, the sound of it reverberating around the stairwell.
