Shock hit Halina dead center in the chest and she moved again. Before she’d placed herself fully in front of him, two shots whizzed past her head. By the time she could react, the box Mitch had been holding was zapped out of his hands and spun several yards, casting out papers like a ticker tape parade.
He ducked and Halina frantically searched him for injuries. “Are you hit?”
“No.” And he grinned. “See. If he could shoot that box out of my hands, he could have put a bullet in my ear.”
“That’s,” Abernathy said over the speaker, “what I think of your deal, Foster.”
Mitch tried to step away from the safety of her body again. She dug her nails into his skin. “I’m not so trusting. Humor me.”
He shot her an irritated look, but stayed put, yelling, “You don’t want documentation of all the research? Rostov’s, Gorin’s, and Beloi’s? You aren’t interested in evidence that would take Schaeffer off the map? Send him to prison for the rest of his life?”
“What are you doing?” Her mind and body finally caught up with the situation and panic flashed through her. “You can’t give him everything. You need that. Get the hell back to that house, right now.”
Mitch pulled her close, wrapping her in his arms. The sheer perfection of it—his strength, his scent, his fit—shook her determination. She wanted . . . with everything she was, everything she would ever be . . . to stay with him.
Dammit, that wasn’t a lot to ask.
“You’ll never have to worry about Schaeffer catching up with you,” Mitch yelled. “And he will. You know he will.” Mitch slid a hand up to her head and pulled it against his chest. Halina let herself go and leaned into him. “I’ll give you everything. I only want to walk away from here with my family—including Beloi.”
Between them, a circular spiral of heat built until she felt as if her skin was burning. She pulled back and looked down at the bright red circle on Mitch’s chest. Lifted her hand to the area on her own chest that burned and felt the disk on the end of the leather cord beneath her fingers.
“Better tell me now, Abernathy,” Mitch continued, his gaze squinting into the light. “With this wind picking up, before long your sweet evidence is going to be blown into the Potom—”
A feral growl sounded in the distance followed by several ferocious barks.
“What the—?” Abernathy’s voice drifted to her ears, far less frightening without his loudspeaker, far less menacing with fear raising his pitch.
But the sound of the barks spiked the hair on the back of Halina’s neck, and she pushed away from Mitch, whipping her head in that direction. The light slammed her eyes and she recoiled with her arm up. “Dex?”
She turned on Mitch for a split second, but didn’t even need to ask the question when Abernathy’s screams crawled over her flesh and curdled her blood. “Oh my God.”
She took off running, straight into the light, dragging Mitch with her. “Dex!”
She passed the floodlight and everything went dark. Her vision took a moment to adjust, and in that moment, without her sight, all her other senses were heightened—the feral growl in Dex’s throat, every heavy breath, grunt, and scream of pain from Abernathy’s mouth, the rustle of brush as they struggled.
The burn against her chest grew so strong, she could barely keep her attention focused elsewhere and the disk glowed bright orange-white, creating its own light.
“There,” Mitch said beside her. He pointed to the rustle of bushes.
Dex was almost at her feet when his yelp pierced the air. The sound cut through Halina’s chest and she lunged into the brush.
“Don’t move or he’s dead.”
Abernathy’s voice was raspy, edgy, cut with pain. He lay on the ground with Dex in a chokehold, where he continued to writhe and growl and reach for Abernathy with his teeth.
“Call. Him. Off,” Abernathy ordered, low and fierce, “or I’ll shoot him right now.”
Halina opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Terror hazed her mind. Everything sharp as crystal just a second ago now melted into one big watercolor. She couldn’t think.
“Tikhiy . . . Dex.” Mitch spoke behind her, breathless. “Tikhiy.”
Dex stilled and in the light shining from the disk, Halina could see him struggling to breathe. Could see his coat matted with something she was sure was blood. Rage ignited deep within her. A rage gathered from all the injustices and pain and loss. Emotions sizzled toward her center, channeled into the disk at her throat, and exited in one huge burst of energy, slamming Abernathy in the chest and throwing him to the ground.
The eruption blasted Halina backward several feet and into Mitch’s arms. Abernathy lay on the dirt, his screams shattering the night as jagged lines of current flashed the length of his body and lit him up from the inside out.
“Holy shit,” Mitch whispered. “Remind me not to make you mad while you’re wearing that thing.”
The whine at her feet drew her gaze. She crouched and wrapped her arms around Dex just as he collapsed against her.
“Oh, no. Mitch . . .”
“Right here.” His hands closed on her shoulders.
Relief washed in for barely a split second before the urgency flowed again. “Help me with—”
“I’ll help you.”
The new voice cut through the night. Deep, cool, very male. Halina gasped and froze, searching for the threat, but the newcomer was nothing more than another silhouette standing on the other side of Abernathy. The energy flashing through the major’s body had died out. He now rolled and groaned on the ground, emitting the horrid stench of burned human flesh.
“Or,” the stranger said, “I guess I’ll help him, which will be helping you too.”
Mitch grabbed Halina’s waist and pulled her back. A double pop rang out. The flashes from the muzzle of the stranger’s weapon lit up the night for those two partial seconds. Illuminating the aim of the weapon and the jerk of Abernathy’s body like a strobe.
Mitch hauled Halina around behind him. She could only sway like a lifeless doll, limp in shock.
“Courtesy of Senator Schaeffer,” the man muttered.
He might have said more, but the sound of Mitch’s rough breathing, the rush of blood rising like a tide in her ears, drowned out everything else.
We’re next. We’re next. It was all that filled her mind. That and her self-defense training.
She had no idea what propelled her forward. Didn’t remember the transition from leaning against Mitch to lunging toward the gunman, only registered the reality of what she was doing after it was too late to turn back. She was in midair, sailing toward him, arms outstretched and her mind fully engaged for a battle to the death.
She hit his chest and her body crumpled against the mass of muscle like an accordion. The ground came fast, faster than it did in the light, as if it had risen to slam into her. She was completely disoriented, turned around. Couldn’t see anything. Which meant he couldn’t see her either—she hoped.
She groped, found an ankle, then the other. She twisted and kicked up with all she had. Her heel connected at a skewed angle with his balls, not a direct hit, but he grunted and stumbled. She readjusted, kicked again. And again. And again.
Time seemed suspended, insignificant as she kicked, hit, punched beyond the burn, beyond the fear, beyond the hopelessness. Surrounded by the night, the stench of burning flesh and gunpowder, terror stretched time thin.
TWENTY
Someone was yelling her name. Maybe more than one. Maybe it was just an echo. There seemed to be a lot of echoes. And they bled into her consciousness as her energy waned.