Rafe yanks me down.
Adrik comes running up the tunnel, Leo and Anna close behind him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he shouts, already taking position to return fire.
“We might have found another way out of here,” Hedeon says.
“We don’t need a way out! We just fucking got in!” Adrik snarls.
Leo takes the opposite side of the tunnel, firing back in tandem with Adrik. Anna watches their bursts of fire and the returning shots from the soldiers, her eyes darting back and forth as she waits for a split-second pause. Then she darts out of the tunnel, chucking a flash grenade over by the dock.
Even at this distance, and even with our eyes closed and our ears covered, the explosion is deafening. Anna stumbles back into the tunnel, reeling from the oscillation in her inner ear. I see her as a dark silhouette against the blinding afterimage still etched on my eyeballs.
Adrik recovers first, leaping up and running out to the dock, shooting the first and second soldier before they can even take their hands off their ears.
Leo gets the third, dropping him before he can swing his rifle around at Adrik.
Rafe stays close to me the whole time, guarding me with his body and his gun.
I feel horribly exposed, unarmed and obviously not safe from these soldiers who might know me if we were standing face-to-face, but seem perfectly happy to shoot my fucking head off from a distance.
I want Rafe right next to me. I want his warmth and his bulk in front of me.
I hate to admit it, but I’m scared.
I’ve gone shooting plenty of times, but I’ve never been surrounded by gunfire, echoing off the stone walls of a dark and claustrophobic space. I’ve never had a bullet whiz an inch past my ear.
I’ve never been so deep under the earth, away from any light or breeze or living thing.
Rafe looks down, seeing my hand clutching his forearm.
“I’ll stay right by you all the time,” he promises.
I let go of him, angry at myself for showing weakness. Angry for needing him.
“Come on,” Adrik says, impatiently. “Back this way.”
We rejoin Dean, Sabrina, Freya, and Kade, who have already scouted the opposite direction.
“This way!” Kade says, excitedly. “I think we found the cells!”
Sure enough, Kade leads us back to a bank of four prison cells with no windows, only thick metal doors bisected by a tiny slot to pass food or drink.
The electronic locks are mounted by what looks like retinal scanners. There’s no way to know which cell belongs to Ivan, and no way to open them without the right set of eyeballs.
I’m not sure that’s an issue anymore: the hallway is littered with the bodies of three soldiers—my father’s men. I recognize Jan and Borys. Borys lays on his back, eyes open, mouth agape, hands still open in front of his chest as if trying to push someone away.
Now I can’t stop the tears that run down my face without warning. Borys was like an uncle to me. He used to time how long I could hold my breath in our indoor pool at the compound, and he showed me how to make pizza dough from scratch, with yeast and flour and honey.
At the same time, I see the bleakness of the cells, and the horrible darkness of these underground chambers. I know that if I were captive here, I would shoot my way through anyone to escape.
I’m torn, continually torn, because I can’t actually be pulled in two directions at once.
I see Rafe’s obvious excitement, the heartbreaking hope on his face as we stand right where his father must have been.
And I see my friend dead on the floor.
“I think there’s someone in here . . .” Kade says, bending to peer through the slot in the door.
“NO!” Freya shouts, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him back.
At that moment, someone fires through the door. Kade tumbles backward, hand clasped to the side of his head, blood pouring through his fingers.
Roaring in fury, Adrik shoves the barrel of his rifle through the slot and fires into the cell in all directions. Then, not bothering to check if he hit the occupant, he drops to his knees next to his brother and hauls him up.
Kade is pale and reeling, but still conscious.
Adrik yanks his hand away from his head, grimacing as he surveys the damage.
“It’s just your ear, you dumb shit,” he says. His words don’t match the deep relief on his face as he sees that Kade is only missing the upper portion of his right ear. He’s bleeding everywhere, but it’s a hell of a lot better than a bullet to the head.
“I take it that means Ivan got out on his own,” Dean says, surveying the carnage in the hallway.
“Yes, and I can guess where he’s going,” Rafe says.
We can hear distant gunfire now, and another echoing explosion.
Sloane is still fighting her way up the tunnels, drawing most of Marko’s men in her direction.
“Can you walk?” Leo says to Kade.
“I think so,” Kade says, pale and sweaty-faced and embarrassed, blood pouring down the right side of his neck.
Leo puts Kade’s arm around his shoulders, hoisting him up.
“I’ve got him,” he says to Adrik.
We hurry down the hallway again, following the direction of the gunfire.
Adrik scouts ahead, Sabrina close behind him like a slim, dark shadow. She holds her rifle ready. I’m a little disturbed to see how naturally she takes to all this. I’ve never seen her eyes brighter or her expression more focused. She’s thrumming with excitement.
I, on the other hand, feel like I’ll vomit if I so much as open my mouth.
The violence keeps spiraling and spiraling. There’s no happy ending here—whoever lives and whoever dies, I lose friends on either side.
We hurry toward the irregular bursts of gunfire, taking a wrong turn that leads us into a cavernous space full of old, rusted mining machinery, vast and ancient-looking as dinosaur bones.
We turn back, into a cramped corridor where we collide with a dozen of my father’s men.
Seven Nation Army — The White Stripes
Spotify → geni.us/spy-spotify
Apple Music → geni.us/spy-apple
Our groups run into each other in an instant maelstrom, two storm fronts colliding.
The chaos that ensues is difficult for me to follow. Under the flickering halogen lights, I see Rafe fire at one of my father’s soldiers called Andriy, then grapple with Kristyan. I turn to find a gun pointed right between my eyes. All I can do is stare into the face of a soldier I’ve never met, who curls his finger around the trigger, until Kristyan shouts, “No, that’s Nix!”, and wrenches the gun away, before being shot in the side himself by Freya Petrov.
Hedeon’s rifle jams and he drops, it, pulling a Glock from his belt instead. He shoots a soldier in the chest, then takes a bullet in the thigh, dropping to one knee.
Sabrina is seized from behind, only to have Adrik Petrov drive a knife into the soldier’s chest. He rips her out of the dying man’s arms. Sabrina wrenches the knife from soldier’s body as he falls, driving it into the back of the man attempting to throttle Anna Wilk.
The metallic stench of blood fills the tunnel. I don’t know who’s winning or losing.
Then I hear a snarl unlike anything I’ve heard before. I see a man, already covered in blood from head to foot, his bared teeth a slash of white in the grisly mask of his face. His long hair is filthy, his tattooed chest bare except for the belts of ammunition slung across it. He holds a knife in each hand, the wicked blades already wet on their tips like venomous fangs. He charges into the fray, cutting and slashing and stabbing like he has six arms instead of only two.