“Roma!” Juliette spat. Her elbow slammed hard against a stack of bricks, having finally writhed out of their grapple with his blade in her hand. Victory. She threw the blade, hearing it clatter and spin out of the alley. “Listen to me!”
He stilled. She almost thought she had gotten through to him, but then his eyes narrowed, and he hissed, “The time for listening has long passed.”
He dove for the blade.
From the very moment he raised his arm, Juliette knew he had aimed too high. Roma had always been a bad thrower, which never made any sense because he was so damn good with his bullets. But he loosed his grip from the end of the alley, and time slowed down; Juliette tracked the blade, predicting it to sail so far above her head that it was comical—
Then Alisa Montagova stood up from her hiding place, scrambling to her feet and calling out a plea to end the fight.
“Please, don’t hurt each other—” Before Juliette could think, could even take a moment to gasp, she shot up, diving in front of Alisa. She didn’t realize what she had done—not really—until she came to a stop in front of the other girl and there was the hard thunk! by her ear.
Alisa’s eyes grew wide, her words cutting off and her hand flying to her mouth.
The pain did not come at first. It never did: a blade entering always felt cold and then foreign. Only seconds later, as if her nerve endings had finally registered what happened, did intense, sharp agony reverberate outward from the wound.
“Mudak,” Juliette managed, turning to look at the blade half-embedded in her shoulder, then at Roma. His jaw was slack, face drained of color. The wound, meanwhile, immediately started to bleed, a steady stream of red running its way down her dress. “You just had to throw the one with a jagged edge?”
That seemed to startle Roma into action. He walked forward, slowly at first, and then at a run, nearing Juliette and grabbing hold of her arm. She watched him examine the wound. Even if Juliette were uninjured, she didn’t find a reason to be frightened. His anger—however momentarily—had dissipated.
“Alisa, run to the nearest safe house and get the emergency first-aid box.”
Alisa’s eyes grew to enormous proportions. “Are you planning to stitch her up yourself? She needs the hospital.”
“Oh, that would go down well,” Roma said tightly. “Shall we take her to a Scarlet or a White Flower facility? Who will shoot a little slower?”
Alisa balled up her fists. Juliette was still alert enough to pick up the clamor of the fight coming from a distance, but she couldn’t quite feel her fingers anymore, nor squeeze her own fists.
“It’s only down the road, Alisa.” Roma pointed forward. “Hurry.”
With a huff, Alisa spun on her heel and hurried off.
Juliette breathed out. She almost expected to see her breath, as she would on a cold winter’s day. Instead, there was nothing: the coldness was coming from inside her. A numbness was flooding her limbs, little prickles like every cell in her body was trying to go to sleep.
“Put pressure on the wound, would you?” she asked casually.
“I know,” Roma snapped. “Sit.”
Juliette sat. Her head was spinning, doubles and triples appearing in her field of vision. She watched Roma tear his jacket off, balling it up and adjusting the fabric around the blade, pressing as hard as he dared to stop the blood from running. Juliette did not protest. She only bit down on her lip, bearing the pain.
“What is wrong with you?” Roma muttered after a while, breaking the silence. “Why would you do that?”
“Stop you from knifing your own sister?” Juliette closed her eyes. Her ears were humming with white noise. “You’re welcome.”
Roma’s frustration was tangible. She knew exactly what he was thinking—why take a hit for Alisa when she had been the one threatening to shoot his sister at the hospital? None of this made any sense. Of course it did not make sense. Because Juliette couldn’t make up her damn mind.
“Thank you,” Roma said, sounding like he could hardly believe he was saying those words. “Now open your eyes, Juliette.”
“I’m not going to sleep.”
“Open. Them.”
Juliette snapped her eyes open, if only to glare at the alley space in front of her. It was then that Alisa returned clutching a box to her chest, her cheeks red and her breath coming in gasps.
“Ran as fast as I could,” she huffed. “I’ll watch the alley while you . . .” Alisa trailed off, not knowing precisely what Roma was going to do.
She dropped the box by her brother, then ran for the other end of the alley. When Juliette strained her ears again, she realized that there was no shouting in the distance anymore. Alisa had likely noted the same thing: the fight was over. The gangsters would be fanning out soon, looking for them.
If Juliette was going to talk to Roma, she needed to do it now, before it was too late. He had already stopped trying to stanch the wound, flipping the box open and unscrewing a bottle of something pungent. He set it aside.
“I’m cutting your coat off,” Roma said. Another blade appeared in his hand, slicing through the fabric at her neck before Juliette could protest. When he peeled the coat away from her thin dress, all Juliette could smell was the metallic tang of blood. If her shoulder hadn’t been in overpowering pain, she would have thought some stray alley cat was giving birth nearby.
Muttering a curse, Roma put his fingers to the zipper at the back of Juliette’s dress.
“You know,” Juliette said, barely stopping her teeth from chattering, “you used to ask before you undressed me.”
“Shut up.” Roma tugged the zipper down. Just before he peeled aside the dress, he yanked the blade out.
“For crying out—”
“I do suggest keeping it down,” Roma said tightly. “Would you like a handkerchief to bite?”
Juliette’s head was too light to respond immediately. She was going to faint. She was definitely going to faint.
“I’ll bite nothing unless it’s your hand,” Juliette muttered. “Raw. And detached.”
In response, Roma merely passed her the blade he had stabbed her with.
“Hold this.”
Juliette reached for it with the arm that did not have a weeping gouge in its attached shoulder, then clutched the blade to her chest, holding her dress up. She blinked hard to keep herself alert, then watched Roma as he shifted to a crouch beside her, making quick work of finding a clean rag in the box and dousing it with the foul-smelling bottle.
It took everything in her willpower to hold back her scream when Roma clamped the rag to her wound. The antiseptic stung like a thousand new cuts, and Juliette had half a mind to ask whether Roma was actually poisoning her instead. His eyes were not on his task; he was scrutinizing Juliette instead, searching for a reason, for the slightest fracture in her face that would give way to an explanation.
Juliette blew out a slow breath. Despite the agonizing pain, she could feel the bleeding crawl to a stop. She could feel her head clear up, the fuzz lessening.
She had a job here to do.
“You’ve been infiltrated by Communists.” Juliette turned her head ever so slightly—not enough to disturb her shoulder but enough to lock eyes with Roma. “There’s a sect in the White Flowers working with them, giving over your resources and weaponry. I suspect the monsters are emerging from this very collaboration.”