8. Cross

The Fates really love fucking me over, but this is a new record. Because I’m two minutes into a promise I never hoped to keep when the Ballasts explode, and we’re too close.

Ever wondered how massive a blast must be to throw a cement block twenty yards?

Want to know how much it fucking hurts to take one to the fifth vertebrae?

Fuck.

All thoughts of the shooter, their hesitation, the bright red dot darting back and forth between Leni and I as if unsure which of us to lobotomize, evaporate.

I enter triage mode. Staunch the bleeding, then worry about prying out the bullet.

“Leni? Leni!” On my fifth try, I hear my own shout, scratchy and rough.

She’s cradled beneath me, armored between my arms and chest, bent over a crumbling curb.

I rise up to an elbow, knees crunching on broken glass, and push the singed hood off from her head, shove blue out of the way of her face.

Softly closed eyes, held breath.

“Good girl,” I mutter as I help her up.

The air is clogged with the stench of burning metal and smoke, and I can’t tell if it’s snowing or raining chalked-stone down on us.

I struggle to my feet, ignoring the sear of a splattered kidney and cup my hand on the base of Leni’s neck, holding her still, a sinking ache slashing through me as I press my forehead to hers.

It was instinct to shield her, but we went down hard and fast. “Are you okay?” I ask. “Are you hurt?”

A pinch propagates between her eyebrows. She’s squeezing her eyes shut, pinching them tight. “Is it over?”

I drag her into my chest, holding back a trapped feeling in my throat.

She’s fine.

No. She’s tough.

No time to dissect the pride and worry swirling in my stomach.

A cracked telephone pole pitches over, spitting up blue sparks.

The blast hit hard, and judging from the flames whipping at the sky, I’d guess someone bombed the Ballasts.

No question about it, someone wants me dead. Bad enough to risk the Argos wrath.

Leni’s the one who brought you to the Ballasts, my curse points out. Didn’t she take you inside the shop the shooters just happened to infiltrate? She even took your Sig.

“Cross?” Leni whispers.

“You have sixty seconds to tell me who wants me dead.”

She blinks big hoarfrost eyes at me. “Right now?”

“Unless you have a reason to keep it from me.”

I can’t look at her, don’t want to see the hurt when she realizes my insinuation. I scan the detritus blown down the block. Spot an abnormally large body on the ground. Motionless.

Lev.

I lurch for him and stagger. My knee is shattered. The tendon, the bone. I suck down a laugh. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be.

Gruffly, I tell Leni, “Hold on to me.” I pin her hand to the strap of my holster under my jacket, and hobble across the street, teeth clenched.

When I get to Lev, I force him onto his back, careful to brace his neck. He’s black and blue and swollen, but the gouge in his throat is already cinching, healing.

I drop my head to my chin, relief rushing through me a second time. “Thank—”

He explodes in a blur of motion.

I have only enough time to angle Leni out of Lev’s range before explosive dark energy jumps to my fingertips and I catch a sledgehammer to the face.

I crash backward, barely dodging Lev’s next swing with a roll. No chance to catch my breath before three hundred pounds of mafia launches at me.

Fueled by unseen power, he snarls, grappling for a vicious hold. Each strike is precise and potent. Meant not to weaken but incapacitate.

He wants a head for a pike.

I don’t want to fight my best friend.

Straining against instinct, I banish the shadows, throwing them off like water in a sinking boat. My power roils in my blood, lashing with barbed wire, making its displeasure known.

“Lev!” I shout, ducking a fist, tasting dirty blood.

Our breaths are harsh and labored. We don’t have time for this.

He gets me in the teeth. My lip tears.

We clash and grapple, and when he pins me to the ground, I kick him off, knee wrenching. “Stop!” I holler, trying to reach him. “Mikhailov, godsdammit! It’s me!”

The sheer desperation in my voice brings Lev to an uneasy pause.

I push my palm to my freshly cracked rib. “You know me,” I snap, zoned in on his fists, prepared for round two. “The tattoos aren’t because I’m a fan.”

Slow, and cruel, the truth slinks back to him, faint glimmers of the past century.

I never know how much he remembers.

How he used to reach over and squeeze my shoulder when I provided war altering information in the king’s study. How he used to fight Zeke to switch night watch shifts so we’d be together. The countless times he’s thrown me to the mat only to stick his hand out for me, eyes twinkling as he yanked me up. How we clung together when Calydon died. How he shuddered in my arms, and how I gripped him tighter.

The apple in his throat bobs, shining under a blaze. Pressure builds in my chest. He remembers.

Neither one of us says sorry, for the same reason no mortal apologizes for their hunger or exhaustion. My shadows, his wrath, they’re simply desperate functions of our survival.

“Finally,” Lev croaks, shutting the distance between us as he rakes ash from his hair. He has two sunken black eyes, and his forehead is stitching together around an embedded shard of glass. “Thought you were staying close.”

Which is why he had. “I was. But our plans changed, we—” I stop talking. Turn a full circle. Where is she?

Urgency at an all time high, I call, “Leni!” Spin again, as if pink commonly blends in with wreckage. She’s gone. I turn to Lev, “We have to find her.”

He smacks a palm into my chest to halt my charge. Dark gaze darting wildly, voice unusually calm, he orders, “Let her go.”

Never. “I can’t. She’s—” Mine, I almost say, but swallow it before Lev detonates. “She’s got information. She’s being chased and …”

“It’s him! The Blackguard!”

Chaos erupts in every direction. Bloodthirsty creatures circle us. Weapons fly. Daggers plunging and guns spitting. A throwing star soars past. A coiled chain lashes out.

We fight. Back-to-back is our go-to. Ducking together, blocking, but never stopping. Sheets of shadows rise from the ground like mist and swallow attackers one by one, blinding them, disorienting them.

I can hear Lev’s teeth cracking under a feral grin. Gore shoots euphoria into his veins faster than fentanyl.

Hot blood sprays. Grunts and groans ring out. The angry orange glow of the fire lessens, the onslaught slows. If the mortals slept through that, they’ll sleep through a couple close-range gun shots. I reach for the Glock I swiped off a comatose Oceanid and swear. It’s not there.

Leni.

Pride sears across my chest, followed by hammering panic. Is she being attacked? Chased? What’s she messed up in?

An assassin wouldn’t tend to my wounds, a warrior wouldn’t go into shock when shot. Whatever she’s involved in, it’s not her doing. Outside forces are pushing her.

A slick burning desire to find and punish whoever involved her ignites within me. In response, my power ripples, rising into a wave and slamming down. Screams silence, and light scatters. Creatures collapse and stagger, their urge to kill evaporating as confusion digs spiked claws into their minds, weaving false stories.

Lev snarls, “Cheater,” as I skid to a knee, tremors shaking my hands, rivers of blood pouring from injuries. Stars wink in my vision. No. stay awake. Stay aware.

Get to her.

I clutch my chest, struggling to breathe as the curse cuts through muscle and bone. Three, four breaths. “We have to find—”

Scanning to ensure the stragglers properly fuck off, Lev cracks his knuckles, bruises and wounds rapidly healing. “You can barely stand. You’re not going to find her.”

Wrong. Mentally hacking at the curse, I push up on my knee, stagger, suck down a lungful of cold, wet air. “I can find anyone. Her, I’m going to hunt.”