Page 121 of Little Blue

His body gives one big, bucking throb. Then he is still.

I stand over him long enough to wipe my blade and shove it into its holster. Next, I reach for my fallen gun. Then I move to the door. It’s unlocked, and she’s inside. With the war raging on the other side of the door, I move quickly toward her. She’s slumped in the chair, unmoving.

With the same blade I’d killed her kidnapper with, I cut through the ties that bind her. Her beautiful skin is swollen and red. Small cuts where the rope rubbed her skin raw are crusted over with dried blood.

New rage flares inside me with every tie I cut, and then I gather her into my arms.

Speaking into the mic, I say roughly, “I’ve got her. I need cover.”

“On it,” Luka says, and I hear his breaths as he runs toward the room. “I’m here.”

I carry the woman I love more than my own life into the chaos of a deadly war. Luka covers me as I run, bullets flying, into the night.

Fifty

Ilya

If I could kill Boris again, I would.

She’s asleep in our bed, her eyelids a dark, exhausted purple. Her face is a blotchy plum color where she’d clearly been hit, and clearly more than once.

The doctor met us here, looking over her thoroughly before hanging a bag of saline with the order to give her two more after the first ran dry. In her line, he pumped morphine for the pain, antibiotics for the cuts she’d endured from the dirty rope that bound her, before standing back and telling me she was showing signs of a concussion, and should be woken frequently, as well as monitored closely for the next few days.

I’d been informed that changes to eating habits, and or personality, were cause for concern. Sleeping too much or too little, not being able to fall asleep, or not being able to wake her up were also cause for concern.

But otherwise, she would be physically fine. Mentally, however, was another story.

Her eyelids flutter as I reach out to take her hand in mine, sliding my thumb against the soft skin. She releases a throaty, pained moan. And then her eyes open.

It's not the first time she’s woken since she’s been back. But it’s the first time she hasn’t been high on pain medication. After the twenty-four-hour mark and the third bag of saline, the doctor had lowered the dose he’d been giving for pain. She was still getting it, but not to the extreme dose she’d been given before.

“Ilya.” Her chest heaves with a sob. “I thought—I thought you were a dream.”

“I’m here.” I hold her hand tighter.

Wet swirls in her eyes. Her lips are still chapped, but not nearly to the extent as before. Even bruised, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“How?”

“I came for you.”

“They were going to kill you.” She tells me what she’s already told me. She must not remember. I say nothing, and just listen. “They were luring you to meet them. They weren’t even going to bring me. They—oh, God.”

“I caught them by surprise. They’re all gone now.”

All except Artyom. He’d been the only one who hadn’t been at the compound when we’d attacked. Ivan is currently in the basement, chained up, in one of the houses on my property.

I couldn’t keep him here in the same house as her.

Sad blue eyes land on mine, and her lip quivers. “Boris?”

“Gone.”

“You…?”

“I killed him.” It’s the first time I’ve told her about him. It’s the first time she’s thought to ask.

I watch her closely as she comes to terms with that. I expect her to be relieved. He’d been the one to take her from me, after all.

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