Page 169 of Kingmakers, Graduation

I limp over to him, acrid black smoke filling my lungs, blinding me so all I can see is his pale hand reaching through the hole.

He hauls me through. I cry out, my ribs in agony, my right arm screaming at the heat of the burning plaster.

I’m reeling, barely able to stand. He has to half-carry me through the soaking spray of the sprinklers, out to the back alley of the restaurant between the overflowing dumpsters.

“Pozhaluysta, bol’nitsu.”I rasp.Please, hospital.

He throws a look back toward the restaurant, his anxious expression telling me that he knows exactly who he works for, and the inherent danger of getting involved in whatever the fuck is going on next door.

“Pozhaluysta …”I say again.Please …

Lips pressed together, he gives a quick nod. With my arm slung around his shoulders, he hustles me out to his car, a tiny, battered Lada Niva, more rust than paint.

“Ne samuyu blizkuyu,”I beg him, curled up against the car door, my face throbbing, my arm feeling like it was dipped in gasoline and set ablaze.Not the closest one.

He nods, understanding.

He’s young, maybe only sixteen or seventeen. Skinny, with curly dark hair and permanently wrinkled fingers from long shifts plunged in hot, soapy water.

He drives me to a small hospital in the Mitino district, dropping me off at the side entrance.

“Skazhite im, chto eto blya avtomobil’naya avariya,”he says.Tell them it was a car accident.

“Spasibo.”I push a wad of bills into his hand, almost everything I had left in my pocket.

He tries to refuse, but I close his fingers around the money and hold tight.

“Pozhaluysta, nikomu ne govorite,”I say.Please don’t tell anyone.

The hospital hallway seems a hundred miles long. It’s hard for me to draw a full breath.

I think,This is how Houdini died, punched in the stomach by a boxer. Probably a boxer less mean than that motherfucker Cujo.

I lean against the wall, arms clutching my sides, emptying the contents of my stomach on the freshly washed floors. The vomit is bright red.

He got me good, alright.

And I got him even better …

I hear a nurse shout something in Russian, but I don’t understand it. All I see is the floor rushing toward me at lightning speed.

44

ADRIK

The news of an explosion at Krystiyan’s lab makes me sick with dread.

I race over there, even though Jasper is sure it’s a trap.

The fire was definitely real. It destroyed the lab, the laundromat, and half of Yakim Dimka’s restaurant before the trucks arrived.

I won’t stop harassing the paramedics until they tell me the only two bodies carried out were male.

The relief that sweeps over me is more enervating than reassuring. It takes the strength out of my legs, I have to sit down.

“More of Sabrina’s work?” Jasper mutters, surveying the wreckage of the buildings.

“Why would she burn the lab? Krystiyan was already dead. And who were the men in there with her?”

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