Page 39 of Corrupted Guilt

Very poor timing since the guy who just murdered Tasha was walking towards me. All I could think was, “Oh well.”

I didn’t close my eyes. I was beyond fear.

Then Yuri came into my line of vision, a gun in his hand, but he was only a black shape between me and the murderer of Tasha, and my impending death. I wasn’t even happy to see him, to be rescued, none of that entered my head. I saw him empty his gun into Tasha’s murderer, but I couldn’t hear them,couldn’t quite process that Yuri had just saved my life, and so had Tasha.

And now Tasha was dead.

No more.

Not present.

Not here in my reality.

Yuri spoke, harsh and quick, and the words might as well have been Chinese. I wanted to say to him, "Help me escape. I didn't know how it was," but I couldn't organize words.

Yuri spoke again and somehow, I could understand his words this time, “On your feet," he said as he pulled me up by the elbow. “Now, Kat if you want to live, on your feet."

Yuri’s voice cut through my thoughts and terror, telling me again to get on my feet, and only the new fear of him made it possible for me to nod my head and move my arms and start to get up. The only actual thought I had; the thought that wouldn’t allow anything else inwas ‘Yes. I want to live. That’s all I want. Please let me live.’

I pulled myself up and when I was vertical, he said, "We're getting out of here. Stay with me."

I moved after him, hurrying on shaky legs, my mind still a jumble, and ahead of me Tasha’s body, half her jaw, and the rest of her face and skull a smear across the cement walkway.

I want to live.

I don’t want to be like that.

16. Yuri

After killing the giant guy headed for Katya, I fired blindly twice over my left shoulder, not caring whether I hit anything or not. It was just to slow them down, keep them out of the picture for a minute to collect Katya so we could get the hell out of there.

A tall rectangle of dim light was a doorway out of the tunnels, into some basement. I had Katya by the wrist, and we went through the doorway, me first, then her.

There was firing from behind us and voices yelling “Stop or I’ll shoot!” but they were already shooting at us, so I knew these guys weren’t seasoned soldiers. Besides, Maxim and Anton should be arriving behind them to outflank them and fire up their rear. The other guys were with them, or waiting in the SUVs or even in the basement for us — it didn’t matter until me and Katya were with them. We were on our own until then.

I went through the doorway, leaping out into space over the stairs, my feet hit the fourth step, the ninth step, and the floor below. Katya followed but was like an anchor weighing me down, making it so my jump hit the fourth step instead of clearing the steps completely.

This was just another tunnel, not a basement yet, but an access tunnel, a side tunnel, not usually used by students. We crouched under the low ceiling crisscrossed by black pipes, and made for the next tunnel entrance, and the way up and out, if I was right. I had Katya dive headfirst into the tunnel, disappearing to the knees, and then wriggling away, herfeet twisting and yanking with exertion. I paused, getting the explosives out of my bag as Katya stuck her head back into my section of the tunnel. “I have to knock it out, the entrance,” I explained to her.

“But Tasha,” Katya said, her brow furrowed.

Tasha was sprawled across the concrete tunnel up there, her head blown apart, dead as dead could be. “She’s finished,” I told her. “We’re not.”

“Oh, damn,” Katya said to nobody. She was petulant and pouting, ridiculous mannerisms, ridiculous to care about Tasha’s body when we were in danger. But Katya didn’t argue, thankfully. She pulled her head back in the tunnel and left me to it.

I went down on one knee, opened my bag on the floor, took out a metal tube wrapped in black electric tape, twisted the top, stood, and tossed it in a gentle underhand at the doorway. Before it landed, I was on one knee again, tossing the empty bag, praying it landed right.

The tube sailed over Tasha and hit the ground next to her rib cage. The doorway disappeared in a flash of light, sound, smoke, and debris. I was briefly knocked down on my hands and knees. Smoke rolled backward at me swiftly across the room. The explosion reverberated back and forth, enclosed in the stone walls. I went through the tunnel, grabbed Katya and yelled at her, “Come on!” but couldn’t hear myself for the ringing in my ears.

Katya was moving all the same, shaking her head in annoyance, she was on her feet again and hurrying down the tunnel.

I looked over where the stairs and doorway had been, but the smoke obscured everything. And I couldn’t hear anything outside my own body, no sounds other than the thud of my own heart and the rush of blood through my veins.

In the roaring silence, as the smoke puffed around us, I prodded and pushed Katya through the tunnel, twelve feet through rock and damp hard earth, until we finally came out in a basement.

This was a newer basement in a newer building, with concrete floors and plaster walls and a big green power plant humming to itself away on the right.

I moved up to the top step, to look past Katya and out into the lobby of the building— it was supposed to be an administrative office, plenty of people for us to get lost in and walk out the doors. But all the people were gone, they must have heard the explosion and the gunshots and disappeared.

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