Page 203 of House of Cards

I expect resistance. Blade against bone, tearing muscle, I don’t know. This is a first for me.

But Luis’s blade just slides right in to the hilt, and only then does it stop.

Like stabbing Jell-O.

Even looks like it.

Bile rushes up my throat again, and I turn to retch. Luis slumps onto his side, his slack expression faintly dumbfounded, like he’s wondering how the hell littleratoncitatook him down.

Smith skids to a halt, drops to his knees, and yanks the knife out of Luis’s mushy eye socket.

I make the mistake of not looking away as he falls on Luis like an avenging angel.

It’s horrific, but beautiful. Like ballet, but with knives and blood.

The knife rises and falls, again and again. Blood splashes up with each thrust, not because Luis’s dead heart is still pumping, but with the force of Smith’s attack. It speckles his face and chest with red, soaks his hand and arm.

When all that’s left of Luis’s face is a chopped-liver Jell-O mess I wouldn’t feed to a dog, Smith staggers to his feet.

He stares down for a moment and then comes back to himself with a shake of his head.

The eyes he locks on me are bleak and lost. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but before he can speak, Troy hurries out into the hallway.

“Elonzo’s gone. Probably scaled down from the balcony.”

“Fuck!” Smith drags a hand through his hair, glancing first at Troy, then me, eyes narrowing as he thinks.

Below us, a muffled shot fires.

“They’re killing the hostages,” Smith grates out, his jaw clenching. He glances over at Troy. “Go! I’ll meet you there.”

Troy races off without a backward glance, leaving the two of us alone in a hallway scattered with dead bodies. I have no idea what happened while I was concentrating on Luis, but it looks like more men must have come upstairs when they heard the gunshots. None of them made it past the landing, though.

“Zoey.”

I rear back when Smith reaches down for me, but I’m too cowed to actually flee. There’s a numbness spreading through me, color and sound draining from the world like a gray veil being drawn over my head.

Smith grabs the back of my hoodie and wrenches me to my feet. He shoves me into the bedroom as hard and merciless as Luis had been wrangling me not five minutes ago.

“Stay in here until I come fetch you.” There’s a deep frown on his face, like he’s pissed he has to waste so much time looking after me when he could be saving hostages.

As if he’s not the reason I’m in this mess in the first place! If he hadn’t caught me that night at his casino, I’d have walked out of there with enough money to repay Elonzo. He can say what he wants about grudges and shit, but it looks like the only beef Elonzo has is with Smith, for sleeping with—and then killing—his sister.

I’m just a convenient pawn in their violent chess game.

…is what I would have yelled at him if I had even an ounce of energy left in me.

Smith glances at the broken lock and gives his head a shake as he hands me the bloody knife he’s still clutching. “You’ll be safe here.”

The knife is warm, gooey with blood and other things I don’t want to think about. But I take it and slip it into my hoodie’s pouch anyway before backing deeper into the dark room. False dawn makes it seem later than it is, but the sun is still hiding under the horizon.

“I will be. Soon as you’re gone.” My eyes fixate on his bloody hand as he drops it to his side.

I flinch at the sudden fury in his eyes. Then again at another muffled gunshot from downstairs.

My hand goes back into my hoodie, wrapping around the now sticky knife.

Maybe it’s because I’m still flooded with adrenaline, or because I can’t quite convince myself this is over yet, but it feels like every shadow is hiding another Luis, another Miguel, another Elonzo.

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