Page 77 of White Wolf
And someone grabbed her foot.
She knew immediately that it wasn’t Nikita, his warm, questioning weight from before. This hand gripped her ankle tight and yanked.
It happened so fast she barely had a chance to make a grab for the branch beneath her, and then it was too late, her hold too tenuous and his too strong. She toppled out of the tree and landed on top of her attacker.
They hit the ground with anoof. His elbow caught her ribs and forced all the air out of her lungs. Something hard cracked against her skull and her vision went white. The world tilted.
No, no, no.
Her hands went slack and the rifle slipped, slipped…
No!
She lay on her back, the German poised above her. She couldn’t take a breath, and she couldn’t move. For one awful moment, she could clearly see the rage and fear in his eyes, the veins standing out in his temples, the gleaming black enamel cross at his throat.
Then her lungs opened and she gulped in a deep breath, and he was just another man on top of her. Another man trying to hurt her.
He grabbed her wrist and pinned it by her head, shouted something at her in German, his breath hot, spit pelting her face. He had a gun in his other hand, a slim black pistol that was much more expensive and effective than her own Nagant revolver.
But that didn’t matter, because she had a hand free, and she wrapped it around the hilt of the knife strapped to her thigh.
His knee pressed into her ribs.
And she flashed lightning-quick to drive the blade between his.
The knife stabbed the breath out of him; she’d hit his lung, and could hear it, the awful wet wheeze, feel the rush of breath across her face. His eyes bugged and he coughed, his grip going slack on her other wrist.
She shoved him off of her and scrambled to her feet, head swimming, world tilting crazily. She was aware of shouts, but they seemed a long way off. Saw movement, but only at the periphery, unable to see anything clearly but the German who pawed at the knife she’d driven into him.
She braced a hand against the tree trunk to steady herself, drew her revolver, and shot him in the face. There was a meatythunkas his skull shattered, an explosive spray of blood. And then he was still.
Someone drew up beside her – Nikita. He held his own gun, breath coming in sharp pants, brows knit together with concern. “You alright?”
She nodded…leaned to the side and vomited.
She needed to ask him about the rest of the Germans, to see if Ivan was alright, help them devise a plan for whatever followed.
But she was victim to her heaving stomach, gagging until her eyes watered, clutching the rough bark of the tree to stay upright.
A cool hand cupped the back of her neck, and to her shame, she didn’t shake it off; she needed it too badly, its solid, comforting presence, keeping her grounded as the shakes overtook her.
“Are you hurt?” Nikita asked, and she managed to shake her head.
She dry-heaved for what felt like a long time; when it was over, and her stomach had stopped clenching, the hand left her neck and hooked her under the arm, helped her stand upright again. She was too weak to thank him, to do anything but wipe her mouth with the back of her hand and lift her eyes to his.
He looked worried, but not panicked. Things were handled, then. “Feliks and Monsieur Philippe are tending to Ivan,” he answered her unasked question. “He’ll be alright. The Germans are dead.”
She nodded. Croaked, “Good.”
He pulled a flask from inside his jacket with his free hand and passed it to her. “Drink that, and sit down.”
She didn’t argue.
~*~
The flask was full of vodka. Two long sips quieted her stomach and eased the shaking in her bones, warmed her insides so her teeth stopped chattering.
She was a marionette, going where she was told, sitting down when guided.
