Page 109 of Dance with Death

Nikolai falls limp, lying across the bench seat, and Anya catches his head in her hands, guiding him to rest upon her legs. I slam the door shut and run to the driver’s side, just in time to avoid another onslaught of gunfire as more people run from the house.

We’re off and driving in no time, heading toward the end of the driveway and the gate that locks us in.

The gate.

The fucking gate.

“How the fuck do we get past it?”

“Nikolai,” Anya says. “What do we do?”

“My cell phone,” he gasps.

I watch impatiently in the rearview mirror as Anya frantically checks his pockets. She finds his phone inside his jacket pocket. She holds it above him with trembling hands and he reaches to unlock it with his fingerprint. He instructs Anya to tap through several screens and he unlocks pages twice more with his fingerprint scan before entering an eight-digit passcode.

Anya’s eyes narrow and she quietly says, “That’s my birthday.”

“Easy to remember,” Nikolai replies on a breath.

She taps once more and like a fucking miracle, the gate mechanism whirs. It slowly swings open, too slowly for my preference. I back the car up and come forward again, angling around the gradual opening to drive through as it’s still swinging. The tail of the car bumps the iron bars on the way through, but it’s just a tap.

“Follow…the drive,” Nikolai says. “Then left.”

I do as he tells me, going far faster than I probably should on these dark, curving roads. I need to move quickly, but I also need to avoid getting into an accident. If we wreck the car, we’re fucked.

We follow the winding gravel through twists and turns, hills and dips. When we reach the end, I nearly sigh in relief to be moving onto a paved road. I turn left at Nikolai’s direction and speed off into the darkness.

Silence falls over us.

We travel into the night in tense quiet.

We haven’t seen anyone following us, no car lights from behind.

We’re all startled when Nikolai’s phone begins to ring.

“Who the hell is calling?” I peek at Anya in the rearview mirror.

She meets my eyes before looking down at Nikolai. He must have tapped the screen to answer because next, I hear him mumble the name of the caller.

“Renata.”

Her voice is on speakerphone and we all hear her clear as day, her voice is low in a calm sort of fury. It’s unsettling.

“Nikolai. What have you done?”

“What I had to,” Nikolai replies, though the words come out on a whisper.

Is he dying?

How much time does he have left?

I punch the accelerator. We don’t have time to waste because I have no clue how to get off this island. As much as I hate to admit it, we need Nikolai alive.

“Youmurderedmy brother. He’s dead, Nikolai!” Renata’s voice wavers almost imperceptibly.

I glance in the mirror again and expect to hear Nikolai’s voice in response, but instead, I see Anya with the phone, pulling it closer to her lips. Her voice comes out raw, strong, indignant,furious.

“Imurdered him,” she tells Renata. “I shot him with his own fucking gun, and he deserved it.”

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