Page 40 of Savage Assassin

Elena screams again, and I look up to see the two men wrestling with her, also armed with knives. She’s bucking in their grasp, fighting, and I see them trying to cuff her as I attempt to get the man trying to stab me into a leglock, twisting away from the stabbing blade.

I’ve spent years training in as many martial arts as I could. I’m good at this kind of fighting, but the man is more wiry than I am, and it makes him a difficult opponent. The blade grazes my arm, reopening the wound from last night, and I hiss through my teeth as I manage to grab him and fling him onto his back.

“Levin!” Elena shrieks my name as I see them getting cuffs onto her, shoving her into one of the seats as the other two men advance on me. “Levin, watch out!”

One of them flings a knife toward me, and I barely dodge it, the point sinking into the aisle an inch from my face. I let out an angry snarl, grabbing it as I wrench towards the man I have down, driving it into his throat and yanking it out again as blood sprays across me and the seats surrounding me.

One down, two to go.

A two-on-one fight isn’t great at any time, but it’s much worse in the cramped quarters of an airplane. One of the men manages to throw me back into the wall, coming at me like a barreling giant as he drives a knife toward my face. I grab his wrist just in time, grateful only for the fact that his bulk is making it hard for his friend to get to me as we wrestle for control of the knife, just in time for another to come flying towards my face and bury itself in the seat inches from me.

“Crack a fucking window with that, and we all die,” I growl, shoving the man backward who is almost on top of me, his guard broken by the knife that almost hit him, too. I drive my hand into his throat, slamming the side of it against his windpipe, getting in the strike twice before I manage to wrest the knife out of his hand and slash the serrated edge across his throat, sending another arterial spray across the plane as I turn to face the last of the three men.

“Maybe try fighting hand to hand, instead of throwing from a distance,” I hiss at him. “Like a fucking man.”

And then I’m on him. His knife hits my thigh on the outside, stabbing and nearly sinking deep enough to cause real damage, but I hit the side of his hand with mine, sending him screeching backward as I cut it open. I jerk his knife out of my leg, one in each hand, as I advance on him, feeling particularly without mercy as I hear Elena’s muffled sob from the back of the plane.

“I’m not in any fucking mood,” I growl, kicking out one foot and tripping the man, knocking him into a row of seats. “So tell me what the fuck is going on, and we’ll decide if you die slow or fast.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he sneers at me. “You can kill me, but it won’t change anything. You’re fucked. Both of you are.”

“I don’t like fucking riddles.” I drive my knee into his balls, pinning him to the seat as I push the knife blade into the side of his throat. “I’m getting real good at opening throats today, son. It’s not an easy thing to do. Requires a sharp blade, which you boys seem to have plenty of. Like you knew how you wanted to die.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” the man hisses. “Never even considered that maybe Diego got to your pilot first. That maybe he paid him more. That maybe you were never going to fucking Boston.”

One blade still against his throat, I reach down with my other hand, pressing the second knife into his groin. “Start fucking talking. Where is the plane going?”

The man hesitates for one more second, before I push the point harder, and his face goes chalk white.

“South America,” he manages, his voice suddenly choked with fear. “Diego has a buyer for her there. Someone who will make sure she regrets the day her daddy ever crossed the Gonzalez cartel. That’s where the plane is going. And you can’t stop it now. When it lands, there will be enough men there with guns to make sure you’re as dead as you can possibly be. And she’ll never go anywhere else again.”

The last words end on a gurgle as I slash the blade across his neck, the hot spray of blood coating my hands as I drive it into him, wanting him to feel it. I want him to hurt, because it’s the only outlet I have right now for the rage that feels as if it’s set my blood to boiling.

Elena’s cuffs are plastic, the zip-tie kind. I cut her hands free, careful to slice through them slowly, and she winces as they fall away, looking at me, with a small, frightened smile on her face.

“Now you’re the one who needs to clean up,” she whispers.

“Elena–” I’m not sure what to tell her. I need to get into that cockpit, and I’m almost certain it’s going to be locked. We’re in danger still, more danger than we’ve ever been, and I don’t know how to break it to her.

“I heard them,” she whispers. Her eyes are round and frightened, but her voice is only shaking a little, her chin tilting up as she looks at me. “I trust you. We’ll be safe, won’t we?”

I don’t know what to tell her. I’m not sure that we will be, that I can fix this.

But I have to try.

“Wait here,” I tell her firmly. “I’m going to try to get into the cockpit. Just don’t move, okay? Put on your seatbelt, and stay here. Promise me.”

Elena swallows hard, but nods, sliding into the seat that I point to and fastening her seatbelt. “Right here,” she says, forcing a small smile onto her face, and at that moment, I want to fucking kiss her.

She’s terrified, I can tell. But she’s also braver than I could have ever expected.

Which is good, because she’s going to need to be, if we’re going to survive this.

“I’ll be back.”

I hope to god, as I turn away, that that’s actually a promise I can keep.

I stride towards the cockpit, knife still gripped in one hand. If the plane gets to where it’s meant to be going, the odds that I can get us both out of this are much slimmer. Possibly none.

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