Kingmakers, Graduation

47. Sabrina

47

SAbrINA

I try to keep my eyes open until the end so the last thing I’ll see is Adrik’s face.

When his finger jerks the trigger, my lids slam shut without my consent.

The gun explodes louder than a cannon shot. I expect a burst of pain and sudden darkness. Instead, something huge slams into me and knocks me backward, my whole body enveloped in heat and mass, and a scent that I know better than any other.

Adrik.

He’s wrapped his arms around me and taken me to the ground, rolling me over and over as shot after shot fires all around us. Something rips at my arm, a jolt of heat and pain, and something else bites into my calf.

Adrik drags me behind a stack of crates, shoving his gun in my hand .

Without a word, I position myself at the edge of the crates and start firing.

The warehouse is utter chaos. Bullets rip across the room from all angles, tearing chunks of wood out of the crates, ricocheting off the truck, the SUV, and the rusted old forklifts.

The dusty glass panes stacked against the wall shatter, raining broken glass everywhere. Thunder confuses the sound of gunfire, and flashes of lightning blind us all.

Vlad is closest to us. He rips a handgun from his belt and throws it to Adrik, before turning his rifle on Yuri’s men, firing shot after shot. A bullet rips into his thigh. He drops to one knee and keeps shooting, teeth gritted, sweat running down his face, mingling with the rain.

It’s hard to tell where anyone is hiding in the jumble of equipment. Hard to tell who’s even on our side.

The driver of the truck pops his head up and I almost shoot him, before seeing his terrified expression as he dives back down on the floorboards, hands cradled behind his head.

I see Yuri’s body sprawled like a rag doll on the ramp. That’s when I realize Adrik fired over my shoulder, hitting his partner in the face.

The Wolfpack are wearing vests. Most of Yuri’s men are not, except the one dressed in military gear. He changes positions like a trained soldier, his aim terrifyingly good. Hakim pokes his head around the trunk of the SUV for a fraction of a second and the soldier nails him in the shoulder. Hakim drops to the ground.

Andrei roars with rage, emptying his clip at the soldier, only to take a bullet in the center of his vest, knocking him backward. Lucky for him— the next shot from the soldier’s gun whistles through the air right where his face would have been.

I follow the soldier’s movement with the barrel of Adrik’s gun, ignoring the hectic flashes of lightning and the freezing rain pouring down from the roof. Adrik fires at him too, missing as the man ducks under cover.

The soldier pops up to let out three shots, then drops down again.

His technique is flawless. I can’t get a bead on him, he’s strategic and unpredictable.

The rest of Yuri’s men are dropping, less coordinated than the Wolfpack and lacking the protection of vests.

There’s only two left: one barricaded behind the old forklift, and the soldier now positioned behind the wheel of the truck. The driver is smart enough to stay hunkered down on the floorboards. In the brief spaces between thunder and gunfire, I hear him whimpering.

Jasper clambers in the front seat of the SUV. He floors the pedal, slamming into the forklift, pushing it back with so much force that Yuri’s goon is crushed against the wall. Reversing with squealing tires and crunching metal, the front bumper pulling away, Jasper leans out of the window and shouts to Andrei, “GET IN!”

Andrei hauls Hakim into the backset. Hakim is pale and reeling, blood pouring down his arm. Chief helps Vlad into the other side, Vlad limping and leaning heavily, his beefy arm slung around Chief’s shoulders.

As Vlad climbs into the backseat, the soldier fires a shot at his head that pings off the car door an inch from his ear .

Adrik fires at him furiously. The soldier ducks back into the wheel-well.

He’s between us and the SUV. We can’t get past him. We can’t seem to shoot him, either, the slippery motherfucker.

“Go out through the bay door!” Adrik barks at me. “I’ll cover you!”

“But—”

“GO!” he roars.

Staying as low as I can, I sprint for the bay door. Adrik provides cover fire as I run for the exit. Still, I hear a bullet zing overhead as I drop down off the side of the ramp.

I’m out, but Adrik is still trapped.

“Chief!” I scream.

Chief unrolls the back window of the SUV, propping Vlad’s AR on the sill. He fires a steady stream of bullets at the truck’s back tire, puncturing it so the tail sags down.

Adrik runs for the bay door, dropping and skidding down the ramp like he’s sliding into home plate.

He grabs my arm and drags me toward his bike.

I hesitate for just a fraction of a second.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” Adrik bellows.

“I’m doing it!” I cry, swinging my leg over the bike, sitting with my back against the handlebars.

Adrik understands. He gets on the bike, revving the engine, his arms on either side of my waist. I point my gun back over his shoulder .

Yuri’s last, most indefatigable soldier appears in the doorway, a black silhouette against the lightning flash.

I’m waiting for him.

He crouches at the head of the ramp, protected by his vest. The rifle at his shoulder points at Adrik’s back.

Headshots only …

Exhaling softly, I squeeze the trigger.

The shot hits him dead between the eyes. He tumbles backward, his rifle slipping through boneless fingers, clattering down the ramp.

Adrik peels out of the lot.

I cling to his neck, his heart pounding against mine.

Riding backward is fucking bonkers. The balance is opposite, the road racing away behind me disorienting. All I can do is put my arms around Adrik’s waist and my head against his chest, holding on tight.

The rain pounds down on us, heavier than ever. I don’t know where Adrik is going—only that we can’t ride far in this weather. I can’t see in front of us, I don’t even know if he’s following the SUV.

After only a minute or two, he makes a sharp turn, then pulls to a halt in the narrow space between a silver bullet trailer and a filthy brick wall.

I sit up, looking in his face for the first time.

We stare at each other, water running down our faces, shivering, freezing .

Then Adrik seizes my face in his hands and kisses me.

The pain is excruciating. My lip bleeds everywhere. My jaw aches.

Still I kiss him and kiss him, taking in as much of him as I can. I want his taste and his scent, I’m desperate for it in the drowning rain.

I kiss him like I’ll never get enough. I know I never will.

His hands are all over my body, as warm and strong as ever they’ve been. When he reaches a part that’s too painful, I cry out, and he tries to touch me gently, but it’s impossible. We’ve been apart too long.

We don’t stop until I realize he’s bleeding all down his side.

“You were hit!” I cry.

“So were you.”

He points to the deep groove on my left arm.

“It grazed me.” I try to peer at the wound through the blood and rain. “Or it went right through.”

I remember the bite on my calf and examine that too, but it proves to be only a pencil-thick splinter of wood kicked up from the floor. Adrik pulls it out.

“We’d better go inside,” he says. “Before we fucking freeze.”

We limp into the trailer, the steps creaking beneath our combined weight.

Jasper, Vlad, Andrei, Hakim, and Chief are already inside.

Once we’re up the steps, Misha slams the door behind us and locks it. She turns off the neon sign and most of the interior lights, plungi ng us into a cozy darkness illuminated only by the lamp over Alla’s prep station and the soft golden glow of the jukebox in the corner.

Vlad has ripped the sleeve off his shirt to make a tourniquet around his thigh. He’s sitting in a vinyl booth, eating a plate of Alla’s fries, ignoring the small puddle of blood around his boot.

Andrei and Alla are fussing over Hakim. Hakim sits at the counter so Alla can examine his shoulder. She clicks her tongue in dismay, trying to roll the sleeve of his shirt up over his shoulder without hurting him. She dyed her hair bright green since the last time I saw her. It suits her.

When she goes hunting for a first-aid kit, Hakim throws me the delighted grin of a little kid at his first birthday party. He resumes his expression of pained anguish as soon as Alla reemerges.

Chief sits down beside Misha and starts leafing through her science textbooks, asking her questions so complicated that I can’t understand either of them.

Adrik and I sink into Jasper’s booth. Jasper regards me wryly, the bones on his knuckles resting against the tattooed molars and mandible on his jaw.

“So you’re back,” he says.

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

“God, I hope so,” he says, jerking his head at Adrik. “He’s been a fucking mess without you.”

“Have you?” I say, turning to Adrik. “You looked so hot when you showed up Krystiyan’s house … it made me feel like shit.”

“I was dying inside, believe me. ”

“So was I.” I take his hand and press his knuckles to my swollen lips. “Every fucking day.”

Adrik looks at my bruised face. His expression is so murderous that it sends a chill down my back.

“Cujo’s lucky he’s dead,” he snarls. Then, shaking his head, “How the fuck did you manage that, anyway?”

“Oh, it was so rad,” I try to grin without splitting my lip again. “I wish you could have seen it. I was like, dasvidanya bitch! And I blew him up.”

“You didn’t really say that, did you?” Jasper says, looking supremely disappointed in me.

“No,” I admit, disappointed in myself. “I wish I did.”

Adrik slides out of the booth, limping over to the jukebox with his hand pressed to his side. He feeds in a couple of coins, then scrolls down the list with his finger before making his selection, Anyone Who Knows What Love Is by Irma Thomas.

The music fills the tiny trailer, light and silvery and wistful.

Adrik holds out his hand to me.

I join him on the checkered tiles, my arms around his neck, his hands gripping my hips. We’re both so beat up that we can’t really dance—all we can do is sway.

I lay my head against his chest and listen to his heart beating, low and steady, beneath the mu sic.

Chief and Misha join Vlad so they can eat some of his fries. He pulls the plate away at first, then relents and pushes it closer.

Jasper leans his head against the window, eyes closed, expression peaceful.

Hakim says something that makes Alla laugh. She leans across the counter to brush his curls back from his forehead with the palm of her hand.

Adrik and I sway together, his heat radiating into me, making me truly warm as nothing else can. He kisses the top of my head, then rests his cheek there, his arms wrapped tightly around me.

“Did you think about shooting me?” I ask him.

“Not for a second.”

“Not even half a second? After everything I did?”

He looks down at me and slowly shakes his head.

“It really didn’t matter what you did. I can’t not have you.”

The rain beats down on the metal roof of the trailer, turning all the world outside the windows to a watery blur.

Nothing exists outside of us.

The world

May think I’m foolish

They can’t see you

Like I can

Oh but anyone who knows what love is

Will understan d

I lay my head against his chest again, hearing that steady beat of his heart.

Softly, so softly that I don’t know if he’ll hear me, I say, “Thank you for forgiving me.”

“I’ll always forgive you, baby girl. Just don’t leave me again.”

“I won’t. I can’t.”

The rain drips down off our clothes, and blood too. Soon there’s a pool around our feet, threads of scarlet diffusing across the white and black tiles. Our boots squelch in the puddles.

Our bodies ache, our heads spin. I’ve never been in more pain.

And yet I’m happy.

So happy I could die.