Bone Deep(52)

Her gaze darted to the sill. Dmitry’s hand was still there but he was slipping. Panic rushed in.

Cain’s glance shifted to the sill also. “You cannot take me and save him. Which will it be, Bone Breaker?”

Dmitry made her weak but it was a weakness she wouldn’t regret. If they died, here, today, it would be because she had given in to something she had never known and never dared dream have.

And it would be enough for her to meet the end having known Dmitry Asinimov.

Bone took three steps back, reached for Cain’s discarded gun and then grabbed for Dmitry’s hand. She swallowed hard when he tried to grip her wrist but could not.

“I will see you again, Bone, and when I do I will not be so lenient,” Cain said in a low, promising tone.

“Fuck you all. I will be waiting,” Bone answered.

Cain retreated and she wondered why he hadn’t attacked when she was at her weakest. Not weak due to physical incapacity, but rather emotional, something she’d sworn never to be.

Dmitry gasped and Bone reached with both hands to hold him. “Let me go,” he whispered.

“I cannot,” she returned.

“He could have been a good man but you killed him.”

Dmitry words split her heart in two. She gave him all she could. “Tvoj otets bil horoshim chelovekom. Horoshim ubijtsey,” she whispered.

“I want to hate you. My mother, my father…Ninka…all because of you…” he trailed off but the damage was done.

She’d known this would be the end. What he said wasn’t fair but life was rarely that way. She and her sisters were living proof.

“So be it,” she said aloud.

She heard shouts and heavy footsteps heading up the tower steps. Behind her gunfire sounded. She returned fire, doing her best to hold them off. It wouldn’t be long. Bone glanced over her shoulder, realizing this was the end for her. She had done her part—played her moves perfectly and now Joseph was coming.

“I want her alive, fools!” Her creator’s voice echoed to her.

“Dmitry,” she demanded when his eyes closed. She did not to look down lest the height take her mind. “I am going to swing you. The water is not far. You will fall but you will live, do you understand me? You. Will. Live.”

He opened his eyes as far as the swollen tissue would allow and she was able to see a slice of blue. Then his split lips curved. “I do not swim.”

She had no more ammunition and couldn’t reload if she did. Another shot rent the air, this one biting into the muscle of her thigh. She grunted and made the mistake of looking down. They were so high and suddenly she was back on the cliff in Arequipa. Another shot, this one with a rubber bullet right to her shoulder. That arm went dead and she dropped the gun, switching to hold him with her left arm.

“Let me go,” Dmitry whispered.

Always the height taunted her. “The ropes will hold,” she answered and realized she was talking to her past. She shook off her reverie and grimaced.

“I have done all I can, Asinimov. I am sorry for not telling you of your father or your mother.” Her grip was slipping. “Live for revenge, moye.”

The men behind her were yelling for her stop.

She wasn’t going anywhere. Not now.

“Bone Breaker, child, it is time to come home,” the black-eyed man said. Joseph was here. There was no such thing as hope any longer.

She closed her eyes, accepted her lot and looked once more into Dmitry’s eyes.

“You will tell my sisters,” her voice broke, tears streaming down her face, “you will tell them that I am going home but I will remember them forever. I will see you on the other side, da?”

Bone used all the strength left her, bones grinding, pain overwhelming her, and swung him out as far as she could from the tower’s face, making sure he would hit the water. When she could do no more, she let him go. Their gazes met once more and she saw everything she could have had disappearing. He hit the water, remained still for several moments and then he swam down, deep into the frigid waters of the Moscow River. He would live.

Bone turned, went to her knees and did something she hadn’t done since before her parents gave her up to Joseph. She prayed.

She prayed to the God of her fathers for the end.





Chapter Fifteen


He woke in a blinding rush of pain, his dreams following him into wakefulness, the brush of them against his mind cruel and cutting. Her hazel eyes haunted him. Her words ripped through him with every breath. You. Will. Live.

She was gone. Bone had been taken by Joseph and though he wanted to hate her for her lies and subterfuge, all Dmitry knew was fear. It ate at his insides like worms, gnawing and rabid. She had given her life for his.

I will see you on the other side, da?

She was gone and he wanted her back. For what he didn’t know.

“She is in Arequipa, Asinimov,” a soft voice said from the dark corner of his room.

Somehow, someway, Grant Fielding had been in a boat on the Moscow River. He tracked Dmitry after he’d fallen into the murky water and dragged him up, saving him. Now he was back in Virginia recuperating. But Bone wasn’t here.

“Did you hear me, Russian?” she asked and Dmitry thought her voice truly lovely. It didn’t have the husky quality of Bone’s, the ancient tones of Arrow, or the deadly threat of Bullet’s, but it was still lovely.