Bone Deep(74)

It was as if she wanted someone to find her.

And now she slept in a threadbare tent under torrential rains. Dmitry shook his head and cursed himself. He’d done this to her—hurt her so badly she fled to a place that only brought her pain.

He wanted to hate himself but he wanted to love her more.

The woman who called herself Nameless fled his grasp soon after they’d left the cabin in Arequipa. She looked like Dmitry. Her eyes were the same as his. She’d called herself Ninka but Ninka was dead. He’d not had time to question her because there was another possibility but she’d not stayed long enough for him to ferret out the information.

She had looked at him, smiled a smile of sadness, and run.

Dmitry had gone back to Sydney, filled Rand, Adam, Gretchen, and Saya in on everything that happened and then he waited for Bone to show. She had not and he’d grown tired of waiting. He’d asked Saya and Gretchen for clues and they ignored him. They had withdrawn into themselves and not even Rand or Adam could break down the wall they built.

Dmitry wracked his brain and finally he remembered her love for the sands of her homeland. He started in Jericho, searching endlessly for five days until he stared into the night sky and it struck him—she’d gone to Masada.

He found her easily. And if he could so too could anyone else. But he was here now, watching over her and waiting for the right time. He could feel it coming and didn’t want to dig deeply into how his conviction had arisen.

He spent his days watching over her. He spent his nights doing the same but also took time to stare up into the heavens, speaking, demanding, pleading with an entity he wasn’t entirely sure existed. The stars twinkled back. Surely that was not God’s answer. He was being fanciful.

His kostolomochka moja had come to the place where she’d been created. He was going to delight in taking Joseph Bombardier’s life. Probably enough that the pleasure was sure to damn his soul to Hell. But it did not matter. Bone was his. Her pain was his.

It had rained off and on the previous night but had stopped earlier and as he’d not slept, he was up and watching through his binoculars for movement. She did not disappoint. Within moments of the sun rising she was packing up her tent, strapping it to her back and moving with purpose. He pulled his own pack on and followed.

It took her a half hour to come to the place she’d been seeking and once there, she shrugged off her pack and tent and stood there, so straight and still. It was nothing more than sand to Dmitry but obviously held a deeper meaning to her.

The ruins were closed to tourists for the upcoming week so they were alone in this place of history and death. He did not creep up on her. She was a killer, more versed in death than even he was, so he would not startle her.

Her back was straight, her face raised to the sun and he could hear her murmuring in Hebrew. It took Dmitry a moment to place the words but his heart squeezed once he did.

The Hebrew death prayer. It was at once the most beautiful and the saddest moment of his entire life. She was saying a prayer for her parents.

This then must the place where they had been killed. There were no markers, no blood dotting the sand. There was nothing to mark they’d ever lived or died here.

There was nothing but a woman praying to a God she thought had abandoned her, and she was praying for the ones who had betrayed her. She finished and Dmitry caught his breath.

“Would you pray for me?” he ventured into the silence of the morning.

If her back had been straight before it was a ramrod now. Bone did not turn to look at him, she simply took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Would you, Bone Breaker? Would you pray to find it in your heart to forgive me?” he asked and took a single step forward.

He could smell her scent—sugared apricots—and it made his body clench.

“I have told you, Asinimov,” she said so softly he almost couldn’t hear her, “The God of my fathers does not listen to my prayers.”

He took another step forward, her draw irresistible. His skin craved hers next to it. “He listened to mine.”

Her gorgeous honey-brown curls blew in the breeze. They reached her waist and his hands ached to feel the tresses wrapped around them. Still she did not turn.

“He listened to mine and he gave me you,” he told her.

He was within feet of her when she turned. Her hazel eyes were dark with pain. He had done that. Dmitry reached for her and she flinched.

“You shot me,” she said.

“You were going to kill her and I couldn’t let you,” he responded harshly.

“You hurt me,” she whispered.

“No more than I hurt myself.”

“I will not let you hurt me again,” she assured him.

He nodded. “I will not hurt you again.”

“Yes, you will. When it comes time for me to act, you will step in front of me and demand the pieces of me that bind us—you will try to force me away from doing what must be done. You will not break me, Dmitry Asinimov.”

Her voice rang out in the morning and it was him flinching then. “There is only a single battle I will ever fight with you again.”

Her gaze pierced his soul, rending him in two. But both halves remained hers.

He was Bone’s.

“And what battle is that, Dmitry?” she scoffed.

“Love,” he answered simply. “Ljubovj–velichajshaja bitva.”