“I can’t wait,” she says softly, and my chest tightens at the raw emotion I see on her face. A feeling very much like tenderness winds through me, intensifying my longing for her until I ache with it.
“Nora—” I begin saying, only to be interrupted by a sharp crack outside. It’s followed by several more, a rapid-fire burst of noise that I recognize right away.
Gunshots. The guns are using silencers, but nothing can quiet the deafening bang of a machine gun going off.
Immediately, there are screams and answering gunfire. Un-silenced this time. The soldiers stationed on the floor must be responding to whatever threat is out there.
In a millisecond, I’m off the bed, the laptop sliding to the floor. Adrenaline rockets through me, speeding up everything and at the same time slowing my perception of time. It feels like things are happening in slow motion, but I know that it’s just an illusion—that it’s my brain’s attempt to deal with intense danger.
I operate on instinct honed by a lifetime of training. In an instant, I assess the room and see that there’s no place to hide. The window on the opposite wall is too small for me to fit through, even if I were inclined to risk falling from the third floor. That leaves only the door and the hallway—which is where the gunshots are coming from.
I don’t bother trying to figure out who’s attacking. It’s immaterial at the moment. The only thing that matters is survival.
More gunfire, followed by a scream right outside. I hear the heavy thump of a body falling nearby, and I choose that moment to make my move.
Pushing open the door, I dive in the direction of the thumping sound, using the momentum of the dive to slide on the linoleum floor. My cast knocks against the wall as I bump into the dead soldier, but I don’t even register the pain. Instead I pull him over me, using his body as a shield as bullets begin flying all around me. Spotting his weapon on the floor, I grasp it with my right hand and begin firing shots into the other end of the hallway, where I see masked men with guns crouched behind a hospital gurney.
Too many. I can already see that. There are too fucking many of them and not enough bullets in my gun. I can see the bodies littering the hallway—the five Uzbekistani soldiers have been mowed down, as well as a few of the masked attackers—and I know it’s futile. They will get me too. In fact, it’s surprising that I’m not already riddled with holes, human shield or not.
They don’t want to kill me.
I realize that fact just as my gun bucks one last time, discharging the last round of bullets. The floor and walls around me are destroyed from their bullets, but I’m unscathed. Since I don’t believe in miracles, that means the attackers are not aiming at me.
They’re aiming all around me, to keep me contained in one spot.
Rolling the dead man off me, I slowly get to my feet, keeping my gaze trained on the armed figures at the far end of the hallway. The gunfire stops as I begin to move, the silence deafening after all the noise.
“What do you want?” I raise my voice just enough to be heard on the other end of the hallway. “Why are you here?”
A man rises up from behind the gurney, his weapon trained on me as he begins to walk in my direction. He’s masked like all the others, but something about him seems familiar. As he stops a few feet away, I see the dark glitter of his eyes above the mask, and recognition spears through me.
Majid.
Al-Quadar must’ve heard that I’m here, within their reach.
I move without thinking. I’m still holding the now-empty machine gun, and I lunge at him, swinging the gun as I would a bat, arching it deceptively high before jabbing it low. Even with my injuries, my reflexes are excellent, and the butt of the weapon makes contact with Majid’s ribs before I’m thrown back against the wall, my left shoulder exploding in agony. My ears are ringing from the blast as I slide down the wall, and I realize that I’ve been shot—that he managed to fire his weapon before I could inflict real damage.
I can hear yelling in Arabic, and then rough hands grab me, dragging me along the floor. I struggle with all of my remaining strength, but I can feel my body beginning to shut down, my heart laboring to pump its dwindling supply of blood. Something presses down on my shoulder, exacerbating the fiery pain, and black spots cover my vision.
My last thought before I lose consciousness is that death will likely be preferable to what awaits me if I survive.
Chapter 24
Nora
I don’t realize that I’m screaming until a hand slaps over my mouth, muffling my hysterical shrieks.
“Nora. Nora, stop it.” Peter’s steady voice pulls me out of the vortex of horror, dragging me back to reality. “Calm down and tell me exactly what you saw. Can you calm down enough to talk?”
I manage a small nod, and he releases me, stepping back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rosa and Ana standing a few feet away. Ana’s hands are clamped over her mouth, tears running down her cheeks again, and Rosa looks scared and distraught.
“I didn’t—” I can barely force the words through my swollen throat, “—I didn’t see anything. I just heard it. We were talking, and then all of a sudden, there were gunshots and—and screaming, and then more gunshots. Julian—” My voice breaks as I speak his name. “Julian must’ve dropped the computer because everything went topsy-turvy on the screen, and then all I could see was the wall, but I heard it—the gunfire, the screams, more gunfire . . .” I am not conscious of sobbing uncontrollably until Peter’s hands close around my shoulders and gently guide me toward the couch.