Zhukov's Dogs (37 page)

I took hold of Val’s hand, begging him to ignore it, begging for this all to be a bad dream. “Val, please! Listen to me!”

“
Governor Granne informed me that, as of this evening, Zhukov is still in the city
—”

“I wanted to tell you, but—”

“
An ongoing investigation has revealed evidence of treachery—”

“I wasn’t—I’m not a—Val, look at me! Let me explain!”

Val did not want to listen. Not to Aiden and certainly not to me. He turned quickly toward me, and I saw the gun in his other hand come up. I released his hand and shoved the gun off its path as it fired. Anya screamed. The bullet hit the metal wall over my shoulder with a loud clang. I glanced at it then hastily back to Val.

“
Zhukov should be treated as a threat.”

There was the hatred I deserved. The complete and total detestation.

I knocked Val’s hand away as he fired again, this time barely escaping a bullet. Another gun fired, and I gave a yell when the bullet ripped through my left shoulder. My right hand flew to cover the wound, which almost knocked me backwards.

It wasn’t Val who’d fired the shot. It was Tibbs. A quick look over the others told me that they, like Val, finally recognized me as the traitor I was, and they did not want to hear my explanation.

My gun was tucked into the back of my jeans. I could kill them all and get away. Even outnumbered, I was still a trained killer and not someone to be underestimated. There was one problem, though. I didn’t want to hurt any of them.

I saw Val raising his gun again, and I braced myself for another bullet. It never came. He was hesitating. It wouldn’t last long. I needed to run—and fast. In that brief instant of hesitation, I looked along the wall and spotted the emergency exit.

I ran from my friends; shots fired behind me. From the sound of it, it wasn’t just Val and Tibbs shooting at me anymore. I made it into a loading bay with no time to catch my breath or bind my wound. They were going come after me. I gripped my shoulder tighter and took off up the alley.

The streetlights were out, but the swelling fires on Second Avenue bathed the city in a bloody shade of orange. I lingered in front of the television screens which listed bus routes and times, but now broadcasted Aiden’s words.

“
Zhukov should not be trusted.”

A gunshot ripped through the dark. I dove behind a dumpster for cover, slamming my shoulder into the wall against the metal frame. My swearing was masked by the sound of bullets hitting the dumpster.

When I looked around the side of the dumpster, I saw Val alone. I knew how deep his pride ran, almost as deep as his hatred for traitors like me. He’d certainly told the others to let him deal with me personally. My hand reached for the gun tucked in the back of my jeans again. Blood-slick fingers closed around on the handle, but I didn’t draw.

“Val, listen to me for a minute!”

Val replied with a bullet, aimed right for my head. He was an exponentially better shot in his current state of mind. I ducked back into hiding, weighed my options, and swallowed the bile burning in my throat.

When I heard Val eject the empty cartridge, I ran from the dumpster and across the street, into an alleyway formed by a set of warehouses. Another shot, dangerously close to my head again. Val wasn’t far behind, and I knew I had to do something soon. I couldn’t outrun him; he was too fast, and I was too injured. I had to decide. Fight back, which meant either crippling or killing the last person I wanted to hurt, or bite the bullet and accept whatever happened.

The moment we reemerged on the other side of the warehouses, somewhere deep in Oxford territory now, I skidded to a stop. My hand released my shoulder and blood poured down my arm. I whipped around to face Val, pulling my gun out to do what could be the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

Val drew his gun to shoot. I drew mine to drop it.

That got his attention, but he did not lower his weapon. If anything, he seemed even more on guard. With both hands around the grip of the gun and standing so close there was no way he could miss, Val demanded, “What are you doing?”

I put my hands up in front of me and readied myself for a bullet. “I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

“Liar!”

I cringed, forced my eyes to stay open despite accepting that everything was about to go black. Val didn’t pull the trigger. If looks alone could kill, though, I’d have been dead already. “You’ve lied to us since you got here… Everything you’ve said!”

Val still didn’t shoot. Even with my gun on the ground and hands in the air, he didn’t take the shot. Slowly, I took a step toward him, thinking maybe I could get him to put the gun down, but as soon as I moved, he fired at the ground near my feet.

“Stay where you are!”

“Just listen to me, then,” I begged. “I’m done with them, Val! You heard him. He said I shouldn’t be trusted. It’s because I chose this. You! You and the others.”

In Val’s face, I could read it all. First Tristan, now me. It wasn’t like that, though. I hadn’t betrayed them. I’d betrayed the Y.I.D. for them. I needed to make Val understand.

With my foot, I knocked the gun over to him and far out of my reach. I hoped it would be enough to show I wouldn’t hurt him, even when we both knew I could still do a lot of damage unarmed.

“You have to believe me… I want to be here. I want to be with you.”

Val glanced down at the gun at his feet. His tongue darted out over his dry lips before he gritted his teeth back together and looked up at me. It hadn’t done any good. If anything, he looked confused and even more determined to kill me now. There would be no reasoning with him; I was long beyond the point of being redeemable. Turning on heel, I took off down the street, unarmed and injured.

The blood loss was starting to make me dizzy. I had to figure out a solution and fast. I could try to lose Val and head for the train station. Maybe I could get back to D.C. and play this whole thing off as a hostage situation. Lie to Aiden and the others. Tell them I’d been tricked by the revolutionaries and made their prisoner until the Grey Men found me after Aiden’s press conference. I’d leave everything behind. Again.

I made it three blocks before I heard gunshots. They hadn’t been aimed at me this time, so who was Val shooting at? I ran another half block before I could no longer ignore the sound. Even if he wanted to kill me, I did not want Val dead. Quickly, I ran back the way I’d come only to see two, enormous Grey Men, one holding a badly-beaten Val in place while the other struggled to secure a set of handcuffs around his wrists.

Something about the blood on Val’s face struck a nerve deep within me, rang violently and resonated harder when I saw the same blood dripping off the knuckles of the Grey Man handcuffing him. The pain in my shoulder dulled. My vision sharpened. I snatched an iron rod poking out of a nearly trash bin. I rocked my head to the side to work a crick out of my neck as I walked up behind the Grey Man. Then, without skipping a beat, I swung the rod like a baseball bat into the side of his head. The giant gave a monstrous roar as he collapsed. I snatched the keys off his belt with my free hand and stuffed them into my pocket.

I only got a brief look at Val, just long enough to catch the look of shock on his face before the Grey Man restraining him squeezed tighter. He’d have snapped Val in two if I hadn’t flipped the rod over to use it as more of a spear than a bat. The blunt end landed hard into the Grey Man’s throat, and both his eyes and tongue bugged out with a gagging noise. The pain it shot through my shoulder was excruciating. What made it ten times worse was seeing the Grey Man still hadn’t let go of Val.

I met Val’s eyes again, just for a moment. I hoped he understood what I was about to do was all for him. I released the iron rod and brought my hand up to push the bangs out of my eyes as I addressed the Grey Man crushing Val. He recognized me before I even told him who I was.

“My name is Nikolas Zhukov,” I said. “Lieutenant Colonel of the Y.I.D. and commanding field officer of Battalions Alpha, Tau, Delta, and Zeta… And you’re crushing my boyfriend.”

Val bit into the arm around his shoulders, catching the already-stunned Grey Man off guard and making him wail. I dropped to the ground to retrieve the rod as Val caught onto what was going on and jumped. He curled around the Grey Man’s arms, and as soon as he was out of the way, I swung the iron between the Grey Man’s legs. The giant crumpled, and I pulled Val from his grip as he fell.

“Let’s go,” I urged, grabbing his arm and running into the maze of houses across the street. We ran for almost five minutes before we dared to stop in a silent Oxford cul-de-sac. The light from the fire wasn’t as bright here, and it was a good place to lie low, with plenty of places to hide if necessary.

“We should be safe here.” I panted, one hand still on my throbbing shoulder as I turned back to Val. Without warning, his head bashed hard against mine. I staggered back, tripping over the curb of the sidewalk and landing flat on my back. It seemed Val wasn’t quite through with me, yet. My vision teetered back into focus as I picked myself up.

I seized the front of Val’s jacket and threw him over the sidewalk into the wooden fence lining it. The boards shook as he crashed against them. Val let out a pitiful, sour groan as he slid down to the sidewalk. It was the kind of heart-wrenching noise that might have made me feel sorry for what I’d done if Val hadn’t been pointing a gun at me moments ago. Before he could get up, I knelt down and put a hand against his chest to hold him in place.

“Don’t touch me!” Val snarled.

He gave a quick thrash against my hand. With his wrists still bound behind his back, we both knew he didn’t stand a chance. After a moment of struggle, he went still. Chest still heaving with shaking breaths, Val hung his head. He stared at the sidewalk as he mumbled something indistinguishable under his breath.

I spoke, trying to keep my voice low and steady, like trained to do when handling hostile targets. It felt so wrong to be treating him like a target again. “Val,” I said.

“Shut up!” He roared back, body tensing under my hand.

Everything I remembered about the Y.I.D., all the training and all the careful protocols for handling situations like this vanished. He trembled beneath me as his defiance faded and shoulders sagged. It reminded me exactly why I’d kept the truth from him in the first place. I’d never meant to hurt him.

“Val,” I repeated.

He shook his head and tried to scoot away from me, further into the fence. He shook harder now, and I reached out with the hand not holding him in place. I put it under his chin and gently guided his face back up to mine. There were streaks in the blood on his cheeks where tears had carved out clear paths down over his jaw. When I tried to wipe them away he flinched, like he expected me to strike.

I chose him. I chose him and this life over the one I had with the Y.I.D. I was a traitor, but not to the revolutionaries and definitely not to Val. How could I prove it to him? The blood on my hand smeared with his as it grazed across his cheek, wiping the tears away and cupping the side of his face carefully.

“Believe me, Val,” I begged.

He still wouldn’t lift his eyes to mine. That was fine. He didn’t need to for what I was about to do.

Maybe it was the blood loss, or maybe it was the feeling of my lips pressing against Val’s, but for whatever reason, dizziness filled my head. The taste of blood, smoke, and saliva swirled through my mouth, and as Val shut his eyes, I let mine do the same. I brought my other hand up to hold the other cheek. I could feel him unwinding. Through my hands and through his nicotine-sweet lips, he seemed to shed all the apprehension, and I took the warmth I was met with as a good sign.

Slowly, I drew out of the kiss and rested my forehead against his. I liked the position, or maybe I just liked the view. With my hands still holding his face, I tried once more to tell him the truth.

“I was sent here to spy on you and the others… But that’s not me anymore. It hasn’t been for a while now.”

“You lied to us,” Val said. There was still a bitterness in his tone, and I pressed my lips to his once more. He relaxed into the kiss, a small moan muffled in his mouth. The unexpected noise sent my pulse on a rampage. Before I could get carried away, I drew back, pressing my forehead against his again. “I did.”

“And you want me to believe you’ve changed because of—”

“Because of you,” I said, cutting him short. I leaned away so I could look him straight in the face, and finally, Val met my eyes. “It’s like I told you before, Val. I’m giving it all up because of you. Everything.”

His eyes flicked back and forth between mine, trying to sort through them for what was true and what was a lie. After all he’d been through, after all I’d seen, I knew Val was used to being betrayed. I knew how much he’d been through, and I knew how selfish I was to ask him to trust me now. All I could do was hold my breath and wait.

The silence became suffocating, and I found myself fighting the urge to kiss him again the longer I stared. I took a deep breath before offering my final argument, “I want to be here.”

Drawn out through a sigh, Val said, “I want you to be here.”

What overcame me was the closest thing to elation I’d ever know it. Val leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to my lips. He drew back, wearing a small smile I returned tenfold. I didn’t know what to say. Thank you? Now what? Val spared me from having to think about it when he leaned in to kiss me again. There was nothing chaste about this one. All reluctance, all sense of wary uncertainty was gone. Val knew who I was, who I really was, and he still wanted to be with me.

I managed to dig the keys out of my pocket without ever leaving his lips. When I did lean away, it was only so I could unlock the handcuffs around his wrists. Val had fought against the restraints so violently; the metal had cut deep into his wrists. I scowled when I saw the blood.

In that instant, the desire to protect Val became a need. Something unexplainably innate. So long as I lived, nobody would ever hurt him again.