I pressed harder into Luka’s solid, reassuring body, winding my arms around him. The exhaustion and the fear, the hopelessness of our situation—it all weighed me down like heavy chunks of ice, pushing me beneath the dark water.
Luka’s hand stroked comfortingly through my hair...and I slept.
I had happy, brightly-colored dreams of Luka and me together somewhere—New York, maybe. We did all the things couples are supposed to do: running through parks, rolling over and over each other in the grass. Birthday parties. Roller coasters. But the dreams kept being invaded by men with guns.
I woke, but I didn’t open my eyes immediately. I didn’t want to face up to the reality of what was happening. The dreams only made it worse—they were a world I’d left behind when I’d joined this new society based on violence and fear, honor and respect. People like Luka—people like us—didn’t get to have lives like that.
Luka nudged me in the ribs. “Trouble,” he whispered in my ear.
I opened my eyes and sat up and he shook out the stiffness in his arm—he’d been holding me cuddled into his side, my head on his shoulder, for an hour or more. He was staring through the window as we pulled into a station. Police officers were waiting for the train, watching who got off.
“This is the edge of the city,” Luka whispered. “Adam must have them looking for us. We can’t get out of Moscow. We’re trapped.”
We took the metro back into the city and went up into the streets. With the stations and presumably the roads out of the city under surveillance, we’d have to hole up in the center while we figured out what we were going to do. But, as soon as we got above ground, Luka swore under his breath and nodded ahead of us. One of Ralavich’s men, marching determinedly towards us. We turned and there was another one behind and more getting out of a car across the street. Between them and the police, they had the whole city locked down.
Luka pulled me towards the street. I didn’t know what he had in mind until he pulled open the door of a man’s car and pointed his gun at him. The man scuttled out, hands over his head, and Luka pushed me into the driver’s seat.
I stared at the steering wheel in horror. I hadn’t driven since the crash. Luka flung himself into the passenger seat. “I can’t,” I told him. It was night. Snow was falling. I was going to have a full-on flashback. Just being in a car might not be enough to trigger it, anymore, but this combination of stress and fear sure as hell would. And if I had a flashback at the wheel, we could both be killed.
Luka grabbed my head between his hands. “You have to,” he said, waving the gun. “I have to shoot.”#p#分页标题#e#
My eyes bugged out. Shoot?! Shit! Shit shit shit shit—
My whole body was stiff with tension. I clumsily put the car into gear, then tentatively pressed the gas. We shot forward and smashed into the car in front. Luka swore.
“I told you!” I snapped. Ralavich’s men were running towards us, now.
An irate driver climbed out of the car ahead of us. Luka pointed the gun at him and he climbed back in.
There was a bang and a crash of shattering glass. Bits of the rear window were in my hair.
“Arianna!” Luka’s voice was commanding and calm despite the chaos. “We have to go! Now!”
I hauled on the wheel and pulled out into traffic, drawing honks and shouts. I prayed and floored the gas. We screamed forward, pinballing off parked cars but pulling away from the car behind us. For a moment, I thought it was going to be okay. Maybe I really was healed.
Then a corner came up, way too fast, and we slipped and skidded on the hard-packed snow. The past rushed up to meet me, the horrible feeling of the wheels leaving the ground.
I could feel the memories rushing up to engulf me, bright and sharp as the day of the crash. The feel of the seat under me. The creak and crunch of tortured metal. I squeezed my eyes closed but it was too late. I was with my parents, the car skidding towards the cliff—
“Arianna!” It was Luka. “Stay with me!”
I focused on his voice, on the exquisite, perfect solidness of him, my anchor in the here and now. I opened my eyes and I was out of the flashback and back in Moscow.
I hauled on the wheel and managed to get us round the corner, though we clipped a parked truck. Luka gripped my arm hard, keeping me in the present. He was firing out of the window with the other hand.
I sped through the twisting streets. There were several loud gunshots, but all I could do was stare at the road ahead, go as fast as I could and pray a bullet didn’t hit me in the back of the head. After a few more corners, the sound of the car chasing us seemed to fade.