Gasping, I fall back, catching myself on my palms as a tall, dark figure rams into my attackers, moving with a speed and agility that seems almost superhuman. The three of them disappear back into the shadowed alley, and I hear two panicked cries, followed by a strange wet gurgle. Then something metallic clatters on the pavement. Twice.
Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
I scramble backward, barely noticing the asphalt scraping the skin off my palms as my rescuer steps out of the alley, and I see the two men behind him crumple like puppets with their strings cut off. A dark liquid spreads out from under their prone bodies, and the coppery tang of blood fills the air, mixing with something even more foul.
He killed them, I realize in dazed stupor. He just fucking killed them.
The blast of terror injects me with fresh adrenaline, and I jump to my feet, a scream rising in my throat. But before it can escape, the dark figure steps toward me, and the streetlight illuminates his face.
His familiar, exotically handsome face.
“Did they hurt you?” Peter Sokolov’s voice is as hard as his metallic gaze, and once again, I find myself paralyzed, terrified yet unable to move an inch as he comes toward me, his thick eyebrows drawn into a forbidding scowl. It’s the countenance of a killer, the visage of the monster beneath the human mask, yet there’s something more there too.
Something almost like concern.
“I…” I don’t know what I was going to say because in the next moment, I find myself enfolded in his arms, held so tightly against his powerful chest that I can hardly breathe. The heat of his large body surrounds me, shielding me from the icy wind and making me realize how cold I am, how frozen inside. The full horror of what I just witnessed hasn’t settled in yet, but already I’m starting to feel numb, my thoughts scattered and sluggish as the cold burrows deeper into me, anesthetizing me against the trauma.
Shock, I diagnose on autopilot. I’m going into shock.
“Shhh, ptichka. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.” Peter’s voice is low and soothing, his grip loosening until he’s cradling me with startling tenderness, and I realize the odd gasping sounds I’m hearing are coming from me. I’m struggling to breathe, my throat closing up as though during a panic attack.
No, not as though—I am having a panic attack.
He must recognize it too, because he pulls away and gazes down at me, his gray eyes narrowed in worry. “Breathe,” he commands, his hands tightening on my shoulders. “Breathe, Sara. Slowly and deeply. That’s it, ptichka. And again. Breathe…”
I follow his voice, letting him act as my therapist, and gradually, the choking sensation fades, my breathing evening out. I focus on that, on just breathing normally and not thinking, because if I think about what just happened—if I glance at the alley to the right and see the puppet-like bodies—I might pass out.
“There, that’s good.” He pulls me against him again, his big hand stroking my hair as I stand with my face pressed against his chest. “You’re okay, ptichka. Everything is okay.”
Okay? I want to laugh and scream at the same time. In what world are two dead bodies in an alley “okay?” I’m shaking now, both from the cold wind and the shock, and I know I’m on the verge of losing it again. I’m no stranger to blood and injury, and I’ve seen death in the hospital as well, but the way those two men crumpled, like they’re nothing, like they’re just sacks of meat and bones—
I stop before my thoughts can veer too far down that path, but my throat already feels tight again, my shaking intensifying.
“Shhh,” Peter soothes again, rocking me gently back and forth. He must feel me trembling. “They can’t hurt you. It’s over. It’s all over. Come, let’s get you home.”
I open my mouth to object, to insist on calling the police or an ambulance or someone, but before I can squeeze out a single word, he bends down and lifts me into his arms. He does it effortlessly, as though I weigh nothing. As though it’s normal to carry a woman battling a panic attack away from the scene of a double homicide.
As though he does this every day—which, for all I know, he might.
I finally find my voice. “Put me down.” It’s a thin, hollow whisper, barely a sound, but it’s better than nothing. My hands manage to move as well, pushing at his shoulders as he strides down the street. “Please. I—I can walk.”
“It’s okay.” He glances down, his gaze reassuring. “We’re almost there.”
“Almost where?” I ask, but then I see his destination.
It’s a black SUV parked on the corner a block away from my clinic. A tall man with a thick black beard is leaning against the side of it, and as we approach, Peter says something to him in a foreign language, his voice low and urgent.