But I don’t stop. I leap over the table, shooting toward his gun and then his head. His body jerks back when I land on top of him. Digging my knees into his shoulders to hold him steady, I wrench his head to the left and snap his spinal cord.
I grab his gun and spin on my foot to shoot a hole in the French doors. The bullet cracks between the frame, and I waste no time throwing a chair through the fracturing glass. I dive through the jagged opening, uncaring that sharp edges gouge my arms and back. Inside are three more guards. My side is singed by a passing bullet, but I manage to roll out of the way behind a large wooden cabinet before my body takes any more damage.
The three guards fire on the cabinet, and wood slivers blow by my face. The cabinet, however, must be made of inch-thick wood, because I can’t move the damn thing but the bullets aren’t hitting me, either. My cover won’t hold long.
I lean around the side, shooting twice for cover, to take stock of my situation. There is a dining room table, six chairs, and this giant wooden monolith. Beyond the dining room is the living area with a sofa and two side chairs flanking a television. Two of the men must be hunkered down behind the sofa. The third has crept into the dining room. His bad luck, because I pick him off.
A crunch on the glass outside has me spinning around but it’s just Norse. I hold up two fingers and jerk my head toward the sofa.
He motions that he’ll cover me and I surge forward. The two men rise when they hear me but either I or Norse pick them both off.
The outer rooms are completely empty.
None of the bodies are Fouquet or Duval.
I turn toward Norse and gesture my gun toward the closed bedroom door. There’s no sound in there at all. The silence is ominous. Norse positions himself on the left side as I kick the door open.
Duval is shoving things into a bag set on the side of the bed. He raises his gun toward us but Norse has a bullet in his shoulder before Duval can even pull the trigger. Duval gets two shots off. I dive for the floor, sliding across the slick surface. I rise on a knee and shoot twice more in the gut. The gun falls from Duval’s hand and he slides down the wall, leaving a slick trail of blood behind. His dead eyes stare at me.
At the foot of the bed lies a thin blond-haired woman slumped over another body—Ava!
Fuck.
There is so much blood. It’s a river, staining the bamboo flooring and flowing away from the two bodies.
I scramble forward and lift Rose off and place her on the bed. Norse comes over.
“Dead,” he says but I barely hear him. Ava’s eyes are closed but fluttering and there’s a slight rise and fall to her chest. She’s alive. Relief makes me dizzy and I clutch her tighter to me. She whimpers in an obvious sound of pain.
“Ava. What has he done to you?” The urge to kill Duval again nearly has me on my feet, but Ava needs me now. The blood is soaked into her uniform, turning the blue dress nearly black. I don’t know what is from her and what is from Rose. When I roll her to her back, she cries out in pain and I see that she is clutching her shoulder.
“Is that the only place she’s shot?” Norse asks, on his knees beside me. I shake my head. He has a pillow from the bed and presses it against the wound. Ava screams at the pressure. With shaking hands, I run them over her body but see no other entry or exit wounds.
“I think that’s it,” I say, nudging the big blond aside. “See if there’s a first aid kit in the bathroom.”
“Stop hurting me,” Ava cries.
“I’m sorry, baby. We have to stop the bleeding. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” Footsteps behind me have me whirling around, but it’s just Norse. He drops the first aid kit in my hands. “Not much there for her.”
He’s right. There are a few bandages, tape, and a bottle of topical antibacterial ointment, but Ava’s going to need more care, particularly if she wants to use her arm in the future.
“Has the jet been chartered?”
“Yeah, there’s one at the airport.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here. Round every one up. Find us some cars and let’s go.”
Norse rushes off. With the kit, I have just enough to clean off the wound and bandage it. I babble nonsensical words as she twitches, moans, and weeps under my ministrations. I need a fucking morphine shot for her.
“I’m sorry, baby. This is going to stop hurting. I promise. We’re going to get you somewhere safe and take good care of you.”
Her breath becomes increasingly shallow and her skin begins to take on an ugly blue cast. Too much blood loss, my panicked mind tells me. This is the result of the curse. I kill those that I love. No matter how many people I try to save, I’m still the bringer of death, the killer of lives. Dread drives me into my mother’s native tongue. I plead with her to stay with me. I castigate her for trying to leave me. You are my life, I tell her, my one true love. If you die then I die. Do not die.
“Yeah don’t die,” Bennito snarks behind me. “We really need the old man around.”
I don’t even glare at him for his audacity because I am too busy holding her from the embrace of death.