“Noooo!” Bone rushed to him, kicking out at Cain, connecting with a knee and hearing his next shot go wide and gouge bits of brick from the top of the wall.
Cain did not stay down and just as she made it to the sill, she noticed Dmitry had somehow managed to grab it with his injured hand. Then Cain was on her, using both of his fists against the sides of her head.
She crouched, spun and used the move similar to what she’d done with Bullet the other day—she punched up…only she hit Cain in his balls. He fell immediately, mouth open on a silent scream of pain, eyes promising retribution.
She glanced out the hole and her gaze met Dmitry’s. Fear snaked through her at the pain and acceptance in his gaze. Cain grabbed her waist and she turned as he sought to push her away from the window. She backfisted him in the ear and followed it with a straight jab to his nose.
“Bitch,” he said in low voice.
“Let me show you what a bitch I can be,” she taunted him.
Bone didn’t wait for a response. She attacked. She ran and leaped toward him, punching him in the shoulder and landing behind him. Bone tapped him twice in the left kidney, once in the liver.
He turned, his big body absorbing the blows though pain marked his face. He attempted an attack but she knew she’d hurt him with the liver shot. She blocked some of his blows and the ones she couldn’t, she accepted and altered them into motivation.
A glance at the sill told her Dmitry still hung at least fifty feet above the sidewalk below. He wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. A punch to the jaw and Cain grunted, giving up on boxing her to simply take her on a bumrush. They grappled and he took her down with his considerable size. But she was quicker.
Bone shifted her weight as they fell and ended up beside instead of under Cain. She gained her feet immediately, kicking the man in the ribs, feeling his bones give…so she kicked him again.
He rolled, grabbing her foot and taking her off her feet. The grinding of bone in her own chest took her breath.
“Do not make me kill you, Bone,” Cain wheezed.
“You cannot kill what you don’t understand—it is the thing that halts your sniper, your swordsman and your archer. That pressing need you five always have to know why you are killing…that is why First Team is better. We kill because it is all we know. Stand and meet your fate, assassin,” she hissed between clenched teeth.
Her gaze darted to the sill. Dmitry’s hand was still there but he was slipping. Panic rushed in.
Cain’s glance shifted to the sill also. “You cannot take me and save him. Which will it be, Bone Breaker?”
Dmitry made her weak but it was a weakness she wouldn’t regret. If they died, here, today, it would be because she had given in to something she had never known and never dared dream have.
And it would be enough for her to meet the end having known Dmitry Asinimov.
Bone took three steps back, reached for Cain’s discarded gun and then grabbed for Dmitry’s hand. She swallowed hard when he tried to grip her wrist but could not.
“I will see you again, Bone, and when I do I will not be so lenient,” Cain said in a low, promising tone.
“Fuck you all. I will be waiting,” Bone answered.
Cain retreated and she wondered why he hadn’t attacked when she was at her weakest. Not weak due to physical incapacity, but rather emotional, something she’d sworn never to be.
Dmitry gasped and Bone reached with both hands to hold him. “Let me go,” he whispered.
“I cannot,” she returned.
“He could have been a good man but you killed him.”
Dmitry words split her heart in two. She gave him all she could. “Tvoj otets bil horoshim chelovekom. Horoshim ubijtsey,” she whispered.
“I want to hate you. My mother, my father…Ninka…all because of you…” he trailed off but the damage was done.
She’d known this would be the end. What he said wasn’t fair but life was rarely that way. She and her sisters were living proof.
“So be it,” she said aloud.
She heard shouts and heavy footsteps heading up the tower steps. Behind her gunfire sounded. She returned fire, doing her best to hold them off. It wouldn’t be long. Bone glanced over her shoulder, realizing this was the end for her. She had done her part—played her moves perfectly and now Joseph was coming.
“I want her alive, fools!” Her creator’s voice echoed to her.
“Dmitry,” she demanded when his eyes closed. She did not to look down lest the height take her mind. “I am going to swing you. The water is not far. You will fall but you will live, do you understand me? You. Will. Live.”