“He is ours,” Bone said again. She walked to stand over the woman, grabbing her head in her hands and forcing her look up. “I am sorry,” she whispered on a broken breath.
“You are a killer and as such show no mercy,” Nameless responded, her blue gaze narrowed and filled with pain that had festered for years and years.
“I buried him in the bone yard beside the rest of ours. I did not name him so he remains as you…nameless. I have suffered every day for that single life I took. Accident or not, his death weighs on my soul. You could not hope to punish me any more than I’ve punished myself,” Bone said in her ear.
“I want to kill you.”
“You will not. And you will leave my sisters and the boy alone. You think Joseph is yours to take but he is not. Did you not give yourself to him, taunt him with your childish body until he took what you were offering?”
Nameless gasped and Bone had her affirmation.
“You did. You saw a way to survive and while I will not judge you for that, I will say to you what is given freely cannot be used to justify vengeance. I am not saying you do not deserve it, simply that it is not yours any longer.”
“You do not know…” Nameless began.
Bone squeezed and a gun cocked.
“Let her go.”
His rough voice sent both thrill and foreboding through her.
Nameless smiled and something in the curve of her lips made Bone’s blood freeze. So familiar was that curve, so memorable those eyes.
“Did Blade ever see you as a child?” Bone asked the woman.
“No.”
A simple answer and yet it created a bevy of questions.
“I said, let her go,” Dmitry bit out in a hard voice.
Bone raised her gaze to see him standing feet from them. “You would kill me now, Asinimov?”
His conflict was on his face. “You do not understand…”
“You do not know…you do not understand…one would think I’m an imbecile not to see the truth in front of me,” Bone retorted viciously. To the woman whose head and life she held in her hands she asked, “What was your given name?”
The woman smiled full out now. Bone whispered the name even as the woman spoke it aloud, “Ninka.”
Dmitry took a step and Bone speared him with her gaze. “Do not move, Asinimov. I hold her in my hands and you know I’m a death-dealer.”
Shock rolled in a great wave through Bone. It was not possible. She had buried Ninka in the bone yard. She had watched the life drain from her eyes after Julio had broken her body
“You are not her,” Bone said ruthlessly, squeezing even harder.
“Do not hurt her, Bone!” Dmitry yelled.
The report of his shot made her ears ring. The dust from his bullet hitting the ground beside her feet was testament he would shoot her.
He would shoot her for a dead woman.
“I am her,” Nameless murmured, smile in place. “Go ahead, Bone Breaker, kill me. Take my life once more and leave me in peace.”
“Let her go, Bone. I will not let you kill her,” Dmitry demanded.
Her gaze dropped to the woman. Her sisters could not have anticipated this and would be devastated. Ninka lived? Their reason for vengeance—their entire reason for putting each foot in front of the other for the entirety of their years was alive? No. It was impossible.
Yet the truth was indeed in front of her.
Another shot, this one winging her thigh, close to where she’d taken a grazing shot in Virginia.
This must be what betrayal felt like.
She met his blue-blue eyes and in them was pain but also conviction. He would kill her if he had to in order to save the woman she held.
“You would do this then?” she asked in a broken voice.
Where was her rage? Where was her lust to kill? Where were all the things that made Bone a killer when she needed them most?
“I will,” he responded and in his tone was affirmation.
Bone rose, dropping the woman to the ground and taking a step back. She held her hands opened wide. “You should have left me in Minton’s ropes. It would have been an easier end,” she told him.
“Leave,” he told her, “and I will not follow you. Not yet.”
She shook her head, the pain she’d been begging for nearly sweeping her off her feet. “Do not follow me at all. We will end it here.”
“I will not fight you,” he bellowed.
She took another step back, then another. Birds took flight from the canopy, disturbed from their night nests by his vehement denial.
“He’s coming,” Nameless said softly. “I can feel him.”
Bone glanced at the woman who still lay on the ground. Dmitry ran to her, helping her stand.
It was over.
“Run,” Dmitry said. “I will find you.”
“Do not seek me, Asinimov. All you will find is death,” she promised.
Joseph was coming, the sound of jeeps heading up the pass sounded clearly. Dmitry headed into the forest with Nameless.
Bone did not rub the ache in her chest. She did not allow herself to break. She put one foot in front of the other as she had always done and she made her way from the cabin, away from her past, away from Arequipa.