Codename: Nightshade (Deadly Seven Strike Force) (26 page)

Nikolai remains motionless.

“One.”

My heart jackhammers in my chest.
Get it under control, Poppy.

“Two.”

The knife spins three times in the air.

“Three.”

Claymore catches the knife and plunges it into middle of Nikolai’s right boot. He jolts awake with a roaring shout.

I make a noise. I’m not sure if it's fear or just anticipation, but it earns me a peculiar look from Claymore. “You alright?”

I assure him I am.

Nikolai spews curses in Russian.

“Yeah, yeah,” Claymore says, yanking the knife back out. “I already know I’m going to Hell, mate. No need wasting your breath trying to curse me there.”

Nikolai clenches his teeth, murdering both of us with his glare. His eyes linger on me for a beat too long, and I see a shift in them.

He still remembers me.

“Who are you?” Claymore asks.

“
Otvali
!” Nikolai shouts.

Claymore looks to me. "Alright, I know a lot of Russian, but I ain’t familiar with that one. Translation?"

“It’s not nice,” I tell him.

Claymore’s brow arches. “Not nice?”

I shake my head, and he smiles. It’s not a happy smile. It’s the kind of smile that I get on my face just before I pull the trigger. I close my eyes and cringe when Nikolai cries out again. I look back as Claymore wipes blood off his knife. He’s tossing it in the air between them, having a 'the good, the bad, and the ugly' moment with Nikolai.

“Who are you?” he asks again.

Nikolai falls into his repeat mode. “Codename: Nightshade. Primary target.”

Claymore points the knife at me. “No, that’s
her
name. I want
your
name.”

Nikolai’s eyes follow the direction of his hand, watching me. “Codename: Nightshade. Primary target.”

I keep my focus trained to those eyes, feeling his pain when he cringes again. “This isn't working.”

Claymore stands up, still twirling the knife. “I’m just getting started, Shade.”

“You’re hurting him.”

“He tried to kill you. A few times.”

“I know, but this isn’t right.”

“She’s got a kind heart,” Claymore says, talking to Nikolai. “Amazing, since the bastard you look like broke every bone in her body at some point in the past.”

“MacNeal,” I warn.

He crouches down, leaning in only a few inches from Nikolai’s face. “You can’t kill her, mate. That bastard Zolkov tried. Again and again. He drowned her. He shot her. He beat her black and blue.”

What in the hell is he doing? Memories are flashing in my mind, moments I’d rather not think about right now.

“But he couldn’t kill her.” He holds the blade against Nikolai’s throat. I feel my pulse racing in my own throat. “Who are you?”

Nikolai’s watching my face. His eyes widen as I start to shake. His mouth opens, and I expect him to recite his 'primary target' nonsense, but instead, he lets out a gasp. “Get out of here, Penelope.”

I flinch.

Did he just say that?

Claymore looks to me, so shocked he actually drops his knife, and I know I didn’t imagine it. “What are you—?”

“Get out before they hurt you! I won’t let them hurt you. Get out!”

Claymore waves his hand in front of Nikolai’s face. He doesn’t even blink. He’s not really seeing me or the forest around us. He's somewhere else.

“What’s going on?” I ask, moving closer.

“Hey.” Claymore snaps his fingers in front of Nikolai’s face. “Mate.”

“No,” Nikolai says, his entire body taut as he struggles against his binds. “No! Don’t hurt her! Don’t you dare hurt her!”

He screams until his voice goes hoarse, screams until he’s out of breath.

“What’s happening?” I whisper to Claymore.

“Conditioning by way of torture,” he says. “The combination of seeing your face and being tortured probably unlocked this loop inside his head.”

Nikolai sags against the rope around his chest and takes a deep breath before launching into the same nightmare again. “Get out of here, Penelope.”

I plop on my butt in the grass, my knees suddenly weak. “That has to prove it, right? It’s him.”

“It proves they convinced him he's Zolkov, and they tortured him into submission with memories from Zolkov’s life. Nothing more.”

“Why are you so resistant of this?”

“Because you’re buying too deep into this shit too fast, Shade.”

“I am not.”

It’s a lie. I know it is.

He grabs my hand. I don’t even realize I’ve been rubbing Nikolai’s calf.

“You think he’s our old friend?” Claymore asks. He bunches the sleeve of Nikolai’s shirt up, exposing his left arm. Without warning, he slices his knife through the skin.

Nikolai is on the verge of tears, still screaming my name. It hits me square in the chest. I can’t watch.

“Nuh-uh,” Claymore says, clutching my chin in his hand and forcing me to look at the wound. “Watch.”

The blood congeals almost immediately and forms a wall within the cut. The two pieces of skin merge back together in a matter of seconds. I touch the spot, amazed at what I just witnessed.

Claymore lets go of me. “He’s not even human, Shade.”

His skin feels warm and rough, just like it always did.

“What do I have to do?” Nikolai asks in a hollow voice. His eyes are pools of darkness—a night sky with no stars. “What do I have to do to keep her alive?”

I pride myself on having few emotions. I feel all of them, but I don’t allow any to reach my heart. The look on Nikolai’s face, knowing he’s telling whoever is torturing him that he’ll do whatever they want to keep me safe…

A tear slides down my cheek.

“He’s more human than either of us,” I say, stumbling to my feet and walking away.

“Isn’t it wrong, sir?” I ask, staring through the scope at the outline of a head. It’s just a flat paper target, but I’m picturing a person in its place.

General Zolkov stands behind me, leering like the giant gargoyle that he is. “Taking a life is a sin, yes.”

“Then why do we do it, sir?”

“Just because you don’t want to commit a sin on your own soul doesn’t mean your soul is free from anyone else’s sin.”

I roll my eyes. He’s full of that shit, spouting off wisdom like the damn underside of a
Snapple
cap.

I pull the trigger, and the bullet rips through the center of the target, impaling the imaginary victim’s brain, less than a second later.

“You’re gifted with the gun, Recruit Vincent,” he says.

I’ve been here two months, and that’s the first time he’s given me anything near a compliment. I feel sick to my stomach as I say, “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t look so worried,” he says, shoving my gun so I’m aimed at the victim’s heart. “You’ll learn to like sin. I promise.”

8

Hours later we check into another motel, now in some obscure place in Ohio.

Nikolai has gone into some sort of comatose-type mental break. His eyes are open, but he’s not seeing anything. Every now and then, he whispers, “What do I have to do?”

He’s now handcuffed to the bedposts. Claymore and I sit at the tiny table in the corner, eating Chinese food out of takeout containers. I dip my eggroll in some soy sauce, casting my sight everywhere but on the two men. I can feel Claymore’s glare every now and then. He’s regretting helping me. I know it.

“I’m going to go find an electronics store,” he says, tossing his chopsticks onto the table. “We need to check him for a chip, just in case.”

I swirl my eggrolls in the black sauce, never once looking up at him. I can hear the judgment in his voice. He wants us to dump Nikolai. We aren’t going to get any information from him and keeping him with us is like painting a target on our backs.

“Aye, right," he mutters, walking away from me. "See you soon.”

He storms out the door. I cringe when it slams behind him.

“What do I have to do?”

I throw some broccoli beef on a plate with the last eggroll as I debate. The pendulum controlling my emotions has swung back around to logic. I can’t explain any of it—why he heals so quickly, why he hasn’t aged, or why he’s even alive to begin with. We’re in the middle of a race to stay alive, and he’s a speed bump meant to stop us. I know I need to cut him loose and keep moving forward.

He taught me that.

I walk over to the bed, sitting down on the edge by his side.

He cowers and shakes, closing his eyes. “Please don’t hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want.”

A big part of me hopes to hell this isn’t Nikolai. I don’t think I can survive the guilt of knowing he’s allowed himself to become
this
for the sake of protecting me.

“Are you hungry?” I ask, stabbing a piece of beef with a plastic fork.

“What do I have to do?”

I hold the meat an inch from his lips. “Eat.”

With his eyes still closed, he sniffs the offering a few times before giving in and taking a bite. He chews twenty times and swallows. I keep the fork in front of his face and prompt him to eat again. We repeat the process until the plate is empty.

He isn’t any less agitated with a full stomach. Something in the set of his jaw warns me that he doesn't trust my kindness.

“It wasn’t poisoned,” I say. “If I was going to poison you, I wouldn’t waste good broccoli beef with it.”

I wipe the napkin over his lips.

“You sound like her.”

The words are so soft that if my hand hadn't been touching his lips, I probably wouldn’t have realized he spoke.

“I
am
her.”

He doesn’t say anything else. I take that as my cue to head back to the table.

Claymore returns an hour later with enough electrical devices to open up his own Radio Shack. He sets up a mad scientist rig in the bathroom, taking most of the stuff apart only to reconstruct it all as something else. I have to admit that though I can make just about any computer program my bitch, I don’t know much about the physical components of a computer. I know the basics, but I couldn’t do what he’s doing right now.

“I’m building a small EMP emitter,” he says when I join him.

EMP
. Electromagnetic pulse. The emitter will send out a wave of electromagnetic energy that neutralizes all electricity within a certain radius of the device. Militaries have hard-ons for them in the field. It’s easy to guess why. Kill your enemy’s ability to communicate, their ability to drive, and even eliminate more sophisticated weaponry with just a click of a button. In a matter of seconds they go from Twenty-First Century to Fred Flintstone.

I close the toilet lid and sit on it. “Is that going to kill the possible chip?”

“Aye.”

The air between us is thick with tension that I don’t want to deal with. A small line of smoke travels up from his work as he solders pieces together.

“I know what you’re thinking, you know.”

“Don’t do that,” he says, never once looking at me.

“Don’t do what?”

“You can’t know what I’m thinking, Shade. Don’t go putting make-believe in your head.”

I bite my tongue and count to ten, which only gives me ten seconds to get pissed. “You think I’m an idiot and that there’s no point in us going through all this trouble.”

“I told you not to do that,” he says, his eyes narrowing as he works.

It’s irrational, I know it is. He’s focused intently on building this stupid thing just so Nikolai isn’t a hazard for us.

But I don’t like being ignored.

“You hate me. You think it was a mistake to ever help me. You’re trying to figure out how to sneak out in the middle of the night and just drop—”

“Bloody hell, woman,” he shouts. I hear the clank of Nikolai’s handcuffs in the bedroom. Claymore finally looks at me. I expect anger and hatred, but all I see is exhaustion. “I’m not thinking any of those things. And I’ll thank you to stop thinking them yourself. If I wanted to be done with you, I would be. I ain’t shy about that shit. I don’t hate you, and short of you cutting my throat in my sleep, I doubt I’ll
ever
hate you.”

He hisses and jumps, dropping the soldering iron to the ground. A bright red mark swells on the back of his hand.

I hop up and run a washcloth under some cold water, silently handing it to him.

“Thank you,” he says, wrapping it around his hand. “I don’t want us to get caught with our pants down. You get that, aye?”

I nod.

“I loved the guy, too, Shade.”

I look at my hands, at the floor, anywhere but his face. “He was a good mentor.”

“Aye.” He cups his hand around my chin and forces me to look up. “He was more like a father to most of us, though.”

I see the way the edges of his eyes squint as he watches me. He’s trying to ask, without asking, what exactly my relationship was with Nikolai.

“I loved him," I say, "but not like a father.”

The words hang in the room for a few seconds. I look him in the eyes, and he doesn’t blink.

He’s no idiot. He’s put this shit together a piece at a time. If all the clues I’ve been giving aren’t enough, the fact that Nikolai has been begging to save me, specifically, has to give it away.