Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Her words snuffed out the tiny flicker of hope in Theo. It must’ve shown in her expression because Keja said, “It’s all right, Theo. You don’t have to worry about the rages anymore.” A blank mask slipping over her, the shift so visible that it made Theo shudder.
“If you hadn’t existed, if your twin hadn’t existed,” Keja said in a high, almost childlike voice, “he’d have taken me home. I was the first true success. So you see why I have to get rid of you. Then he’ll have no choice. He’ll take me home.”
It was a terrible, heartbreaking, and horrifying glimpse into Keja’s mutilated psyche. “You’re the Moscow Ripper, aren’t you?” she said, so stunned by the realization that she couldn’t even be afraid. “Why?”
“I thought it would be obvious.” The mask of . . . nothingness never shifted, never altered. “I thought they were you. Not rational, but I’m unfortunately not always rational. A red mist in my mind, and in that mist, they’re all you.”
Keja lifted her weapon. “But this time, I’ve got the right blonde. Father will come for me. I’m the only one left.”
Theo tipped herself sideways off her chair, slamming down hard, with one arm of the chair digging into her. Pain sunburst through her damaged nerves as Keja’s shot caught her a glancing blow on one hip, spreading numbness up and down along that side.
That pain awakened her simmering rage, a monstrous red beast with glowing eyes, so much anger to it that it hazed her brain. Before it could steal her mind, steal her ability to act with reason, Theo grabbed for the beads at her throat, ripped them off, and threw them at her aunt.
As Keja hissed at being blinded by the resulting shower of smoke and light, Theo managed to get out the tiny grenades, throw them at Keja’s feet. But even as shards of the wooden floor flew up to embed themselves in Keja’s skin, Theo saw the glitter of silver in Keja’s hand . . . the blade meant for Theo’s throat. And she realized she’d made a mistake in her shaking fury: the grenades had exploded a fraction too far from her aunt to do any substantial damage.
Screaming, her maddened aunt threw herself at Theo, both of them injured, both of them fighting for their lives. Only Theo couldn’t get to the blade in the pocket of her jeans, her brain a cauldron of black rage incapable of reason.
* * *
* * *
YAKOV stopped playing dead the instant Keja jumped on Theo.
His body remained mostly paralyzed from the blow he’d taken. The only reason he wasn’t dead was that he was a bear with the attendant muscle mass; he didn’t know if Keja had miscalculated and given him too strong a shot, or if she’d intended for him to die, and he didn’t care.
All he cared about was saving Theo.
The dream threatened to bleed into his consciousness, suffocate him in its grip. “Fuck that,” he said, and took deep gulps of the air in an effort to get as much oxygen into his system as possible. His arms still felt like lead, his eyes the only part of him that he could truly move. But he wasn’t about to give up.
His great-grandfather hadn’t left him with a drop of foresight in his blood so that he could watch Theo die. His chest rumbled with a growl as Keja landed a punch to Theo’s face that made something crunch. But Theo hit her as hard, her elbow taking out Keja’s nose in a spray of blood at the same time that she managed to use her other arm to make Keja drop the knife.
That’s my girl, he thought, man and bear in agreement.
His fingers flexed, sensation creeping back in razor-sharp pinpricks. Ignoring the agony, he began to crawl his hand back toward the holster positioned in the small of his back. It wasn’t his favored position when he had to wear a weapon—he far preferred the shoulder, but he’d put it there the instant he’d understood that he and Theo were on a collision course with Fate.
It was the same reason he’d chosen the sound-wave weapon while they were arming themselves today. The dream had warned him that he’d be all but immobile. So he’d chosen a weapon that could be activated with the simple push of an old-fashioned button. One push. Just one.
Keja screamed as Theo slammed a flat hand against her ear, possibly rupturing her eardrum. But though Theo had managed to roll on top of her, Keja was a brutal fighter and somehow got her hands around Theo’s throat.
Fight, Theo, fight!
They rolled out of his limited field of vision.
He heard Theo make a deep, wordless sound . . . then another crunch. Keja screamed again.
Followed by a grunt from Theo.