Page 103 of The Darkness is Calling

And the simple fact that I am caught in a death trap and cannot escape, cannot even see her, suffocates me. Hurts me more. The air seems to grow thinner while dozens of voices race through my head and claw at my thoughts.

We have to get to her

!

You cannot die!

Someone else will take her from us. We must get out of here!

OUT!

Get out!

Get out!

Run to her!

You disappointed her.

My head hurts, my body is bleeding, my heart

is pounding hard, but I still find the strength to scream.

I scream in a way I have never had before, because I cannot reach her.

I scream because I cannot honor my promise.

I scream because I disappointed her, and there is nothing I can do to change what is happening now.

I scream because I am very close to losing her.

I try to struggle, to rip myself apart, if that is what it takes to get out of this damned car, fighting to find a position that will allow me to move.

Through an inhuman effort, I manage to shift enough to try opening the door or at least smash my elbow into the window beside me. My legs are tangled among the lifeless limbs of the bastard next to me, so I slam my heel twice more straight into his already bloodied mouth.

“Pashol nakhui!12,” I spit through my teeth, punctuating each word with another blow to his ruined face.

He could bleed from every pore and still give me no satisfaction.

They kept me away from my woman, and I regret not giving them a more painful death.

I turn back toward the window and try to open the door, but fortunately, someone manages before I do, and unfamiliar hands attempt to pull me out. I can barely make out the faces of ordinary people, probably nearby when the crash happened.

Stronger arms help me stretch out on the sidewalk while they check the condition of the others. But it doesn’t take them long to see the driver’s scattered brains or the other man’s mouth full of blood. They ask if I am OK, but they are cautious, and I hear them calling the police.

Right now, all I can do is hope my brothers are safe and that my men find me before I end up in a situation where I have to give explanations. We will already have to clean up among those trying to film what happened, but that is not what matters now.

12Пошёл нахуй (ru.) – Fuck off!

I try to get up, assessing the damage at the same time. Everything hurts, and besides the wound in my shoulder, I very likely have a few cracked ribs. At least there is nothing serious enough to stop me from trying to reach her before the performance ends.

“Voron!”

Looks like miracles do happen after all. I see Sasha jump out of a car that barely has

time to stop before he comes running toward me. Yar appears beside him immediately, and a great wave of relief moves through me when I see they are both alive.

As my brothers drop to their knees beside me, two more brigadiers appear.