Bone Deep

by Lea Griffith

  Whether he ever admitted or accepted it, Dmitry was hers now.

  Her gaze tracked over him. His face was bruised. The fingers on his right hand were bent at odd angles and his fingertips bled. They’d made him suffer. His shoulder was bleeding too, the rust red of his blood marking his olive green T-shirt.

  Bone came to her feet, threw back her head, and screamed to the heavens. Dmitry flinched, and his eyes, swollen shut opened to bare slits.

  “You are angry, child,” the woman queried.

  Bone counted the men in the room with them—four including Dostoyev. She did not like that someone held Dmitry but she would have to work with what she was given.

  “You should not have come,” she spit at him.

  He remained silent and Bone wondered what had been done to him.

  The woman walked to stand beside Dmitry and stroked his hair. Dmitry’s eyes closed and on his face was a curious hope. It hurt to see it.

  “You will speak to me and only to me,” the woman ordered Bone in a strident tone. “Dmitry cannot be bothered with trash like you.”

  The hope on his face disappeared and in its place confusion took residence, followed by a hardness that could only be one thing, hate. He pulled away from the woman. “Do not touch me.”

  “You missed me, eh? It has been a while, Dmitry. You have grown to look like your father. Strong and beautiful. But your mind, it is as weak as Sacha’s and that affirms I made the right decision.”

  Bone watched the woman step away from Dmitry and tsk softly.

  “What decision is that?” Dmitry asked, his voice rough and bitter.

  “To leave. Weakness cannot be tolerated,” the woman responded softly. She turned then and glared at Bone. “Why are you here?”

  Bone let her muscles loosen, accepted the pain of every single broken rib, bruise and cut. She opened herself up to the agony and it washed over her in a red tidal wave, sucking her under.

  “I came here for you,” Bone said, spearing the woman with her gaze.

  The woman smiled at her and nodded. “I know. Joseph told me it would be so and it is.”

  “You have sold children to The Collective but more than that you sold your own into the clutches of the devil. You abandoned your family and ordered your husband murdered,” Bone stated and it rang throughout the room.

  A cold wind drifted in from the tower window holes but it did nothing to cool her rage.

  “Ninka was mine. She was Bullet’s, Arrow’s, Blade’s, and mine.”

  The woman’s face lost its mask of indifference and it was if she were a demon clothed in flesh. “She was mine to do with as I wanted. No one understood that true power comes from your ability to control life. I did what had to be done. The child was weak. I sent her to Joseph so she could be more and she failed me! All of my children were weak. Their father was as well. They deserved what they got,” she hissed, hands forming claws as she lost her cool and attacked Bone.

  Bone sidestepped and chopped the woman in the back of her neck. She fell and looked back, horror on her face, fear a shadow in her eyes. They thought they’d broken her. Never.

  One of the men attacked Bone and she stood tall, meeting his rush with a single punch to the chest. She channeled the rage, let it grow in her chest and then pushed it through her fist into his body. She’d struck him right over his heart. He fell without a single sound, unmoving, dead. The other guard, the one not holding Dmitry, ran. Her body protested but her mind demanded more.

  The guard holding Dmitry began to push him to one of the window holes.

  “Get to your knees,” Bone demanded of the woman.

  “Dostoyev, take her!” she screamed.

  “Dostoyev won’t help you now because he knows what you do not—I will kill his precious daughter when I finish with you should he take a single step in my direction. I am flesh and blood, Svetlana Asinimov, but I am death and you cannot stop me.”

  “No,” the woman whispered, fear pinching her features.

  “Joseph should have prepared you better. He gave you warning and you took it as a chance to eliminate me. It is almost as if he wanted you gone, eh? How he has orchestrated every move you’ve made over the years. You are pathetic,” Bone taunted her.

  Bone reached down, grabbed her by the hair of her head, and pulled her up. The woman sobbed. Bone did not care.

  “It was you!” the woman exclaimed suddenly, nails tearing into the skin of Bone’s hands as she struggled.

  Bone knew fear then, the insidious creep of it through her mind and heart. Not because the woman struggled, but because now she would face the truth she had never wanted Dmitry exposed to. Here, now, they would both face the truth.

  “You killed Sacha,” the woman said on a cry. “Dmitry? Your lover,” she spat the word, “killed your precious father.”

  Dmitry’s head swiveled to her then and on his bruised face she saw he now knew the truth. “No,” he said gutturally. “He could have been a good man.”

  She steeled her spine and sliced her gaze to him. “No. There was no hope for that. As there is no hope for your mother.” She would not fail in this duty. She cocked her head at him.

  “No!” Dmitry’s voice was tortured. “Do not do this, Bone!”

  Bone looked at his mother and her mind cleared. She blanked her face but let all the hate she felt in that moment shine through her eyes.

  “Vengeance is the Lord’s,” Svetalana told her, desperation painting her words and her features.

  Bone took the woman’s head in her hands and Svetlana sobbed. “I will apologize if I ever meet Him,” Bone whispered.

  “Don’t do this,” Dmitry pleaded again.

  Always he pleaded for her to stay her hands. She could not.

  The man holding Dmitry grinned at her and with a flash of memory, Bone realized who the killer was…Cain. The Sciariorum. “Kill her, Bone Breaker,” he challenged. “Make the son hate you.”

  She nodded, accepting it would happen and with a harsh breath she whispered in the woman’s ear. “Zeh mah shevesh.” The words of her father scraped her throat raw but they were all she could offer in this place of death and truth.

  She twisted the woman’s head, no remorse, no hesitation, killing her much faster than she deserved. “For Ninka,” she yelled.

  Dmitry moved then, bashing his head into Cain’s nose. Cain twisted from the movement, pushed Dmitry away and what happened next seemed in slow motion to Bone.

  Cain pulled out a handgun, aimed and fired at Dmitry. Their proximity to the window hole combined with the force of the gunshot pushed Dmitry to the sill, where he hovered, his gaze meeting hers before he toppled out.

  “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.”

  He opened his eyes as far as the swollen tissue would allow and she was able to see a slice of blue. Then his split lips curved. “I do not swim.”

  She had no more ammunition and couldn’t reload if she did. Another shot rent the air, this one biting into the muscle of her thigh. She grunted and made the mistake of looking down. They were so high and suddenly she was back on the cliff in Arequipa. Another shot, this one with a rubber bullet right to her shoulder. That arm went dead and she dropped the gun, switching to hold him with her left arm.

  “Let me go,” Dmitry whispered.

  Always the height taunted her. “The ropes will hold,” she answered and realized she was talking to her past. She shook off her reverie and grimaced.

  “I have done all I can, Asinimov. I am sorry for not telling you of your father or your mother.” Her grip was slipping. “Live for revenge, moye.”

  The men behind her were yelling for her stop.

  She wasn’t going anywhere. Not now.

  “Bone Breaker, child, it is time to come home,” the black-eyed man said. Joseph was here. There was no such thing as hope any longer.

  She closed her eyes, accepted her lot and looked once more into Dmitry’s eyes.

  “You will tell my sisters,” her voice broke, tears streaming down her face, “you will tell them that I am going home but I will remember them forever. I will see you on the other side, da?”

  Bone used all the strength left her, bones grinding, pain overwhelming her, and swung him out as far as she could from the tower’s face, making sure he would hit the water. When she could do no more, she let him go. Their gazes met once more and she saw everything she could have had disappearing. He hit the water, remained still for several moments and then he swam down, deep into the frigid waters of the Moscow River. He would live.

  Bone turned, went to her knees and did something she hadn’t done since before her parents gave her up to Joseph. She prayed.

  She prayed to the God of her fathers for the end.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He woke in a blinding rush of pain, his dreams following him into wakefulness, the brush of them against his mind cruel and cutting. Her hazel eyes haunted him. Her words ripped through him with every breath. You. Will. Live.

  She was gone. Bone had been taken by Joseph and though he wanted to hate her for her lies and subterfuge, all Dmitry knew was fear. It ate at his insides like worms, gnawing and rabid. She had given her life for his.

  I will see you on the other side, da?

  She was gone and he wanted her back. For what he didn’t know.

  “She is in Arequipa, Asinimov,” a soft voice said from the dark corner of his room.

  Somehow, someway, Grant Fielding had been in a boat on the Moscow River. He tracked Dmitry after he’d fallen into the murky water and dragged him up, saving him. Now he was back in Virginia recuperating. But Bone wasn’t here.

  “Did you hear me, Russian?” she asked and Dmitry thought her voice truly lovely. It didn’t have the husky quality of Bone’s, the ancient tones of Arrow, or the deadly threat of Bullet’s, but it was still lovely.

  He did not know who this woman was though and tried to sit up, failing before he drew in a deep breath and sucked up the pain.

  He sat up and moved his legs off the bed, sitting on the side and staring into the darkness. “I heard you.”

  “She is dying,” the woman said. “Much like Bullet almost gave her life for Beckett,” she said his friend’s name as if it was shit in her mouth. “Bone is giving hers for you.”

  Agony pierced his chest then. He swallowed but could only cough. “She is dead?”

  “Not yet.” A long pause. “Soon.”

  The woman stepped into the meager light of his bedside table and he saw who she was then. It was the one they called Blade. “We continue to replay the same scenario over and over and over with Trident. I have asked myself why women worthy of so much more than what you have given them continue to offer their lives for you.” She shook her head, the spiky blond hair on her head reminding Dmitry she had been punished not too long ago by Joseph.

  He always cut their hair. As if taking away their locks took their strength. It was another testament that Joseph had no idea what he had created.

  Dmitry had no answers for her. He could not understand it himself but he was also still dealing with the fact that he’d given his heart to a woman who’d been lying to him from the beginning.

  “She lied to you,” Blade affirmed.

  Dmitry looked at her then, anger taking root in his pain. “Do all of you read minds? Are you sure you’re even human?”

  Blade shrugged and sat back down
in the corner, crossed her legs like an executive at a meeting and leaned back negligently. “We bleed.”

  Dmitry winced.

  “She was shot holding your ass above the Moscow River, making sure you didn’t give your life. She had been beaten for a full day prior to that, fought with a killer much like she is, and you are angry that she lied about your bitch of a mother and your assassin of a father? You are all stupid,” she said hatefully.

  Dmitry remained silent. She continued.

  “None of you understand that you are secondary. Oh, maybe not in my sisters’ hearts, but your goals are secondary to a promise made in Hell. Tell me, do you know what we did to save your sister?”

  Dmitry wanted his anger to germinate and grow into rage but it wouldn’t. It refused him.

  “We knew Ninka was weak from the moment she came to the compound. We had been there for a week before she was dumped on the floor in front of us, tears on face and her thumb in her mouth. But we all looked at her and without words vowed that we would protect her.

  “In the end it was for nothing. Bullet held her hands, Arrow sang to her, Bone took her punishments, and I took her kills. Still she died. Tell me, what did you and yours ever do for Ninka besides leave her to Joseph?”

  There was the rage then, he stood and immediately went back down. He too had taken a severe beating when he’d been caught snooping in the wrong places. The fingers of his right hand had been broken, though hadn’t required surgery. They’d been set and he now wore a cast. His shoulder was infected but he was improving. Of course, none of that would have happened had he not been looking for Bone.

  Yeah, he’d been looking for Bone but found…his mother. Oh, and he’d discovered his father’s killer was one of the best killers of all…Bone.

  Good God, the shock hadn’t worn off. His mother had been alive the entire time. She’d been the one to sell his sisters. She’d requested Joseph kill his father.

  And Bone had seen it through on Joseph’s orders.

  His head rang with the knowledge. He stood by dint of will alone and glared across the room into the shadows.