Page 117 of Desperate Victory

My baton was in easy reach and I had a knife in my boot. The layers of security made me feel better, especially because Em was the one?—

The lights flashed once.

Twice.

Three times.

The din of conversation from out front diminished. The lights backstage shifted, everything on the side stages dropped into shadow and I put my water bottle onto the chair next to me.

The music through the speakers increased with just the faintest crackling to betray the age of the equipment itself. As the volume turned up, the crowd grew even quieter.

A hush of movement next to me had me turning to find Bodhi sliding into place behind me. He wrapped his arms around my middle and I leaned back against his chest. We didn’t need words.

Anticipation threaded through me. I found myself holding my breath. Watching Em perform was always something of a revelation.

The house lights went down. The stage lights shut off. The whisper of the curtains opening drifted past me. I noticed it more for the breeze than the actual movement. My eyes hadn’t adjusted fully, not yet.

Pressing two fingers to my lips, I went utterly still as the music cut off abruptly.

Darkness.

Silence.

The sense of the audience shifting, leaning forward. I had my eyes glued upward, she was going to?—

The music rose suddenly, a spotlight kicked on, and Em tumbled from the ceiling in what looked like a rolling free fall that she caught herself neatly, breaking all rules of gravity.

Applause welcomed her and I couldn’t stop smiling. It was the Carnival overture by Dvorák. Her twist and dance in the air to the Czech composer’s work made her truly seem like a fairy.

My smile grew as I watched her. The distance softened everything about her. You didn’t see the way her muscles shifted as she caught the silks, twined them around her to climb and dance on the air itself.

No, all you saw was the ethereal beauty with her absolute gift. It was amazing. As the Carnival played onward, I found myself swaying to it. Almost exactly as Em was, only she was making the silk begin to rotate — ballroom dancing in the air.

The audience applauded and I would have joined them except gunfire exploded through the dark, a spray of bullets striking the catwalks above and sparking like deadly fireflies where they hit. Screams erupted from the audience and the spotlight cut off.

Had Em been hit?

Bodhi’s arm around my middle tightened and he pulled me farther back into the backstage. Three steps back and suddenly even the back stage area’s blue lights cut off. Chaos descended with the blanket of darkness as the flash of gunfire sliced through the dark.

Someone slammed into us and only Bodhi’s arm around my middle kept me from being knocked down. One moment he was there, the next I was behind him and there was a pained grunt.

What the hell?

As abruptly as the lights had cut off earlier, they flashed to life again—brighter. Too bright, like someone turned up all the power. Tears flooded my eyes even as I tried to squint away from the intensity.

Even with my vision blurred, I could see Bodhi grappling with not just one, but two men. There were more men charging toward us.

Men in balaclavas waving weapons. More gunshots sounded from the audience. Fighting spilled out onto the stage. I wanted to look for Em, but as it was, I couldn’t take my gaze off the fighters making their way toward Bodhi.

Taser out, I shocked the guy before he could close the distance behind him and I kept my finger on the voltage until he dropped. The lights slammed off. Then back on.

Once my target dropped, I started forward only to pause as the hard muzzle of a gun pressed against my spine and a hand clamped down on the nape of my neck.

Bodhi’s gaze cut to me and I looked at him even as more men swarmed him.

“Come with me,” Juraj Vedriš ordered. “Or I will kill everyone here and I’ll start with him.”

Chapter

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