Page 115 of Iron Roses

His knee drove between mine. I turned my face away. The mattress was coarse beneath my fingers.

I kicked. My heel caught his hip. Not hard. Not enough. But it shifted him.

I rolled. Hit the floor. The wood cracked beneath me. The pain flared white along my back and my hands split wider when I caught myself.

I crawled. The door looked so far. His hand closed around my ankle. He dragged me back.

The rug peeled skin off my knees. My elbows. My hips.

He rolled me onto my back. Climbed on top. His breath rasped as he pulled something from his waistband.

The blade caught the light. He held it between us, the edge just above my cheekbone.

“Maybe if I mess up your pretty face,” he said, panting, “you’ll realize I’m all you’ve got left.”

I spat at him. The spit landed on his chin. He licked it. Smiled. The knife came closer. I could feel it. Cold. Metallic. Clean in the worst way.

His other hand pressed harder into my shoulder. I drove my knee up.

It landed. His breath stopped. His body folded. The knife slipped free.

He fell sideways, hands clutched between his legs.

A sound came from him—no words, just pain. I grabbed the knife. The handle burned in my grip.

His shoulder slammed mine. We crashed to the floor again. The knife skittered. I caught it just before it rolled free.

He clawed at my wrist. I twisted. Drove my knee into his ribs. My body shifted above his. My legs locked around his waist. The knife hovered.

His eyes found mine. I didn’t look away.

I drove the blade down. The steel slid in, catching at first—then breaking through. His mouth opened. In disbelief.

His breath hitched. Then again. Blood surged around the hilt, thick and warm.

I sat on top of him as his blood oozed and he let out a groan of pain.

The groan of the dying man under me fades into the noise outside—boots slamming against tile, the sharp crack of gunfire, shouts echoing down the corridor. The walls pulse with it.

Cassian’s arms close around my ribs. He lifts me gently, cradling me into his chest, but I can’t stop shaking. The blood between us is sticky and hot. My forehead drops against his collarbone. His vest is warm from the fight, his chest solid beneath it.

A shadow cuts across the floor to my left. I barely register it. A figure breaks from the smoke near the doorway. He’s sprinting, shoulder angled, knife high.

He’s aiming for me.

Cassian turns before I can flinch. His arm snaps up. The blade meant for my neck meets the metal of his forearm guard with a sound that rings like struck iron.

The man’s momentum drives him forward, but Cassian steps into the blow. His shoulder slams into the attacker’s chest. They collide. The man stumbles back, off-balance.

His hand closes around the man’s wrist and twists. The blade drops to the floor. It clatters once before spinning to a stop near the foot of the bed. Cassian brings his elbow down hard across the man’s jaw.

The sound of impact cracks through the room. The man’s legs give.

Cassian throws him against the dresser. The wood splinters at the edge. The man crumples, head turning sideways, blood trailing from his mouth. He doesn’t rise again.

My breath sticks in my chest. My arms are still clutched to my ribs, wrists smeared with blood.

Cassian anchors me to the floor beside the wall, just before another man comes charging behind me.

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