Page 175 of You Only Love Twice
Every inch of him started to tremble.
Holy shit.
Had they just survived?
It had all happened so quickly he couldn’t quite make heads or tails of it.
Kincaid knelt on one knee, panting. "Mother of Jaysus." Raking a shaky hand through his sweaty hair, he found the blood there and lowered his fingers to rub them together. "That was close."
Charlie managed to push to his feet. He peered over the rail into the inferno. X had vanished. "Do you think he’s dead?"
"Surely he couldn’t have survived that."
Nothing but silence drifted up through the billowing smoke.
They both looked at each other.
"Time to get out of here?" Charlie suggested. "Just in case?"
"Definitely."
"Let me just fetch the doctor’s satchel."
* * *
The shot tookGemma high in the shoulder as she tried to drop, alerted by Obsidian's scream.
Gemma's breath was torn from her lungs, pain spasming down her arm. The same bloody arm she'd dislocated. She ground her teeth together and forced her knife into her weaker hand, blocking the pain.
Behind her, separated by a gaping chasm of over ten feet, Malloryn crashed into thedhampirwoman who'd shot her. The pair of them grappled, the pistol flying from the woman's hand.
Malloryn could handle it.
Gemma's gaze locked on Ghost. He slammed Obsidian against the railing, and the pair of them exchanged ringing blows. Obsidian ducked beneath a wildly swung haymaker and threw a cracking punch that would have taken the head off anyone else's shoulders. Ghost's chin snapped up.
They broke apart, but Ghost lashed out as he danced backward, and Obsidian was still slightly off-balance from that last blow.
The split second slowed down as Gemma watched it all unfold.
It was like Russia all over again.
Dmitri raising the gun.
Pulling the trigger.
The abrupt slam of the bullet, right in the center of her chest.
Inevitable.
A single kick to the chest and Obsidian staggered against the railing, his center of balance too high, his hands flailing as he reached for something. Anything—
He went over, groping for the rails as he fell. The barest edge of his fingertips caught the bottom rung. Gemma scrambled to her knees.
"Dmitri!" she screamed.
Ghost shot her a dark look, then crunched his heel down upon Obsidian's fingers.
And he was gone.
