Zhukov's Dogs (25 page)

“We have to split up,” I said, shoving him away. Val stepped forward to try and help me again. I held him off with one arm while the other pressed firm over my bindings. “You heard me! Get going!”

Val’s shock turned into anger, and at first I thought he was going to put up a fight. Without a word, though, he grabbed my arm and yanked me into running after him toward the fence at the far end of the park. I couldn’t believe he was being so stubborn.

“Stop being stupid!” I barked.

“Nik, shut up!” Val snapped at me. He hurried us to a rickety shed halfway across the park and kicked the door open. Bags of mulch, buckets of paint, and a few gardening tools were shoved into a corner. Val pulled me inside and shut the door.

I couldn’t see beyond the tip of my nose. The small skylight was too filthy to let in much light, and the air was stagnant from the dirt our feet kicked up from the floor. With one hand, I found the wall and rested against it, shutting my eyes and bringing both hands over my wound. Blood had already soaked through the scarf.

“Stay here,” Val said somewhere to my left.

I nodded, even though I knew he couldn’t see it. Movement, shifting, and the sound of something getting knocked over. The door creaked, and my eyes opened wide. Val was leaving. My hand shot out and grabbed hold of his jacket. I yanked him back inside and insisted, “You can’t go back out there.”

“I can outrun them,” Val argued with one hand still on the door.

“You can’t outrun their bullets.”

“I just have to get over the fence. I’ll lead them away from you and—”

Grey Men crashed against the fence we’d scaled. They weren’t good at climbing, due to their size, but we still only had a minute before they were upon us. I watched Val’s eyes light up. He had an idea, one which I hoped was better than him running off on his own. Acting as a decoy. To protect me.

The broken thoughts were interrupted when Val tugged loose of my grip and shed his jacket. “Quick, trade shirts.”

I didn’t understand, but if I trusted anyone in the underground to have a plan, it was Val. Getting my sweater off took me longer than it did Val. The second it was over my head, he snatched it away and pulled it on. It was a size too big for him, and the material bunched around his wrists.

“What’s this about?” I asked.

“When we went over that fence back there, you probably got blood all over it,” Val said, pushing the baggy sleeves up to his elbows and bending to pick up his jacket. “If they see blood on the next fence, they’ll think we both went over.”

It was a good plan. There was one problem, though. Val was still betting he’d make it over before the Grey Men could catch him. He forced his sweater into my hands and said, “Here, use this to keep pressure on that hole in your gut, all right? Stay right here. I mean it. I’ll come back when it’s safe.”

“Okay.”

I lied. I was going to step out of the shed and address the Grey Men the second Val was gone. It was time to go home. Val wouldn’t see me again. He’d accept I was a casualty of the Grey Men’s attack. I’d fade out of his life like I did when every mission came to its end.

As I closed my hands around the sweater to take it from Val, I felt his hands trembling beneath my own. They were so cold, his fingers like bony icicles weaving their way between mine. Blood loss must have been affecting my judgment, making me think foolishly and respond involuntarily. I didn’t recoil like I should have. Instead, I squeezed his frozen fingers and traced a thumb over the soft skin of his wrist as I told him, “Be careful.”

Val was gone a second later, but the chill lingered where his fingers had pressed to my skin. I stayed propped against the wall, close to the door, and held my breath until I heard a familiar whistle telling me Val made it over the fence. He was safe.

I waited another minute in silence before I heard the last Grey Man scramble over the first fence. Then, gathering up as much composure as I could, I stood upright and stepped out of the shed. The Grey Men rushed up to present themselves in a straight line in front of me.

“My name is Nikolas Zhukov,” I told them proudly. “Lieutenant Colonel of the Y.I.D. and commanding field officer of Battalions Alpha, Tau, Delta, and Zeta.”

“Sir!”

All three Grey Men clacked their heels together and threw their right hand up into a salute. They didn’t move an inch from the stance, save for the one in the middle, who stepped forward to speak.

“Sir, your orders?”

That was a true Grey Man. He didn’t ask why you were shooting at him, or why you’d run like a guilty man, or why you were standing there with your shirt off and a scarf tied around your waist. He simply obeyed.

I opened my mouth to reply, but only a wet cough came out. The adrenaline was fading and the pain from the gunshot getting worse. I leaned forward slightly to ease the discomfort. Despite clearly needing medical attention, the Grey Men wouldn’t do anything to help me unless I explicitly told them to do so.

“Take me to the hospital,” I said, hoping it at least sounded like an order.

“Impossible,” replied the center Grey Man. “The hospital here failed to renew its confidentiality agreement.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” I sighed. I would bleed to death at this rate. With the hospital not being an option, there was only one alternative I could think of. “Take me to Governor Granne’s.”

“Yes, sir!”

The Grey Men turned on heel and marched toward the street. I made it four steps after them before collapsing. The impact made my body ache, but not nearly as much as I knew it should have. I recognized the warning signs of a blackout. My vision rocked out of focus. The world spun around me, everything swirling together in a colorful haze then fading to black.

The next thing I knew, someone was shouting. They might have been saying my name, or they might have been saying the world was ending. I didn’t care to reply either way. My body was warm for the first time in ages. Every ache and every pain was gone, even the old ones I’d long-since learned to live with. I was either dead or drugged.

“Lieutenant Colonel.”

I was Lieutenant Colonel, but I hoped to God the bratty voice slurring my title was only in my head. Bright lights scorched my eyes as they opened wide. The underground was always so dark; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been around such a blinding, artificial light. My hand shot up to shield my burning eyes.

“Finally, there you are. You’ve been out for hours.”

That was definitely Tristan’s voice. His silhouette loomed overhead, obstructing the lights. I blinked until the spots in my vision cleared, and I could see my surroundings. The rich colors and fabrics I was tucked under told me I wasn’t in a hospital bed, but it took several more seconds and a slimy smile from Tristan to realize I was in the Granne home.

How did I get there? Why wasn’t I in my noisy bed back at the revolutionaries’ base?
The others will worry if I don’t get back soon
, I thought in my sedated daze. It all came rushing back at once. I sat upright like I’d just been jolted with live electricity.

The Oxford District. The Grey Men. Val and the others. A nurse I hadn’t noticed before rushed over to try and make me lie down again. I wouldn’t budge. Tristan waved her away like an annoying bug. While I felt on the verge of a heart attack, Tristan looked positively bored.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You were shot,” Tristan replied with a condescending casualness, complete with a smile, which I’d have really liked to punch off his face.

It didn’t feel like I’d been shot, but the memory and pain were fresh in my mind. I pushed the blankets away from my body and looked at the gauze bandages that had replaced Val’s scarf. There were two IVs on my arm, one supplying me with blood and the other a painkiller. From the way I couldn’t feel the hole in my gut, or my toes for that matter, it was safe to assume it was a strong one.

“The Grey Men said you asked them to bring you here,” Tristan said.

When I looked up from the IVs, I saw him shamelessly staring at my chest. It made my skin crawl. Even though the two of us had only exchanged a handful of words, I felt an unexplainable loathing for Tristan. Maybe it was because of the pompousness he oozed. Maybe it was because of the way he’d hurt Val.

“Convenient, isn’t it,” Tristan took a brazen step closer to the bed, “How the Grey Men found you but, somehow, didn’t catch the person they saw you with?”

“Yeah. Funny how that happened.”

“Too bad. I was hoping to get my toy back.” Tristan sighed.

“From what I’ve heard, you don’t play well with your toys,” I replied, my fists clenching under the blankets. The suggestion that Val was a toy, and
his
toy nonetheless, struck a nerve I didn’t know existed.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I break him too much for you?”

I was not feeling protective. Definitely not. Val and I weren’t even together… But Tristan didn’t know that. So I bit the bullet, grinned around it, and told him, “You just made him more fun to fix.”

The taken aback expression on his face was wonderfully satisfying. Before Tristan could recompose and snap back a response, the door opened and the governor rushed in.

“Ah, good. You’re looking much better,” boomed Governor Granne.

I looked like a total mess compared to him. The governor was dressed to impress in a sleek, gray suit, which set him out of place in Seattle. Granne looked as jovial as he sounded that night I’d overhead him from the cupboard. He was a stout, square-shouldered man who appeared to be somewhere in his mid-fifties. His salt-and-pepper hair was trimmed in a traditional, military cut, which many older officers had. Granne, himself, was too out of shape and rosy to be mistaken for anyone with combat training, though.

He strode to the side of my bed and held his hand out to introduce himself. “Charles Granne, Governor of Seattle.”

“Don’t you mean Washington?”

Both Grannes laughed. I must have been more sedated than I thought, because I didn’t see what was funny about my question. The governor fanned his bright red face as he told me, “Oh, there’s nothing really left of Washington outside of Seattle. Of course, there are the little suburbs down south, but they function just fine on their own without me.”

Translation: Granne doesn’t care about them.

As I shook the governor’s hand, I noted the weak grip and lack of calluses. He was over twice my age, and somehow, my hands were five times rougher than his. Wealthy family history and a cushy desk job, which required very little work, that was Charles Granne, in my opinion, and I’d just met the man. Val’s cynicism must have worn off on me.

“Brigadier McKee has told me a lot about you, Lieutenant Colonel, and I must say, it’s an honor to finally meet you in person. I was very much hoping you’d have paid a visit sooner, or, at the very least, under different circumstances,” the governor said with a small nod toward my gunshot wound.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve been really busy.”

“So the brigadier was telling me. Well, no matter. You’re up just in time for dinner. The missus has been working on it all afternoon, and she can’t wait to meet you.”

There was no way it was that late already. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost eight o’clock. I’d been out for eight hours. The governor laughed at my obvious shock. “Yes, you’ve been asleep for a while. I’ll send the missus up shortly with a plate. Don’t want you moving around in your state.”

“It’s fine. I can come downstairs,” I told him.

The governor looked thrilled, but wary. “What about your injury?”

I wasn’t keen to explain to him or his son my enhanced healing abilities, especially considering the dubious nature of their existence. While we weren’t Grey Men, all dogs were given diluted versions of the same chemical compounds that made the monsters virtually indestructible. I’d been off the supplements for almost a week now, meaning it would take the gunshot wound two or three days to heal at least, as opposed to the twenty-four-hour turnaround I was used to.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.” I assured the governor with a placid smile. “Besides, I’ve wasted enough of the day in bed.”

The governor didn’t ask questions, but laughed. “That’s a soldier for you, Tristan. I bet you’re lousy at vacations.”

“What’s vacation?” I asked.

“Hah! Something you’re overdue for, I imagine. Why don’t you clean up and come downstairs when you’re ready? I’ll have a maid bring up some clean clothes which don’t look like they’ve been through hell. Come along, Tristan.”

Governor Granne left, Tristan following close behind his father. The pale nurse from before stepped into the room when they were gone. She smiled politely and asked, “Would you like some more morphine, sir?”

“No, no. I’m feeling fine,” I said as I removed the IVs from my arm. I was already numb. If I took any more morphine, I’d end up rolling down to dinner like a limp noodle, assuming I didn’t accidentally drown myself in the shower first.

“I’m glad to hear that, sir,” she said. “Shall I help you to the bath?”

“I’ll be all right on my own, thanks.”

“Very good, sir. I’ll be in the hall if you need anything.” The nurse excused herself with a small curtsey.

I swung my feet off the side of the bed and carefully eased onto them. Just because I was too sedated to actually feel any of my injuries, didn’t mean they were magically all better. I’d been patched up enough times to know I still needed to be mindful of the sutures holding me together.

The guest room I occupied was twice the size of the room I shared with Tibbs, and the room attached looked more like a marble museum than a bathroom. I whistled and listened to the way it resonated off the walls. When it faded, the room felt different somehow. Emptier.

I walked to the vanity, removed the brown contact in my right eye, and set it aside. Returning to my actual eye color always felt like the first step in the debriefing process. The longer I studied my reflection, the more obvious it was that I’d changed since coming to Seattle. I’d been sleeping more and stressing less, but somehow, I looked more worn out than ever. Older.