Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Maravić touched his bare cheek, gaping in shock. Then he saw his gas mask dangling from my hand. He lunged towards me.
My training made me hesitate for a second. The gas mask was the only way to ensure my safety. Thinking only of self-preservation, thinking like a spy, I should hold onto it.
But as long as I had it, Maravić might get it back. I opened my fingers and the mask tumbled to the ground far below. Then I glared up at Maravić defiantly. If he released the gas now, he’d die too.
Maravić looked at me. At Colton. At Colton’s team, who’d ziptied most of Maravić’s men and were moving towards us to help. Then he dropped his canister on the catwalk and ran down the walkway that led inwards towards the center of the stadium, the one that just finished in mid-air. He sprinted, accelerating, and then as he reached the end....he jumped.
I scrambled up onto my elbows, wide-eyed. He jumped?! Why would he—
Then I spotted him. Ten feet below the walkways, in the center of the stadium, was the colossal TV screen that showed replays and highlights. Really, it was four TV screens, each twenty feet long, facing outwards to form a square. The whole thing hung from steel cables and at one corner was a ladder that led all the way up to the roof. Maravić had landed on one corner of the square and, as I watched, he started shuffling carefully along the top of a screen towards the ladder.
He hadn’t been jumping to his death. He was going to escape.
My stomach dropped. He’d disappear again. How many more people would he kill before I caught up with him again? What if I never did?
I clambered to my feet: even that small act set the catwalk swinging. I hurried to the end of the catwalk Maravić had jumped from and looked down. My stomach sank. The TV was four feet away and ten feet below me. Worse, the top of the TV, where I’d have to land, was only a few feet wide. But if I didn’t do this, Maravić was going to get away. We didn’t have anyone up on the roof of the stadium and there were too many routes down for us to cover them all. I ran back along the catwalk to get a run up, took a deep breath and started to run—
Colton crashed into me from behind and tackled me. We fell to the floor of the catwalk together, his arms wrapped around me. “Are you insane?!” he yelled. “It’s over! We won!”
“He’ll get away!” I panted, struggling.
His arms tightened protectively around me. “He can be someone else’s fucking problem!”
“I might never find him again!”
“The whole world’s going to be looking for him after this! Let him go!”
I lost it. “I can’t!” I screamed in his face. “I can’t, Colton! Ty, chert voz'mi, ne ponimayesh, don’t you get it, I can’t!” There were tears in my eyes. “I have to know he’s gone, I have to get him out of my head!”
He stared into my eyes. And then he reluctantly released me. He’d realized I was right: I had to do this.
We clambered to our feet. Colton looked at the jump to the TV and all the blood drained from his face. The jump was next to impossible. It was terrifying even for me. For him...
I saw his expression fall as he realized what I already knew.
He couldn’t come with me.
“It’s okay,” I told him. I found that I was smiling. “It was always meant to be this way. I love you, plyushevyy mishka.”
I kissed him, turned and ran…and jumped off into space.
63
COLTON
She jumped and I couldn’t breathe. Her body sailed through the air, so tiny in the huge void. Please make it, please please please—
Her feet landed on the top of one of the TV screens. But her momentum tipped her forward and she teetered on the edge. My heart jumped into my mouth. No!
She grabbed one of the TV’s support cables and managed to steady herself. I could see her chest heaving with fear, but she was okay.
I’d had to let her go. I knew that. She didn’t deserve the guilt she was carrying, but it was still tearing her apart. If she was ever going to find peace, she had to do this.
But she didn’t have to do it alone. That’s what I’d told her.
I marched down the catwalk. It rocked and swayed under me, making my stomach flip. Of course I had to go after her.
But as I got to the end and looked down at the jump, I just froze. My head went swimmy at the sight of the tiny rectangle of green far below. My feet went light and I could feel myself falling, could see the football field rushing up to meet me as I tumbled down and down. I took a breath but I couldn’t seem to get any air. Aw shit—