Die for Me (Killing Eve #3) - Luke Jennings Page 0,11

have any idea what’s going on.”

I look at her doubtfully, and at that moment we hear the creak of the judas gate opening. As quickly as I can I take off my glasses and stuff them into a pocket. Then there’s a murmur of voices, and an unhurried series of electronic clunks as the Prekrasnaya Nevesta employees begin to punch their timecards. Overhead lights flicker on, there’s a whiff of cigarette smoke, and as unseen figures shuffle past our hiding place, the distance between the two of us and the gate seems to grow greater and greater. Cool it, I tell myself, trying to steady my breathing. It’ll be like running up Tottenham Court Road for a number 24 bus. Easy-peasy.

A series of vibrant rumblings announces that the heating units have been switched on. Tightening the straps of her backpack, Villanelle moves to a runner’s crouch. “Get ready,” she whispers, and I imitate her, dry-mouthed with apprehension. The rumbling of the heaters becomes a whirr and then there’s a spattering sound, ragged screams, an outburst of swearing, and the sound of feet running past us toward the center of the warehouse. “Go!” Villanelle mouths, and sprints toward the warehouse entrance, her pack bouncing on her back.

I’m there at her shoulder, running for that bus. Away to our right I’m aware of a confusion of shouting figures and angry faces swiveling toward us. Somehow we reach the judas gate. Villanelle swings it open, we leap through, and race over the rough, frozen ground toward a chain-link fence. Waiting for us at the exit is a security guy in a hi-vis jacket. He stretches out his arms in a tentative attempt to block us and Villanelle whips her Sig Sauer from her jacket and points it at his face. He dives sideways, and I reach past Villanelle for the latch of the exit gate and wrench it open. She pushes through, dragging me after her, but my foot twists on the frozen ground, and I fall heavily onto my hip. I try to stand, but my ankle explodes with pain.

“Get up, Eve,” Villanelle says with quiet urgency, as a shouting mob begins to pour out of the warehouse.

“I can’t.”

She looks down at me, her eyes expressionless. “Sorry, baby,” she says, and runs.

Within moments, I’m surrounded. Everyone’s arguing, swearing at me, staring at me, and shouting questions. I curl up in a fetal position on the ground, my knees drawn up to my chest and my eyes closed. I can feel my ankle swelling. It hurts like hell. This is the end.

“Otkryvay glaza. Vstavay.” Open your eyes! Stand up! A male voice, harsh and accusatory.

I squint upward. Angry faces against an iron-gray sky. The speaker is an older man with a shaven head and skull-like features. To his side is a woman, fortyish, with a spectrally pale complexion and discolored teeth, and a young guy with a spider’s-web neck tattoo. Others, perhaps a dozen of them, mill around. They’re wearing hoodies, overalls and work boots. Their voices are strident, but most of them just look baffled.

“Ty kto?” Who are you?

I don’t answer. Perhaps, as Villanelle hoped, they’ll think that I’m mentally ill. That I’ve been driven by voices in my head to commit random acts of trespass and destruction. Perhaps, and this is admittedly a long shot, someone will take me to a hospital, from where I can contact the British authorities. Erratic behavior as a consequence of post-traumatic stress, I will suggest apologetically, and this will not be far from the truth. I will be flown home and prescribed rest. Niko will take a lot of winning over, but sooner or later he will take me back, and forgive me. And then the Twelve will kill me. Fuck.

“Ty kto?”

I stare back at skull-face, and he issues a series of directives. I am yanked to my feet, my rucksack is lifted from my back, and two of the women support me as I half-walk, half-hop back to the warehouse. The young man with the neck tattoo, meanwhile, speaks with quiet urgency into a mobile phone. Now that I’m helpless, and wholly unable to control events, I discover that I’m no longer afraid.

The two women help me over the step and through the judas gate, and I’m immediately assaulted by a stomach-turning stench. It’s everywhere, filling my nostrils, throat and lungs, and it gets worse the further we proceed into the building.

“Zdes vonyayet,” says one of the women, holding a headscarf over her nose,