hair and hazel eyes is walking toward me, smirking.
I scramble backward on my injured leg.
He swipes for me. I skid around the counter, my dress catching beneath my feet. He snatches the chiffon fabric of my skirt, ripping half of it from the bodice.
I reach behind my back. My hand slides across the counter.
If I can somehow …
My fingers find the hilt. My palm finds the blade. When he reaches for me a second time, I swing the kitchen knife forward, aiming it straight into his stomach. He turns, so I lance his hip instead.
His forearm cuts down hard onto my right elbow, sending the blade clattering to the floor.
The man flips me around and pushes my face brutishly against the countertop.
“Sophia!” Aksel roars.
Yelling to the others, the man holds my arms behind my back and wraps a cable tie around my wrists.
Impervious to the gunfire around us, Aksel shoots at a man coming from his left, dodging bullets and backing toward me.
The man with the hazel eyes—the Chechen—tightens the cables, attempting to clip them together. I thrash, trying to wrestle my wrists away from him.
Another man, wearing a bulletproof vest, enters the kitchen from the great room and raises a semiautomatic, trying to get a bead at Aksel’s back—
“NO!” I scream.
I throw my head backward with as much force as I can. Crack! The Chechen lets go of me, pulling both his hands up to his fractured chin. Instantly, I sweep his legs from under him, reach into my bodice, lock the blade into place, and fling my Ladybug across the room.
The Ladybug pierces the man’s suprasternal notch, right above his bulletproof vest. The semiautomatic drops from his hands as he tries to stop blood spurting from his neck.
Standing, I rip more pleated tulle fabric from the bodice so I can move. The wound in my thigh is still leaking blood, but adrenaline numbs the pain.
A man springs forward, swinging his knife at me.
Aksel vaults over the table, takes the man’s right forearm, and twists him around. The man spins, attempting to swing his knife backward. Aksel hits him brutally on the side of the head, and the man drops to the ground with a thump.
The men regroup. Aksel has his rifle again, taking aim. He shoots at the men fanning out around us—Pop! Pop! Pop!
I look down. Aksel’s backcountry pack is open on the floor, its contents rolling out onto the rug. I reach forward, snatch the aerosol can, and snap off the top. When the man nearest me raises his gun, I spray him in the face.
He shrieks as the bear spray burns his eyes. Rather than drop his weapon, he blindly pulls the trigger, screaming and shooting wildly.
A bullet grazes my left shoulder, singeing my skin. I cry out.
Aksel shouts my name.
With a look of frenzy devouring his hazel eyes, the Chechen lunges at me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see another figure barreling toward me like a cannon. Suddenly, a blazing orange flame shoots from Aksel’s hand, engulfing the room in a blinding, incandescent light.
Aksel swings his rifle onto his back, hooks his arm around my waist, and hurls us into the windows.
CHAPTER 38
With an earsplitting crash, we catapult through the glass. Even with a meter of snow packed onto the lower deck, we land hard.
Above us, the avalanche flare fades to an orange shimmer.
Instantly, bullets burrow like torpedoes into the snow millimeters from Aksel’s head. Although I feel dazed, it’s Aksel who bears the brunt of the fall; his forearm is shredded, as he used it to break the glass.
Standing, I tug Aksel’s hand. “Come on,” I urge.
However, between my tattered gown, bare feet, and injured thigh, I also struggle to move.
Leaning on each other, we hurtle down the steps, plowing through the snow in the direction of the forest.
I hear shouting far behind, Aksel’s steady breathing beside me, then the whine of motors.
More of them.
We veer left, away from the sound. Aksel swings his rifle from his back, glancing between the house and the forest. We are surrounded.
The snowmobiles reach the forest edge. One of the snowmobiles breaks off and drives at us. The driver unslings an assault rifle.
Aksel steps in front of me and raises his bolt-action, taking aim—
“No!” I shout, knocking aside Aksel’s rifle barrel.
Before the snowmobile comes to a complete stop, my father launches from it, firing.
He surges past us, evading the muffled cracks of gunfire. He returns fire at the house—smooth, efficient, effective.
Another snowmobile circles us. In