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“C-c-c,” I stutter, attempting to do anything but kneel and almost puke before I manage to choke out, “Clichébullshit.”

For a second he pauses, tilting his head.

“Shakal…” Vanya meets my gaze, her eyes unwavering. “Go. Save yourself.”

“What did I just…say!” I rise again, way too slowly. “Enough cliché.”

But I crack my neck to the side anyway for good measure and to make a point. Hopefully it’s enough of a distraction to keep him from seeing the dagger in my hand.

“Utka,” I clip out in Russian. Vanya’s brow furrows for a split second, then she hammers her elbow into the masked man’s ribs, slicing her rigid hand up to deflect the blade.

And I am surging forward behind my thrown dagger.

In my adrenaline and pain addled state, I feel like I might actually beat the knife there for a second. Definitely delirious. Probably concussed.

He straightens from her blow in time to turn his head, the edge of the metal screeching along the metal of his mask. My fingers graze the lip of the mask as he realizes what I’m aiming for.

His foot flicks out, lightning fast taking me in the knee. I stagger.

Vanya stabs to gut him from the side. Somehow, he bends, throwing his weight into the movement and dodging into a headlong dash straight at the wall next to us.

Two steps.

Backflip. A fucking backflip.

And he takes each of us in the throat with a blow that leaves us choking.

Through the haze of my constricted airway, I see red spatter, droplets on the concrete. He’s wounded. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t finished us off.

But he surprises me again when he trots away, around the corner.

“We cannot…” Vanya grumbles, rising.

“Yeah. I go high?”

“Da. I go low.”

I muscle my way through the agony in my throat, my chest, my back. Dammit, my whole body is jacked up to shit.

She’s on the bike, speeding off after him as I take off, gaining speed.

I take the pallet at a jog, the dumpster at a run, clear the wall and leap to a rooftop, following the sound of her bike. Our ploy works. Vanya drives him right to me. A black-clad figure pops up ahead of me on the next roof, running at full tilt.

The opposite direction.

So I follow, whistling periodically to signal my location. The rev of a motor lets me know she’s keeping pace below.

He leaps. I leap.

I’m gaining and he knows it.

Down onto a lower level, he catches the edge of the next rise and I catch his ankle. Jerking him back down, he lands hard, rolling back into a crouch, lashing out at me with both hands. I catch both of his wrists, kicking him in the sternum. It feels damn good to connect a solid, devastating blow.

But the bastard won’t quit.

As I rush in, he bounces back out of his roll, planting both feet in my chest and blasting me backward. Reeling, my heels clip the lip of the building.

Looney Tunessaves my life with a wild flap of my arms. Regaining my balance, I’m after him again, rage fueling me up the wall, over the skylight of the apartment beneath us, and right after him as he soars across a much wider gap.