Page 95 of Assassin Anonymous

“He’s mine,” Astrid says.

I attempt to clamber to my feet but my knee buckles. “Are you kidding me?”

She brings her foot up high, ready to bring it down on his face, but he throws a hard fist into her crotch and she bends over in pain. There’s a crashing sound from somewhere deeper in the apartment. I turn to look for Stuart but don’t see him.

Then there’s a sharp crack, and Astrid staggers back.

Kozlov has a small handgun cradled to his chest.

I hope she’s wearing a vest, but she presses her hand to her side and comes back with a fistful of blood. Kozlov is training the pistol for a better shot when I yell, “No!”

So he turns to me, sending a bullet into the meat of my left shoulder.

At first, it feels like a punch. Adrenaline still working its magic. But whatever he hit, it mattered, because suddenly I can’t move the arm. The pain is howling at the door, and I go down to one knee. Kozlov gets up and comes toward me.

Astrid is writhing on the ground, but he’s lost interest in her. He’s stalking toward me now. Whatever went down between them was personal, but not personal enough to distract from the opportunity to put down the Pale Horse.

“Ultimately,” he says, “I didn’t think it would work out. It was always going to be you or me. But I appreciate the opportunity.”

He aims the gun at my face.

This is it, I guess.

When you enter this life, you don’t expect to leave it clean. When I got into the program, I thought maybe there was a chance. And there’s still a part of my brain saying: You can do this. You can fight back. You can survive.

Just give over to that thing you’ve been denying about yourself.

Be who you’re supposed to be.

Except I don’t want to be that.

And I don’t have to be.

“It is a privilege to take your life,” Kozlov says.

He tenses, ready to fire.

And the point of a long blade erupts from his chest.

He drops the gun and his eyes roll back. He’s dead before he slumps to the floor.

Kenji is standing in Kozlov’s place, his face bloodied. Every ounce of his concentration is directed at keeping his body vertical, and I know without him having to say anything that Kozlov isn’t the first person he’s killed today to get here.

My heart shatters on the tile floor, the fragile glass shards of it cascading around us.

When he sees me, he just gives me that bemused smile, like someone told a moderately funny joke. He opens his mouth to say something, but there’s another explosion. He puts his hands to his chest and falls to his knees, then collapses into my arms.

Blood blooms hot and sticky on my legs.

Too much blood.

Kenji coughs and sputters, his eyes rolling around in his head before they lock on mine. He reaches out, and I take his hand. He squeezes it, hard, and says, “It’s…okay…”

His grip loosens.

And then he’s gone.

Another hand appears on my shoulder. “You see? In the end, Kenji understood.”