Page 22 of Enemy Within

“No. I was never attracted to men before him. Generally, I’m still not.” He hesitated. “I do know myself enough to recognize that I fall for someone with my heart first. That’s how it was with him and me. I already had fallen for him, and then the desire started. Maybe if I had given it a chance before, the same thing would have happened with someone else. If I had been open to it.”

Sergey scowled. His cheeks darkened, and his lips pressed together, a thin red line slashing across his hawkish face.

“What’s this ab—”

“Nyet. No, no, I am done talking about this.” His hands kneaded the steering wheel again. He refused to look at Jack.

“Sergey—”

“We come from different worlds, Jack!” Sergey snapped. “You know nothing!”

Jack’s temper flared white-hot, racing through him in an instant. Cold fire, burning bright. “You’re right, I know nothing about falling for a man for the first time. Nothing about trying to figure out a whole new sexuality. Make sense of a new world, or of choosing to accept the love of the best man I’ve ever known!”

“SoAmerican! You think you have all the answers—”

“You’reafraid!”

“Maybe I just do not want it!” Sergey bellowed. He glared at Jack, his eyes dark and pinched. “Maybe I saw everything you went through and I wantnothingto do with that kind of trouble!”

Sergey’s words were like daggers, cutting into him. “Fuck, Sergey, he died for you and you can’t even say that you cared for him!”

“He did not die for me!” Sergey’s voice went high, strangled and thin. “He was determined to go on the mission! The missionyousaid was important! You made him go!”

“He gave youeverythinghe had, every last thing so you could keep fighting! We’d be blind if it weren’t for his sacrifice!”

“He should not have gone!” Sergey hollered. His slammed his foot on the accelerator, and the jeep jumped ahead, spitting snow behind their tires as they slipped almost sideways on the mountain track. “You should have helped me stop him!”

“Why? So he can still be here to follow you around? Wait for whatever handout you think would keep him interested?”

Brakes squealed, and the jeep shuddered to a halt, sliding on the frozen ground. Sergey threw open his door and leaped from the cabin, striding away.

Jack followed, jumping out and shouldering the rifle. He left his balaclava on the front seat. His boots disappeared in the snow as he shouted at Sergey’s back. “At the very least, you could acknowledge that he meantsomethingto you!”

“You think I do not love him?” Sergey spun, rage twisting his face into something ugly. Spittle flew from his lips. “OfcourseI do! He is the voice in my head! I see him in the snow and in the stars! I cannot befreeof him!”

Jack froze. He stared at Sergey, breathing hard and shaking in the glow of the headlights, shin-deep in the powdery snow. Silence strained the frozen forest, the feet that separated them.

Shoulders heaving, Sergey dragged in breath after breath, swallowing gulps of frosty air. He looked away from Jack, into the forest, his hands on his hips. When he spoke, his voice was too deep, and it shook. “I—”

A blade sliced through the air, past Jack’s cheek, and embedded in Sergey’s shoulder.

Blood wept down the front of Sergey’s jacket, staining the snow beneath him.

“Sergey!” Jack stumbled through the snow to him, just as Sergey’s knees buckled. Jack fumbled, trying to catch Sergey and unshoulder the rifle at the same time.

He crouched low and peered into the trees. Thick pine trunks and low-hanging needles, coated in frost. Bushes and alpine brush, buried in drifts. Other than the quietly falling snow, nothing moved.

Sergey grunted as he pulled the short blade from his shoulder. Blood stained his hands and dripped from the tip.

“What are you doing?” Jack tore his gaze away from the trees, watching Sergey’s blood splatter to the snow. Every first-aid course Jack had ever taken had said the same thing: leave a stab wound alone, and don’t take the weapon out. The knife looked short, though, and homemade. Metal filed into a spike of some sort. Or a shank.

Sergey wiped the blade in the snow, cleaning the blood off. He peered at it, pressing his free hand against his bleeding shoulder. “Jack,” Sergey hissed. “We have to get back to the jeep. Now!”

“What is it? Moroshkin’s men?”

“Worse.”

Turning, Jack found Sergey’s gaze. His eyes were wide, and for the first time, terrified.