I needed to get back to her. Every second I was away from her felt like a year. What if she’d been shot again, and the armor didn’t stop it, this time? What if she was lying there wounded, right now, and I wasn’t there?

I growled and pushed on. To save her, I had to do this. I’d made my way up the back staircase to the fourth floor and now I was... I guess the word would be backstage, amongst all the electronics that made the studio work. It was like being in a forest, with thick trunks of computer servers and thousands of cables stretched between them. I threaded my way silently through and finally came out near one of the balconies that looked down onto the third floor. Right in front of me was one of Lukin’s men. He was firing down at the third floor and—

My chest tightened. He was shooting at the table Kristina was sheltering behind.

I growled and ran at him like a charging bull. He heard me coming and turned around just in time to get my fist in his face. He staggered back against the balcony wall and I ducked down and grabbed his legs, helping him on his way. He screamed as he tumbled over the side and crashed to the floor below. That’s one.

I disappeared back into the racks of computers and circled around to the next guy. But then it all went wrong. He’d been alerted by his buddy’s scream and saw me as soon as I left the shelter of the computers and started shooting. I had to run for cover as bullets slammed into the computers all around, shattering plastic and puncturing metal. There was the sharp smell of ozone and then acrid smoke as things shorted out. White-hot sparks showered across the floor and I grunted as some of them struck my wrist.

I came to a stop hunkered down behind a rack of computer servers, wincing as the gunman pumped shots into them from the other side. I don’t have time for this! I had to get back to Kristina. But the gunman was just waiting for me to emerge. As soon as I came out from behind the servers, I was dead. Brute force wouldn’t cut it, for once. I had to think.

And then, glancing around at the server racks, I realized they were all on wheels, so they could be moved around.

I crouched down, making sure I didn’t let anything poke out from behind my cover, and flipped up the little brakes that stopped the wheels from moving. And then I heaved, putting all my strength into it.

I heard the gunman falter as the server rack he was firing at started to roll towards him. I kept pushing. We started to pick up speed and I heard the gunman take a step backwards. He fired three more shots but they just sunk into the metal of the heavy computer servers. I pushed harder, almost running, now, nudging the thing left and right, aiming at where the sound was coming from—

I felt the impact as the servers thumped into the guy. Then a second later, a scream as they slammed him back against the balcony. I didn’t know if he was injured or dead, but he was out of the fight. That’s two….

A rifle butt caught me in the back of my bandaged head and I went down like a felled tree. My brain was suddenly one big, throbbing ball of pain. All I could see was white and all I could hear was a thin, shrill screech.

I nearly threw up. I managed to get my hands under me and tried to pry myself off the floor, but it felt like I weighed a thousand tons. I gritted my teeth and managed to turn myself over and looked up at—

I could see two of him, his face just an outline, black lines on blinding white. But I knew that slicked-back hair. Silvas Lukin.

He drew back his leg and kicked me in my kidneys. The pain rippled up my body and when it reached my head, it felt like it exploded.

I tried to get my feet under me but my head hurt so much, it wouldn’t send the right messages to my limbs. I just lay there, slumped. Then he kicked me again and my whole body went limp.

I was done.

He could have just shot me while I was down, but no: he wanted it to hurt as much as possible. He raised his rifle above his head, ready to bring it down on me like a club. “We should have killed her in the war when we had the chance!” he spat.

And then I got mad.

I thought of my dad. I thought of the marines who’d been wounded, just that day, and the FBI agents back in America, and all the millions who’d die when the war started. I thought about those children he’d killed in the church. Most of all, I thought about Kristina, locked in that cell, filling with water. All because bastards like this decide some other race, or nation, or tribe, is inferior.

He swung the rifle at my head. My hand snapped up and caught the stock, stopping it an inch from my skull. His eyes bulged in sudden fear and he tried to tear it away from me, but I was stronger. Both of us heaved... and then both of us lost our grip on it and the rifle went spinning off across the floor.

I grabbed hold of some dangling cables and with sheer, stubborn determination, I used them to haul myself up, first to my knees and then to standing. I felt like I was on the rolling deck of a ship. The whole room was still throbbing white in time with my pulse. I could barely see or think. But I was going to stop him, no matter what. I was going to protect her.

I ran at him, staggering a little. I was still seeing double and I couldn’t be sure of hitting him, so I spread my arms wide and charged, ramming him back into a rack of servers. Then I brought my fist up under his chin.

He stumbled back, bleeding from a split lip... and pulled out a knife. But I had this. I was angry, fired up. I’d tear him apart.

I stepped back a little, getting my balance... and went right into the smoke that was belching from one of the damaged computers. I blinked and coughed. And suddenly, I could feel it coming for me, bearing down on me like a runaway freight train. No! Jesus, no, not now!

But it was no good. I was frozen, the memory rushing towards me. A house in Iran, where my eyes were gritty with sand and my lungs were clogged with dust. Where everyone I cared about was dead.

“You can’t protect her,” panted Lukin. “Look at you.”

I tried to hold it back. I used all my strength, but the memory had the weight of a planet, it would crush me when it hit—

Lukin kicked me viciously in the leg and I fell to the ground. I could barely see him, anymore. All I could see was the brown, swirling dust. The look on Baker’s face when I shot him.

“You did us a favor,” said Lukin. He fell to his knees astride me and raised the knife. “Killing’s too good for a Lakovian bitch. You brought her right to us. Maybe we can take her alive.”

Kristina. She needed me. And I remembered what she’d told me.

I closed my eyes and thought of her in plaid shirt and jeans. And the horses, snorting as she stroked them. I thought of fresh, clean air and a sunset in Texas. That’s where I wanted to be.

I stopped trying to hold back the memory... and sidestepped, instead. I felt it pass by me, so close I could feel the wind on my face, and then slam home, heavy and real and terrifying. But I was outside it, looking in. Maybe for the first time, I could see it for what it was: the past.

My eyes opened and I surged up off the floor. I grabbed Lukin’s throat in one hand and drove him back and back, then twisted and slammed him down on the floor. My fists hammered his face as I screamed at him in fury.

And then he groaned and went still and I slumped atop him, panting. It was over.

I heard a tiny noise behind me, almost undetectable. I opened my eyes and, on the computer screen in front of me, I saw the reflection of General Novak.

Then he brought his rifle down on my head and everything went black.