Murmansk-13

“Nobody leaves until they surrender the supplies.” The drawn out keen of the massing infected beyond the door and the constant thrum of the generator threatened to drown out Kirill’s breaking voice. “Seize them.”

Tala pushed away from the glass and grabbed Katja by her hand. Frantically she looked around the cell. In the far corner a grating lead to what she hoped was the air conditioning ducts or service conduit. The grate was small, Katja’s tear filled eyes turned to where Tala looked. “I won’t make it through.”

“We’re going to try.”

Tala dragged Katja across the office. “Give me a boost.”

Just as Tala levered herself up to the height of the grate the frosted glass shattered beside them, sprinkling blackened shrapnel across the room. The guard stationed outside half fell into the room, Ilya on top of him. Katja screamed and dropped Tala as the two men turned to regard the women. The guards eyes glazed as a trickle of blood parted his lips, Ilya smiled hungrily as he crawled off the man. A shard of glass poked through the guards chest having been driven through his back. The guard struggled for just a moment against his impalement, trying to grasp Ilya before his body fell slack. Tala recognized him as the strawberry blonde haired man at Gennady’s office door hours before. She’d never learnt his name.

Katja turned to run, but like a caged rodent, darted about the limited space offered to her. As she tried to shoulder charge the remaining pane of glass, Ilya grabbed her by the neck. She gave a throttled yelp. Instinctively Tala grabbed a long, thin needle of smashed glass that had come to rest by her feet. As Ilya tightening his grip around Katja’s throat, Tala’s knuckles whitened around the glass. Her blood trickled down the makeshift shank.

“Let her go.” Tala said, teeth gritted. Katja tried to pull Ilya’s fingers from her throat but her hands flailed uselessly in the giant mans grip. Her face reddened as tears streaked her cheeks.

“Maybe if you play nice, I’ll let your little girlfriend go,” Ilya slurred his English like a drunk. “Or maybe I won’t. What are you going to do you little dyke cunt?”

Unthinking, Tala lunged toward the man. Beyond the office she could hear pitched battle ongoing. She imagined with no one coming to help, Gennady’s men were losing. And so was she. Ilya was taller by at least a foot and a half. Even with one hand tied up with Katja, Tala couldn’t get near the bigger man. She could dodge his slow, lumbering hooks all day but she didn’t have time to tire him out, Katja’s face was growing purple, her eyelids fluttered toward oblivion. As Tala tried to dodge outside his left hand, her foot slipped on the icy carpet of glass. His swing caught the back of her head, but flinging her arm back, Tala managed to slash Ilya on the outside of his forearm. She felt the fragile glass pick snap in her hand. As Tala tried to regain her balance, Ilya threw another haymaker. She tried ducking it again, but Ilya had read her defence. Tala managed to get half a block up before Ilya’s fist skittered across her forearm, smashing into her temple.

Tala fell to her knee, splinters of glass burrowed through her jumpsuit and embedded in the thin flesh. She’d bareknuckled before, but no man or woman had ever hit her so hard. As the world threatened to darken around her she tried to remember when she had last fought. The girl.

Ilya’s free hand closed around the back of Tala’s neck before she could right herself. He forced her face to the deck. Now glass punctured her cheek. “I’m going to make you watch as I fuck your girlfriend raw,” Ilya’s lips were pressed to the top of Tala’s ear. His whispering, clearly enunciated words made her skin crawl. “I’m going to make her pussy bleed before she dies. Then I’ll feed all this busted glass into your dyke cunt. Understand?”

“I am going to kill you.” Tala slurred before Ilya hammered her face into the deck.

Chapter 14

There had been one crate of beer left, twenty four bottles. He’d donated twenty one to the remaining crew and retained three for himself. Absently Tor sipped the warm pilsner, his legs crossed, his back pressed into the smooth headboard of his bed, trying to avoid the sodden – almost circular – patch of urine that dominated the middle lower portion of his mattress.