When Volkov had given her this Trial six months ago, she’d realized that she’d be lucky to survive it no matter how many martial arts lessons her father had put her through. It would be two against one, and she wouldn’t have their strength or experience. But she did have the advantage of being fit, lithe, and very, very fast. So she’d concentrated on learning this forest like the back of her hand. Her father had told her that Volkov would almost certainly choose Gregor and Razov, and she’d spent several nights spying at Volkov’s compound watching them so that she’d know their strengths, the way they moved, how they reacted to each other. She’d been as ready as she could be when her father had dropped her off at the forest two nights ago. Her only plan was to keep out of their way and keep them moving. Let them catch glimpses of her and then vanish and make them hunt her. She’d wanted them tired and frustrated enough to make mistakes so that she might get her chance. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d evaded them for the last two nights. Though she hadn’t counted on how tired she would become herself or that the curses and foul descriptions about what they were going to do to her before they killed her would make her this afraid. She’d thought she could block the ugliness out, but the more exhausted she grew, the more difficult it became.

She’d done more difficult things.

Though she’d never taken a life.

Yet if she didn’t take their lives, Maria would not survive. Her father had made that clear. He had no more use for her now, and he had only one use for Lara.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Gregor was suddenly cursing as he strode ahead of Razov. “She’s only a woman. I thought we’d track her down the first night when I saw her down by the creek. I told you we should split up then and each take a different direction. I’m not going to spend another night wasting my time. I’m heading east toward the creek. You go west and circle back to meet me. I want this over.”

Yes. It was the break Lara had been waiting for. She moved down the trail toward the east, taking a shortcut so that she would arrive at the creek before Gregor in order to position herself.

There he is.

She froze on the other side of the trail, watching as he moved toward the creek and then bent to check the bank for footprints. He would find them: She’d deliberately left prints leading deeper into the woods to the west before she’d swung up into a low tree and moved through the branches until she was close enough to the creek to jump into the water and wade toward a stone bank.

Gregor had straightened and was following the trail to the west.

She drew a deep breath. Then she was silently moving forward. No noise. Don’t breathe. Gather your muscles for the blow. Precision was all-important, but when she struck, it had to be with all her strength to have the needed force. He was in the trees now. She could see the beam of his flashlight on the ground as he looked for footprints.