We skid around the corner, the car fishtailing, then we’re accelerating until my surroundings blur. Three official-looking cars pull onto the road behind us. I glance at our driver. He doesn’t look nervous. No, he smiles when he notices the vehicles. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s just as bloodthirsty as I am.

I hear a distant, high-pitched whine, and then the first car behind us explodes in a burst of flame. The sound of crumbling metal follows a second later, presumably as the two cars following the first crash into it. Someone laid in wait for those cars. And someone shot them with a grenade launcher.

Our driver whoops and slams his palm triumphantly on the driving wheel. “That’s how it’s fucking done!”

Rather than join in, I feel myself weaken as I release the last of my adrenaline. I lean back in my seat. “Who are you?” I ask.

The man pauses a beat. “I am a part of the Resistance.”

He eyes me in the rearview mirror. “And judging by the fact that you have more blood on you than a butcher, I’m guessing that you aren’t as traitorous as everyone’s making you out to be.”

I look out the window. My hands are shaking. Soon the rest of my body will follow suit, and then I’ll have to truly feel again. Once that happens I’m going to wish I were dead. As it is, my head pounds as it tries to disassociate itself from all that just happened.

My father’s dead.

His body lies in enemy territory.

I bury the emotion that’s rising. Just because I’m not running and shooting at the moment doesn’t mean I’m safe. I can’t allow myself to fall apart now, not when I have three WUN soldiers whose lives I can still save.

I digest this. “Thank you,” I finally say, “for risking your life to get us out of there.”

The man grunts in response. “Did you kill him?”

I don’t need any clarification to know whom he’s asking about. “No,” I say darkly.

Silence falls over the car, and for several minutes there’s a strange kind of calm. It’s not real, not when the blood of a dozen different men drips down my body and I tightly clench two guns in my hands, safeties off. Not when the car we’re in is careening through the city of Geneva, zipping around other vehicles and pedestrians.

The sound of blades slicing the air catches our attention, and our driver swears. “That was faster than I expected,” he says, looking up at the sky. I follow his gaze, and I see a helicopter heading our way.