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Nikolai couldn’t have known her weapon didn’t hold bullets, and yet he’d forced her to take him down. Begged her for it. She had been through some pretty rough things in her life, but Renata didn’t know that kind of torment and suffering She was quite sure she hoped she never would.

The wound in her shoulder burned like hell. It was bleeding again, worse, after this tense physical confrontation. At least the bullet had passed through cleanly. The nasty hole it left behind was going to need medical attention, although she didn’t see a hospital in her near future. She also didn’t think it wise to stay near Nikolai now, especially while she was bleeding and the only thing keeping him away from her carotid was that single dose of sedatives.

The tranq gun was empty.

Night was falling, she was nursing a bleeding gunshot wound and the added bonus of her lingering reverb. And staying in the stolen truck was like hiding out with a large bull’s-eye target on their backs.

She needed to ditch the vehicle. Then she needed to find someplace safe where she could patch herself up well enough for her to push on. Nikolai was an added problem. She wasn’t ready to give up on him, but he was no use to her in his current condition. If he could manage to shake the terrible aftereffects of his torture, then maybe. And if not… ?

If not, then she had just wasted more precious time than she cared to consider.

Moving gingerly, Renata climbed out the back of the trailer and latched the doors behind her. The sun had set, and dusk was coming fast. In the distance, the lights of Montreal glowed.

Mira was somewhere in that city.

Helpless, alone … afraid.

Renata climbed into the truck and started the engine. She drove back toward the city uncertain where she was heading until she eventually found herself on familiar ground. She never thought she’d be back. Certainly never like this.

The old city neighborhood hadn’t changed much in the two years she’d been gone. Cramped tenements and modest post-World War II bungalows lined the twilit street. A few of the youths coming out of the convenience store on the corner glanced at the medical supply truck as Renata drove past.

She didn’t recognize any of them, nor any of the shiftless, vacant-eyed adults who made this stretch of concrete their home. But Renata wasn’t looking for familiar faces out here. There was just one person she prayed was still around. One person who could be trusted to help her, with few questions asked.

As she rolled up on a squat yellow bungalow with its trellis of pink roses blooming out front, a queer tightness balled in her chest. Jack was still here; Anna’s beloved roses, well tended and thriving, were evidence enough of that. And so was the small ironwork sign that Jack had made himself to hang beside the front door, proclaiming the cheery house Anna’s Place.

Renata slowed the truck to a stop at the curb and cut the engine, staring at the youth halfway house she’d been to so many times but never actually entered. Lights were on inside, throwing off a welcoming, golden glow. It must have been near suppertime because through the large picture window in front she could see that two teenagers— Jack’s clients, though he preferred to call them his “kids”—were setting the table for the evening meal.

“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath, closing her eyes and resting her forehead on the steering wheel.

This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be here. Not now, after all this time. Not with the problems she was facing. And definitely not with the problem she was currently carrying in the back of the truck.

No, she had to deal with this on her own. Start the engine, wheel the truck around, and take her chances on the street. Hell, she was no stranger to that. But Nikolai was in bad shape, and she wasn’t exactly at the top of her game either. She didn’t know how much longer she could drive before—

“Evenin’.” The friendly, unmistakable Texas drawl came from directly beside her at the open driver’s side window.