THE CROSSFIRE

Elara's POV

Dmitri's bullet sounded sharp and deafeningly through the hall. My heart missed a beat, and everything in me stopped. Though everything around me was blurring into a haze, one thing was absolutely clear: the rifle was pointed at me.

Leo yelled behind me. "El Tara!"

I had no time to consider. Instinct seized, and I dove for the floor, my body skidding across the slick wood as the air seemed to crackle with tension. Though my breath was shallow and my chest was tight, I couldn't concentrate on fear—not now.

"Get Up!" Leo's footsteps pounded closer as his voice sliced through the anarchy.

I forced myself to kneel, hardly able to control my breath, then turned back to him. The look on his face—fury, desperation—made my chest contract. But I felt more than just the wrath in his gaze. He was staring at me as though he had lost something he could not afford to lose once more.

But time did not allow one to address those ideas right now. The gunshot had been rather near. Dmitri was not playing around any more.

Ignoring the acute agony in my side, I spun to my feet and gazed up at Dmitri, still clutching the rifle, his palm shaking with fury. Though his chest heaving with every breath, he hadn't fired again. His eyes were crazy.

"You believe you could just walk away from Elara?" Dmitri's voice was low, nearly a growl, but it was tinged with something far more terrible—fear. "After all we have gone through, you seem ready to go? Once everything I have done for you?"

Though they were like a dagger to the heart, I couldn't let them control me. I refused to let him know how profoundly his treachery had wounded me. Not now.

"Dmitri," I murmured, my voice firm despite the surge of adrenaline pumping through my blood. "It is you that has made this impossible. It was you that transformed us into a game, a bargain. I am not some trophy to be earned.

He moved forward, the rifle still elevated but not pointed at me now. Emotion drove his voice to change. "I did it for Elara, your love drives me. I have always liked you. You consider Leo to be the solution? You simply are too blind to perceive him; he is a monster.

I shook my head, his words still tingling in my lips like sourness. "I'm done, Dmitri." I'm through acting as your puppet. I am done with all of this."

He peered at me as though trying to read my soul, then his face twisted in wrath. He said nothing for a time.

More to himself than to me, Dmitri said, "You're making a mistake." Then his eyes turned abruptly to Leo. "You, above all people, believe you could shield her? All you are is a shadow of the person you once were.

Leo stepped forward, his face stiffening. "You believe you can rule her, Dmitri? In this narrative, you believe you have been the hero? You have just worked to control her.

Dmitri grinned sarcastically. Additionally you? Leo, just what have you done? What qualifies you as any better? You are, if not worse, exactly as twisted as I am. Elara's still eager to listen to your lies is the only difference.

At Dmitri's remarks, the darkness in his voice, I felt a chill run down my spine; Leo was not affected. "You're only upset that she no longer plays your game. Dmitri, you have lost management of her. And you are too frail to receive it."

Furious, Dmitri raised the rifle once more, this time aiming it squarely at Leo. Every cell in my body shouted at me to move, to do, anything. My heart stopped in my chest.

"No," I said, straying between them, my hands lifted as though I could somehow protect Leo from Dmitri's craziness.

Dmitri's eyes swung to me, his face caught between despair and wrath. "Move out of the way, Elara," he said with a strained voice. "This falls between him and me."

Again, I repeated, "No," my voice was hardly more than a breath. " You are not going to do this. Not yet.

The tension in the room appeared to hold its breath for a brief instant. Dmitri's eyes fixed me, as though he were looking for some hint of the lady he believed he knew. But now there was nothing there for him. Not except the echoes of a fractured past.

With a shaking but forceful voice, "I'm not going to let you kill him, Dmitri," I said. "You already have everything from me taken. I refuse to let you grab this too.

Dmitri dropped the gun, his hands shaking as he fixed me. He seemed about to crack, and for a moment I believed he might really pay me attention. Then his eyes strayed to Leo, and his jaw closed, resolving to fill his view.

"You will regret this, Elara," Dmitri spat. "You will regret picking him above me."

Dmitri turned and rushed toward the door before I could answer, leaving me standing there, shivering and gasping.

I had no idea I had been holding my breath until the door slammed behind him caused me to suddenly gasp.

Leo moved in closer, his presence overwhelming, yet suddenly he was different. Still there remained the intensity in his eyes, but so was something else—something deeper, something more vulnerable.

"Elara," he said gently, reaching to touch my arm. His fingertips stroked my skin, a bolt of energy coursed through me. " You're safe now."

Not able to look at him. I allowed myself to not be able to. Not when everything was so fractured, when my surroundings seemed to be disintegrating.

"I don't know what's happening anymore," I said, my voice almost audible. "I'm not sure who I should be trusting."

Leo's hand softly rounded my chin, raising my face to meet his eyes. His touch was comforting, friendly, and for a time I let myself slink into it. "You can trust me, Elara," he added, his voice kind but clearly conviction-driven. "I have always told you straightforwardly. I will always be as well.

I shook my head, my head whirling with contradicting feelings. The wrath, the hurt, the treachery—all whirled inside me and I had no idea how to sort through any of it.

"I whisper, Leo, not sure if I can trust anyone anymore," my voice faltering. "Not following everything that's happened."

His eyes softened, and for a split second it nearly seemed as though everything could be fine. Like we could somehow right this. Then the weight of reality crashed back.

"I need you to trust me, Elara," Leo replied with great force. "I need you to trust that I'm doing everything I can to protect you."

Heart thumping in my chest, I gazed up at him. "I want to believe you," I said, my voice shaking with the feeling I was trying to hold inside. "But I doubt if I can anymore."

Though Leo's jaw tightened, he said nothing. He simply stood there, his presence like a magnet I couldn't resist dragging me in.

Then another knock on the door before I could say anything else.

My heart shot from my chest. This time the knock was different. It was stronger and more immediate. And I got cold running through me when the door creaked open.

Was Mara?

And in her hands she had a phone.

She entered, her gaze steely and calculated, and without a word handed me the phone. I watched the name on the screen as I took it.

Dmitri.

Under his name, too, a lesson: "You have 24 hours. Everything you love will then burn."

The room seemed to whirl about me. My blood went cold.

The game had lately gotten much more hazardous.