They clashed, a final time, fists clenched. Anya hit the front of Jamie’s damaged shoulder, her knuckles shredding the partly torn ligaments. She hit her in the breast, spiked, crushed, torn, a swollen bag of blood and ruined tissue. Jamie hit Anka in the belly, where she’d stomped her. She hit her twice there. They both sobbed in unbearable pain, and collapsed into each other, a grinding clinch.
Jamie lifted her good arm, and drove her elbow down into the side of Anka’s neck, just as the Russian’s fingers closed again on her breast. Anka’s legs gave way. Her hand fell nervelessly to her side as she dropped to her knees. Jamie followed her; another elbow strike with her exhausted arm.
Legs, said the voice in Jamie’s head. She took Anka to the floor, and locked her legs around her waist.
Anka bridged hard, in a panic, as Jamie tightened the scissors. Her hand clawed at Jamie’s face and chest, but those were just out of reach. Jamie’s ass and thighs went rock hard. Anka screamed, a desperate tortured sound as the brunette crushed her. Whatever had been damaged in her belly from the stomps and fists was ruptured now. Anka fought, and twisted, and wrenched, but her strength was flowing away each second. Jamie squeezed, and waited. She suppressed hope, much less triumph, until Anka’s head fell to the side.
“Now, bitch,” Jamie snarled. She released the scissors. Anka twitched. Jamie pushed up, and planted her knee in the Russian’s belly button. All her weight on it. She wanted both of Anka’s tits, but her ruined arm failed her. With the one arm she had, she crushed and mauled the breast she’d stomped, her knee still driven deep in Anka’s belly.
She knew when Anka died. She didn’t care. She kept going.
They pulled Jamie off. There was no bullet for the back of her head. The audience left, in silence, as she huddled on the floor.
It was nearly a week before Jamie was well enough to leave the house. Vasily sent doctors, more than he had promised to do. She stepped at last out into the air of London, a spectacular sunny morning. Other than surviving, it was a failed mission. She would hear from the hierarchy, she knew, when she checked in at last. Perhaps some points would be given for eliminating Anka; she certainly thought they should be.
She hadn’t been given her phone back until she left. Now a safe distance, she thumbed it and called.
“Double 0 Five,” she said.
“Six, now,” said her boss. “Yes, we know. Good riddance.” Jamie smiled at that.
“When you’ve healed,” the voice went on, “We’ve a drug lord who needs attending. Your alley, I think. No sisters to kill, sorry.”
“Funny,” Jamie said. “And M? Thanks.”
“Keep moving,” said M, and hung up.