Swiping the dampness away, I unfasten and peel the vest off, letting it fall onto the floor, and then stare at my hands in the half-light. They’re clean now. The blood is only on my dress now, but I still feel the stain on my skin.
I shower, then change into clean clothes before crawling into bed. I shed the last of my tears and listen to the pulse in my ears until it slows.
Through the door I hear nothing, and in that quiet is a man who would put his body between mine and every bullet sent to end me, and the thought of my brother who chose not to show upwhen the cost of choosing to be a good man was the cheapest it will ever be for him.
“Tomorrow,” I tell the ceiling, my throat growing tight. “I’ll deal with it all tomorrow.”
It sounds like a prayer as well as a promise. Both are the only things that keep me from breaking in half right now. I feel like I’m about to come apart, torn from Archer’s betrayal.
Because that’s what this is.
As more tears well up in my eyes, I close them, trying to fight them off. Maybe things aren’t as they seem. Maybe there’s a reason why Archer didn’t show up today.
As if that makes this awful situation any better.
My eyes close, but it’s impossible to fall asleep after a horrific day that ended with bloodshed on both sides.
14
Dominik
The city wakesbefore I do. For a second, I don’t move. I count the pull of stitches along my side, the dull ache that follows each breath, the heat of the bruises around the bandage.
I may not be at a hundred percent yet, but I’m alive, and I’m not finished with anyone who made me bleed.
It takes me longer than it should to notice someone else breathing in the room with me.Not close, not hovering, but present in a quiet way. Her scent gets there before the thought of her does—lavender soap, a trace of cinnamon coffee, and clean skin. The same combination that sank its claws into the back of my throat yesterday when she leaned over me and pressed cloth into the hole a bullet thought it could make permanent.
She shouldn’t be the first thing I look for when I open my eyes, but she is.
I don’t have to chase the memory; it’s always with me. The feel of her hands, small, shaking, fierce because they had to be, pressing down on my ribs, the ridiculous torn strip of her dresswrapped around Viktor’s shirt like she thought the small piece of fabric could put up a fight against that much blood. The way she flinched when sounds escaped me, then held.
I don’t call out to her yet. I pull in a breath, slow and shallow, then sit up. The ache grabs at my side. I try to ignore it.
Alina looks up when the sheets rustle, her eyes glassy as her gaze starts at my bare chest and ribs before she works her way up to my face. She hasn’t slept. I can see it in the blue underneath her eyes and the way her mouth is set.
“You should have asked the doctor to give you something for the pain,” she says.
“I’ve had worse,” I assure her. It’s true and exactly the kind of line men say when they’d rather die than admit to any shred of vulnerability.
Alina stands and moves a glass of water and two tablets closer to me. Not narcotics. Something that takes the edge off without stealing your mind. She’s learning. Or Viktor told her my preference. Either way, she made the effort.
“Take them,” she says. It’s an order.
I accept the glass because it’ll save us an argument I don’t really want to have. The tablets sit there until she lifts her chin and waits. I leave them there a second out of spite because I enjoy her attempt to be angry with me on my behalf, then take them. I’ll be damned if I reward her worry with stubbornness.
The day before replays in my head for the millionth time. Vans, the men who came to make us pay, the panic that I had put Alina in danger, the smoke blooming and then thinning. The relieved moment when I realized the blood under her hands was just mine.
Archer made a promise to me, to her, and then sold us out. I knew it when those vans cut their engines. Alina knew it too.
I slide my legs out of the bed and stand up too fast, when a bolt of heat snaps under the bandage. I ride it out and the roomsteadies. Alina moves toward me like she means to catch me and stops with her hands closed on air.
“I should get dressed. Gavriil will probably be here soon,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because our enemies will try to take advantage when they smell my blood in the water, and thePakhandoesn’t tolerate any weakness in his world. Especially not from his own brother,” I explain to her. Then add on the part I wish wasn’t true. “He’ll want to see you as well. Don’t make it easy for him.”
Alina’s hazy green eyes drop to the bandage along my ribs, then my chest. I feel her eyes on my back as I go pull a clean T-shirt from the dresser and shrug it on with a practiced roll that makes me want to scream, but only a grunt escapes my lips. She meets my eyes when I turn around, and we both pretend I didn’t make a sound.
