My heart clenched, she was innocent. She wanted to save her sister like I did. She was a victim, just like me, like all of us. “I’m going to let you go, but you have to stop. I’m going to save your sister, Hanna, so stop,” I said and she nodded. I released her and got back on my feet quickly while she dropped to all fours,sucking in huge gulps of air, coughing, saliva spilling from her lips as she struggled to breathe. I wiped the blood running down my chin with the back of my hand as she pushed herself up onto her knees. “I’m going to open the door and we’re going to act like nothing happened,” I said, panting as she started sobbing again. “I’ll say I tripped and that you helped me” I stepped back toward the door while she nodded. I sighed softly, already thinking of how to find her sister. Maybe Mother had sent her to the institute? I grabbed the door handle as it rattled violently, I heard several voices outside, Ava’s, Esme’s. I reached for the lock…but everything happened too fast. Hanna got up again with a speed I never would have expected from her, she grabbed the knife a few steps away and threw herself at me. I dodged but not fast enough. The blade pierced my skin as I screamed in pain, her hands forcing it in deeper as I stepped back to keep it from sinking further into my flesh, but my back hit the wall. I grabbed the blade with my hand, “Die! Stop fighting, die!” she screamed, her voice echoing off the walls and probably much farther, because the girls behind the door started shouting in panic. “Please,” she sobbed, gripping the handle with both hands to drive it in, while my hand wrapped around her wrist to stop her. I slowly lifted my face to hers, breath ragged, surrounded by the taste and smell of blood. “I can’t,” I said through clenched teeth as I slowly pulled the knife from my flesh, “I can’t.” I repeated it, remembering the last time I had spoken to my sister three years earlier, “I can’t!” I screamed, remembering Wendy’s death, and her Shadow.
“Survival, Sienna,” Ganesh told me, pointing with his cane at one of his hunting dogs playing with the carcass of a wolf. The dog was in bad shape. It had fought the wolf the night before, managed to kill it, then dragged the body all the way into Ganesh’s garden. “It’s a she-wolf,” he continued, striking theground with his cane. “Big enough to have cubs. An innocent mother looking for food.”He paused. “But survival, Sienna. There is nothing more important. Nothing more intoxicating. Nothing more dangerous. When you fight to survive, nothing else matters.” he turned toward me, and I lifted my face to his.
“Survive, Sienna. No matter the consequences. No matter the price. Survive. Deal with the aftermath later, when you’re still alive.” His dark gaze locked onto mine, and I nodded.
I was going to survive.
I was going to save my sister.
I was going to find Valentina.
I was going to kill the Master and make sure no other girl ever shared my fate.
The blade slid completely out of my flesh, and blood began to pour freely, but I didn’t look away from Hanna. My gaze stayed locked onto hers, her eyes were wide. Terrified.
“I’m going to survive,” I panted, “I’m going to survive no matter the cost,” I hissed through clenched teeth. My head slammed into her nose and she screamed as blood began to gush. Releasing the knife, which clattered to the floor again she staggered back, both hands flying to her face. I didn’t hesitate for a single second. I didn’t look at my wound soaking through the satin fabric of my nightgown. I threw myself at her, like that dog and that she-wolf. We crashed to the floor together. She swung her elbow, hitting my jaw, and I fell sideways. She used the opening to push up onto her knees and lunged again for the knife, but I didn’t let her.
I grabbed the back of her sweater, yanked her backward, wrapped my arm around her neck again and this time I locked her arms to the floor with my legs. She struggled, violently. I didn’t let go. I squeezed. Again. And again. “Please,” she whimpered but I ignored it, I wasn’t going to make the samemistake twice… “Save her… save my sister,” she whispered as her movements slowed. “Save her,” she sobbed, tears spilled from my eyes, but I didn’t loosen my grip. Because she wouldn’t stop. Because I wouldn’t have stopped either to save my sister. “I promise,” I whispered “I’ll find her and save her. I promise you, Hanna” as her body went limp. “Thank you,” were the last words to leave her blood-stained lips as her eyes rolled back and she stopped moving. She stopped breathing. She stopped living.
Kenji’s voice shouted from behind the door as he slammed into it, again and again, then harder, shoulder blows. I pulled myself off Hanna’s lifeless body and pressed my back against the fridge door, grabbing the dish towel hanging from the oven handle and pressing it against my wound, which was bleeding heavily. But my eyes never left Hanna. I had killed another innocent.
I started laughing, I was a serial killer now, I killed innocents.
The door finally gave way and Kenji burst into the room like lightning, his eyes widening at the scene. His gaze went first to the pool of blood near the door, then to Hanna, then to me, still laughing, louder and louder, completely unhinged. “Enna!” he exclaimed, dropping to his knees beside me, his hands pulled mine away from my wound to examine it as I struggled to breathe, unable to stop laughing.
“The wound isn’t deep. Go get Joana,” Kenji ordered Esme, who rushed out, shoving aside the girls crowding the doorway. “Enna, Enna, look at me,” Kenji called, but everything was blurry. There was only Hanna’s body. Only the taste of blood. Only pain and death.
“Sienna!” Kenji shouted, gripping my face in his hands and lifting it to his, stopping my laughter. He brushed my blood-matted hair from my cheeks, calling my name again. “I killed her,” I whispered, my eyes locked on his, his filled with fear. “I killed an innocent, Kenji. Again”. A crushing weight settled onmy shoulders. I was cold. I was exhausted. I wanted everything to stop. I wanted to live, not just survive.
“Stay with me, Enna. It’s going to be okay. You defended yourself,” he murmured, pulling me against him, my face burying into his neck as he pressed on my wound again but I felt nothing. Everything inside me was empty.
“I survived,” I whispered as my eyes slowly closed, “I survived.”
But at what cost?
Sasha
I woke up in an empty bed once again but at least this time, no nightmares had haunted me. How could it have been otherwise, when I had held her in my arms all night? Her scent, her voice, her presence had been enough to make me forget everything else. I placed my hand on the spot she had occupied.Cold. She had been gone for quite some time now.
In truth, I had heard her wake up at five thirty this morning. I had watched her get ready, walking on tiptoe, thinking I was asleep and I had smiled when I saw her pout as she couldn’t find her sandals among her things, and I had listened to her footsteps and those of the other young women fade away, surely heading off to help with the preparations. She had slept barely three hours. She had to be exhausted.
I lifted my arm over my face looking at my palm, jaw tightening at the memory of her warmth against it, her eyes locked onto mine when my fingers had slid along her nape, her breath spilling from between her lips to brush against mine. And she expected me to keep my promise not to touch her again when she reacted like that beneath my fingers.
Her connection to the Indian mafia had been the perfect excuse to break that promise. But the real reason had been the way allthose men had watched her throughout the evening. I wanted them to know. To understand who I was to her. That I was there for her. That she was already mine and that I would not hesitate to prove it, with blood if necessary. But that didn’t change the fact that I was deeply surprised by her familiarity with Ganesh Rajawat, a proper interrogation awaited her once we got back.
I pushed the covers aside and got out of bed before opening the bedroom door. Hanging from the handle were my clothes from the night before, cleaned and ironed. Ganesh’s niece, Anjali, was an incredibly kind woman. Despite everything going on, she had taken care of me, without forgetting that she had given me this room. I had understood the meaning of her wink when I had entered the room and found Sienna’s belongings there. I would definitely have to thank her. A fine wedding gift. Elif would know what to give. My phone rang on the bedside table and I picked up while placing my clothes on the bed, “Moybrat,” I answered as children’s screams echoed in the background. “Sasha Ivanov! Where are you?” Elif’s voice suddenly snapped. Speaking of the devil, I frowned and checked the caller ID again, no, it really was Grigori. “Why are you calling me from this phone?” I asked as I walked toward Sienna’s suitcase, narrowly avoiding a hairbrush on the carpet.
I had to admit it, Sienna was messy person. Her room in Sochi, the one here, the kitchen after she cooked, the boys’ room after she played with them, she always left chaos in her wake. She had become Velma and Sena’s worst nightmare, which made me laugh every single time.
Her suitcase was wide open, and I could see the different things she had brought, socks, dresses, pajamas. I frowned when I spotted something red.
“Ivan dropped mine in the pool. It doesn’t work anymore,” Elif sighed. “Honestly, I don’t see the point of calling it waterproof if it doesn’t survive water,” she grumbled before scolding thekids to stop running on the stairs. Meanwhile, I bent down and pinched the red fabric between my fingers, lifting it up in front of my face and my mouth fell open. It was a nightgown. One like I had never seen before. Why had she brought that with her? She planned to wear it? Why? And more importantly for whom?
“Sasha?” Elif’s voice suddenly called, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“I’m with Sienna. I’ll explain everything once I’m back,” I said, my stunned gaze still fixed on the nightgown, my throat dry. Why the hell had she brought that?!
“With Sienna,” she repeated thoughtfully as I placed the fucking fabric back on the bed. There was no way she was ever wearing that…thinganywhere except in my bedroom. It would end up in my trunk before the end of the evening.
