The gallery is quiet. Too quiet. My blood is cold with fear, with the anticipation of seeing her bloodied on the floor in the back room… or gone altogether, taken by a man who I didn’t consider an enemy before, but do now.
I move through the main space, my gun raised, every sense on high alert. The back room is ahead, light spilling from the doorway. I can't hear anything—no voices, no sounds of struggle, no screams.
The silence is worse than noise would be.
I reach the doorway and pause, taking a breath, preparing myself for whatever I'm about to find. Then I step inside.
The scene in front of me is more shocking than I could have imagined.
Mara is standing there, facing me, bent to grasp at a sculpture on the ground that’s smeared with blood.She’ssmeared with blood, her hair sticking to her face and her clothes spattered with it.
The man I saw on the camera is on the floor in front of her, his skull caved in, blood pooling beneath his head. I look from the sculpture, to his head, and back to Mara.
She’s staring at me, frozen, her face bloodless. She’s clearly going into shock, but she's standing. She's breathing. She's alive.
The relief that floods through me is so intense it's almost painful. My knees nearly buckle, and I have to lock them to stayupright. She's alive. She's hurt her attacker, not the other way around. She survived.
My magnificent, fierce Mara survived.
I holster my gun and move toward her, my gaze racing over her even as relief threatens to overwhelm me. The blood—is any of it hers? Are there wounds I can't see? Is she injured beneath the gore?
"Mara." My voice comes out rougher than I intended it to, urgent and demanding. "Are you hurt?"
She doesn't respond. Her eyes are fixed on me, her breathing shallow and rapid.
The moment I reach her, my hands are on her immediately, running over her arms, her shoulders, checking for injuries beneath the blood. "Where are you hurt? Tell me where you're hurt."
She flinches at my touch but doesn't pull away. She still doesn't speak.
I cup her face with both hands, forcing her chin up. Her skin is cold and clammy. "Mara. Look at me. Are you hurt?"
Her eyes finally focus on mine. “Alexander,” she whispers, her voice hollow, and the sound of the false name I gave her pulls at something in my chest.
“Ilya.” I reach up, brushing a piece of blood-soaked hair out of her face. “Ilya Sorokov.”
“I.S.” Her voice is still a hollow-sounding whisper, and I swallow hard.
"Are you hurt?" I ask again, gentler this time but no less urgent. "Did he hurt you?"
She shakes her head slightly, the movement small and uncertain.
I don't trust it. I need to check for myself. My hands move to her neck, checking for bruises or cuts, then down to hershoulders, her arms, looking for wounds, for signs of a struggle, for anything that would tell me she's injured.
"I need to see," I tell her as she flinches away. The blood is everywhere, making it hard to tell what's hers and what's the dead man’s.
"It's not mine," she says, her voice shaking. "The blood. It's not mine."
I pause, my hands on her ribs, and look at her face. She's still pale, still shaking, but there's clarity in her eyes now. "You're sure?"
She nods. "I'm sure."
I check anyway, running my hands over her one more time, confirming what she's told me. No wounds. No injuries. The blood is all someone else’s.
The relief is physical, a release of tension I didn't realize I was holding. I've been holding my breath since I saw the man enter the gallery, and now I finally let it out, my forehead dropping to rest against hers for just a moment.
She's alive. She's unharmed. She's practically in my arms, and I have no intention of letting her go again.
I pull back to look at her properly, taking in the full picture. She's covered in someone else's blood, her clothes ruined, her hair disheveled and matted. But she's standing, breathing, her heart beating beneath my palm where my hand still rests on her ribs.
