Mary
He’s not dead. He can’t be.
That’s the first thought, stupid and loud, as I press my palms into the hole in his chest like I can argue with the blood.
Sirens scream somewhere far beyond the freight yard fence, muffled by the static roar inside my skull. A different sound cuts through closer—engines braking hard, tires grinding over gravel, the glare of headlights flooding between the stacked containers.
White light flashes across the scene, harsh and blinding. It catches on my shaking hands, on Anton’s face gone too still, on the dark smear spreading under him.
I’m kneeling in gravel. My knees are raw. I can’t feel them. His weight’s slumped across my legs; dead weight that shouldn’t bereal. My fingers slide through his hair, searching for any sign of warmth, any proof he’s still here.
He’s heavy. So goddamn heavy.
Someone’s shouting coordinates. Metal scrapes. The smell of oil and smoke burns my throat. Men move like machines—guns, gloves, shouts. Everything too loud and too far away at the same time.
Someone’s calling my name. Distant, like through water. I can’t tell who it is—Dima, one of his men, maybe both—but it doesn’t matter. I can’t look away from Anton.
His eyelashes don’t even flicker. His skin’s gone pale under the blood. There’s a pulse at his throat, faint and stuttering, and I focus on it like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
“Anton.” My voice cracks. I try again, softer. “Anton, please.”
Nothing. Just a wet breath, shallow and slow.
I can’t stop whispering his name. It’s like my brain’s forgotten every other word. JustAnton. Over and over. Like maybe the repetition will tether him here.
One of Dima’s men reaches for him, and I jerk back hard enough to make my vision blur.
“Don’t touch him!” My voice sounds raw, unrecognizable. “Don’t—” Hands grab at me, trying to pull me away. I dig my nails intothe asphalt, into his shirt, into anything I can. “He’s not… He can’t—”
Then Dima’s in front of me. Calm, steady, the only unmoving thing in this chaos. His hands land on my shoulders, firm. “Mary.”
I shake my head. “No. No, he needs me—”
“He’s breathing,” Dima says. “Let us work.”
The sound of it breaks something open in me. I let go. My hands drop uselessly to my sides. They lift Anton and load him onto a stretcher. I can’t stand. I just watch his blood trail through the dust, red soaking into black.
Somewhere past the fence, real sirens wail—closer now. Dima’s men move faster, clearing shell casings, shouting in Russian. Headlights cut through the smoke as their SUVs roar to life.
When they carry him toward one of them, the distant police lights strobe against the containers—red, blue, red—and for a second everything slows. His hand slips off the side of the stretcher. Falls limp.
The sight punches the air out of me.
That’s when I notice my hands. Still red. Still trembling. Blood drying in the lines of my palms. My nails look black. Gunpowder.
And then I feel it—warm, wet, different.
Lower.
I blink down at my lap, confusion moving slowly through the fog. There’s another stain there. Darker. Spreading.
No.
No, that’s not right.
My brain tries to make sense of it. Maybe it’s his blood, maybe—
But then the pain hits. A deep, twisting ache that starts low and turns sharp, like someone’s pulling something out of me.
