"My hand is attached to my body, not the other way around. The rest of me is perfectly fine, and resting doesn't mean being locked in a tower like Rapunzel. I need to be doing something, even if it's just watching you and Petrov work."
Every protective instinct in his increasingly immortal body wanted to keep her safe in their room, away from the lab and the soldiers and the complications that seemed to multiply every day. But the frustrated and determined look on her face reminded him that Mattie had lived through things that would have broken most people. She'd survived a fire at fifteen, been trafficked to an island of monsters, attacked, had her hand crushed, but she hadn't lost her spirit. She was still fighting, still thinking about ways to help people she'd never met.
Forcing her to stay in their room wasn't protecting her. It was diminishing her.
"Fine. You can come down," he said. "But you sit in the chair, you keep your hand elevated, and you don't even think about touching anything in the lab. Understood?"
The smile she gave him was bright. "Understood."
6
DIMITRI
With his arm wrapped securely around Mattie's waist, Dimitri helped her down the stairs, one careful step at a time.
The sound of music intensified as they neared the bottom of the staircase, and it got even worse as they entered the sun-drenched lab. Russian folk music was Petrov's go-to cover for their conversations, but the truth was that he enjoyed the accordion-heavy melodies and claimed that they were cultural treasures.
Dimitri considered them auditory assault.
The portable speaker on Petrov's workstation was turned up loud enough to drown out anything short of a gunshot, which had been the point back when the surveillance cameras were active and recording.
But the cameras were dead now.
Losham had ordered the internal monitoring system shut down. It had been replaced by guards who secured the perimeter and watched the comings and goings of the lab. It was not ideal, but a far cry from the constant surveillance that had made every conversation a performance.
Dimitri walked to Petrov's workstation and turned off the music.
The sudden silence was deafening.
Petrov looked up from the beaker he was calibrating, his bushy eyebrows climbing toward his receding hairline. "Excuse me?"
"The surveillance cameras are turned off, Konstantin. Losham had the recording stopped because of our new project that he wants to keep secret. We're free to talk without that blasted music drowning us out."
"Blasted music?" Petrov straightened to his full height, which was more impressive in width than stature. "Thatblasted musichappens to be some of the finest folk music the Russian tradition has ever produced. Lyudmila Zykina is a national treasure, and you just silenced her mid-verse."
"I'll send her my apologies."
"She's dead. She can't receive your apologies."
"Then she won't be offended."
Petrov looked like he wanted to argue further, but the expression on Dimitri's face must have communicated that they had more important things to discuss than Russian folk music. Konstantin set his beaker down and crossed his thick arms over his chest.
"So, you say that the cameras are off?"
Dimitri nodded. "If Losham wants the enhancement research kept secret from his brothers, he can't have cameras recording what we do in here."
"Well." Petrov uncrossed his arms and reached for his coffee mug. "That's the first piece of good news I've heard in weeks. But I'm not giving up my music."
"You can listen with earphones on."
"I might." Petrov took a long sip, studying Dimitri over the rim. "Why the long face? You're supposed to be happy after shutting down my music."
"I'm ecstatic."
"Then what's going on?" Petrov's gaze shifted to Mattie, who had chosen to sit next to the window. "Is it the hand? How are you this morning,devochka?"
"Better than yesterday," Mattie said. "Worse than tomorrow, hopefully."
