Victoria shakes her head, tears flowing down her face as she steps back, looking for help in the hallway. But no one’s coming, and even if they did, there’s nothing they could do to undo the past. Like the trapped bird my husband once told me I was, I’m back in yet another cage, seized by life’s insurmountable claws of terror. It’s smaller and tighter and darker than anything I’ve ever experienced, and wherever I look, the bars of my enclosure obstruct my vision.
This room, where Mikhail and I shared so many moments, now feels like a graveyard of memories. The girl who lived through them is somewhere far away, the ghostly laughter and sensual moaning of our many nights cutting past my ears like knives thrown into the Wheel of Death. I’ll hurt him too when he’s back.Ifhe’s back.
“I-I—I’ll bring you Mikhail. And a doctor?—”
I shut the door in front of her, twisting the key as many times as it goes before collapsing again on my knees. I scream into my palms, ugly and raw, and then look up at the sky through the window across the room, as if my mother can see me.
Icy wind throws the tall branches of the nearby trees into the glass, the sound like little snapping fingers. I’m going straight to hell for this, and somehow, it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough.
I think of my mother’s smile, of her gentle hands and long, beautiful hair. I think of her laugh—the small fragment of it I still remember. I’m never going to hear it again, and with each passing day, the sound fades from my memory. I wrap my arms around myself, pretending it’s her who’s holding me like she used to. And though my voice is scratchy and defeated, I still whisper the lullaby she used to sing me every day. The notes go up, then down, and my crying breaks it apart, but I keep going, writhing in pain on the cold, hard floor.
Then, minutes turn into hours. Hours turn into darkness. The day passes with me in this exact same spot as I look out into nothingness. Eventually, my body gives out from exhaustion, and the tears and vomiting stop. But my mind…it keeps going in circles, keeping me nailed to the same position that makes my knees hurt.
Voices come and go by the locked door. It’s Victoria and Wolfgang and a voice I don’t know—maybe the doctor. Only when they threaten to break in do I find it in me to say a few words.
“I’m fine. I just want to be alone.”
The lie scrapes my throat raw. I’m drowning, and I don’t know how to make it stop. A thought springs to mind then, my arms reaching forward, helping me to crawl to the other side of the room. Whimpers roll off my tongue with every strenuous move. It’s too much—a monumental effort. But…there’s the window.
I reach up to the frame, pulling myself up like a broken doll. My shaking hand coils around the handle, pulling it open. Cold, fresh air kisses my face like a gentle encouragement.
It’s okay, it seems to say.Come closer, and all the pain will go away.
When I look down, I know it’s the only answer.
39
Mikhail
Too many hours later, the car stops in front of the house with a screech. Grunting, I push my weight into the door and get out, not bothering to close it behind me.
Pain shoots through my shoulder with every step, the blood merely contained by duct-tape and sheer stubbornness. Icy wind hits my face, and I bare my teeth, my fingers clenching nervously at my sides. The need to hold Cecilia in my arms, to inhale her scent and know she’s still breathing, is the only force coursing through me right now.
Inside, the lights are on everywhere. I walk past everyone waiting in the living room of my wing and head straight for the staircase. Wolf sees me first, immediately standing up to greet me.
“What the fuck happened?” he rasps, keeping up with my pace.
When he steps in front of me, I push him aside.
“Where is she?Whereis my wife?”
“She’s u-upstairs,” Victoria mumbles, her voice croaky, probably from crying. She looks like she’s just been through hell, which only tells me Cecilia must have gone through worse. More pain stabs my chest, and I know it’s not just from the bullet still inside me.
“We were just finishing up a riding lesson when Alaska got spooked and pulled on the reins. Cecilia’s ring stabbed her finger, and when she saw the blood…I—I don’t know. She got down on her knees and...”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck,fuck!
I continue my trail, knowing they’re all behind me. “The doctor. Why is he here?” I ask.
“She was spiraling so bad, we wanted him to see her. Calm her down with a pill or something,” Wolf says.
“Did she take any?”
“No. She locked herself in there. I threatened to break the door, but then she answered calmly, saying she wanted to be alone.”
I shake my head, jumping two stairs at once. They don’t know what I know. She must have remembered. She must have seen that blood on her finger and pieced things together. The incident at breakfast the other day must have been an early trigger.
