It’d be laughable if it wasn’t turning into a colossal fucking problem.
I pause outside my apartment door, listening for any signs of life on the other side. Any kind of tip-off that Marya might be lurking in the hallway, waiting to brain me again. Once I’m sure I’m in the clear, I go in.
All is quiet, and everything feels all wrong.
Several steps in I smell blood.
You’d think I’d be nose-blind to it by this stage of my life, but the metallic tang sets off mental alarm bells before I’ve had a chance to close the door.
Gun drawn, I move down the dark hallway on high alert, the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention when I see the door to Marya’s room is wide open.
Moving fast, I check the bedroom and bathroom. Both clear. So is the kitchen. But when I step into the main open space the smell of blood is stronger.
I find signs of a struggle in the living room. A side table toppled over, stains on the carpet so dark I can see them in the ambient light from the windows.
Someone’s been here. Someone’s taken Marya, hurt her.
The fury doesn’t creep up on me. It explodes like a supernova, blinding and destructive. Someone has dared come here and hurt her and I’m going to annihilate them.
My brain and body go on autopilot. I stalk through the apartment, weapon ready, following the trail of blood. It leadsaway from the front door. Which means Marya and the intruder are still here.
I’m almost to the windows when I see it. A kitchen knife, bloodied from tip to handle. The smell of blood is stronger, too. I can taste the tang in the air, sweat starting to slide down my spine.
Fuck. It’s too much blood. Marya has only just started healing. She won’t survive losing a lot of blood.
A sound from outside grabs my attention. A rattle of glass, metal knocking against metal. The door to the balcony isn’t latched.
For one awful second my stomach free falls. They could’ve grabbed Marya and thrown her over the railing. She’s a fighter,moya voitelnitsa, but even she wouldn’t be able to stop someone from manhandling her over the edge if they really wanted her dead. She’s still too weak for that.
Gun raised, trigger finger ready, I toe open the door. It swings silently. Snowflakes blow in on a frigid gust of wind. The balcony wraps around the side of the building like an L, accessible from both the living space and the bedroom. The pavers are dusted with snow, the furniture covered for the winter. City lights bounce off the glass, refracted over and over again.
I can’t hear any sirens. Don’t see any flashing lights at street level. This is the type of neighborhood where if a woman was lying dead or broken on the street the police would be here in minutes. The lack of both gives me hope she’s still out here.
My thoughts become a little less feral, more focused. Keeping as close to the building as possible, I move around the clusters of furniture. Drops of blood, bright red, still fresh, mark the ground every few feet. At this height the noise of the city is a din, enough that I should be able to pick out the sounds of a struggle, but there’s nothing. No noise. No hint thatsome idiot with a death wish is waiting to spring at me from behind a chaise.
I don’t see anything at all until I clear the corner and spot a swath of bare skin half buried in shadows.
Naked legs. Bloody feet.
Shit!Marya. A quick scan of the rest of the balcony confirms there’s no one else here. She’s alone, injured.
“Marya. Marya, can you hear me?” Gun holstered, I find one wrist and feel for a pulse, the sense of déjà vumaking me unexpectedly ill. We’ve already been here, done this. We aren’t supposed to be doing it again. She’s supposed to be safe here.
I choke back all the recriminating curses running through my head and focus on getting her off the ground. She’s breathing, cradled in my arms, her heartbeat strong enough that my own slows to a vaguely normal pace. But she’s cold. Practically naked. Her hands and wrists are smeared with blood, so are her legs.
“What the fuck happened,moya voitelnitsa?!” Back inside, I lay her on a sofa, brush her tangled hair off her face, feel her scalp. No sign of head injury.
That confirmed, I flick on the light next to the sofa and check her hands next. There’s a series of long cuts on the tops of both hands and upper wrists. For one horrible second, I have to wonder if she was trying to slit them open, but the injuries are on the wrong side. The undersides of her wrists still show wear and tear from when she was shackled in the cell, but there are no new marks. Her pulse is a steady beat beneath the fragile skin. A few of the cuts on the top are still bleeding sluggishly, but most have clotted already.
The biggest gash is on one of her legs. There’s a six-inch slice on the back of her right calf, blood still flowing, thick lines trailing down to her foot. It’s a clean cut but deep. Most likely made by the knife I found on the ground.
Another quick scan of her body tells me the injury on herleg is the most likely source of the blood stains in the apartment.
Grabbing my triage kit from the kitchen, I set to work cleaning and bandaging her wounds. Marya stays motionless while I do her wrists, but moans, body jerking when I tackle her leg.
“Shhhhh,moya voitelnitsa. Almost done.” I’m on my knees next to the sofa, eye-level with my work. After the cleaning spray and ointment, it takes several butterfly bandages to seal the cut sufficiently. I’m almost done wrapping a protective gauze around her lower leg when her entire body goes stiff. The muscles of her legs flex against my grip and, driven by impulse alone, I hold tighter.
“Wha—what are you doing?”
