“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because whoever touched you doesn’t get to find you again.
Because I know what happens when someone thinks they still own a body that escaped them.
Because if they come looking—
I tighten my grip on the wheel.
“No one can track you now,” I say instead.
Silence stretches between us, thick and brittle.
She turns toward the window, jaw set, shoulders tight. I catch the way she winces when the car hits a bump. The way her breath hitches before she smooths it out.
I memorize it.
Every bruise I can’t see yet. Every injury she’s pretending doesn’t exist.
I don’t say anything else. If I do, I’ll stop driving. And if I stop—
Someone dies.
So I keep my eyes on the road and my mouth shut, and I drive her straight to Moronov’s clinic with murder coiled tight in my chest, waiting for a name.
I pull into the lot of Dr. Yeva Moronov’s clinic; Vaska’s mother is always on call for me. Luckily tonight is no different.
I don’t wait for the engine to cool before I’m out, rounding the car in three long strides. She’s still sitting there when I yank her door open, staring at nothing through the windshield like she’s calculating how much fight she has left.
Not enough.
I know that before she does.
“Come on,” I say.
She doesn’t move.
I reach in, slide one arm under her knees, the other behind her back. She tenses immediately, hands coming up to push at my chest, but the movement is sluggish. Weak.
“I can walk,” she mutters.
“No, you can’t.”
I lift her out of the car, and this time she doesn’t fight. Just goes rigid in my arms, jaw clenched so tight I hear her teeth grinding.
The clinic door swings open before I reach it.
Yeva stands in the doorway, red hair pulled back, white coat pristine despite the hour. Her eyes sweep over Ayla once, clinical and sharp, before landing on me.
“Examination room two,” she says without preamble. “It’s clean.”
I carry Ayla inside.
The smell hits immediately—antiseptic and old blood, exactly like I remember. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting everything in harsh white. Ayla’s breathing picks up, shallow and quick.
She doesn’t like it here. I don’t blame her.
