The thought hits harder this time, because it feels too real in this moment. Too real with her sitting here beside me like she used to belong at my side all along.
And maybe she did.
The door opens. I look up so fast my neck pulls.
A doctor steps into the waiting room, expression tight and unreadable.
His gaze finds me immediately.
“Maksim Korsakov?”
I’m on my feet before the name finishes leaving his mouth. The chair skids back hard against the tile.
Every beat in my body stops.
“Tell me.”
Chapter 60
Maksim
Idon’t leave the room.
Not when they wheel her bed into it. Not when the nurse checks her vitals. Not when someone asks if I want coffee, food, water, fucking air.
I stay exactly where I am.
In the chair beside her bed, elbows on my knees, good hand wrapped around hers while the cast on my other wrist digs and throbs every time I move wrong. The room is dim except for the glow from the machines. Soft beeping. The slow rise and fall of her chest.
Alive.
That word should calm me.
It doesn’t.
Alive isn’t awake. Alive isn’t her glaring at me.
Alive isn’t her sharp mouth, her rolling eyes, her smart-ass comments when she thinks I’m being an overbearing asshole.
Alive is enough for now. But it isn’t enough for me. Her face is bruised and it pisses me off.
My girl was perfect the last time I had her.
Before she left.Before she was taken.
Yellow shadows under her cheekbone. There’s a scratch at her temple. Her hair is a mess against the white pillow, blue, that matches mine still clinging to the ends in places, dulled now, but there.
I stare at it too long.
At her.
At every inch of her I can see.
If I look away, my head starts again. The container. The blood. Her body going slack in my arms. Her voice in the car getting weaker.
I squeeze her hand harder. She doesn’t squeeze back.
Panic moves under my skin so fast it makes me stand. I drag the chair closer when I sit again. Close enough that my knee presses the side of the mattress.
