Us, maybe. In whatever strange shape we were becoming.
I closed my eyes.
The loneliness in me didn’t vanish, but it softened around the edges.
“Artem,” I whispered.
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
He didn’t say anything.
But under the blanket, his hand found mine.
His fingers threaded through mine. I lifted both and rested them on my stomach.
He let out a satisfied breath.
7
Ivan
Maeve’s voice was lowand wrong when I woke up. It was enough that my body moved before my brain did.
I was on my feet in a second. The floor was freezing. Artem was already upright, every line of him tense. Gregor was moving, because of course he was. Maeve stood at the kitchen counter with one hand braced against it and the other pressed hard to her stomach. Her face had gone pale.
Artem reached her first. “Maeve?”
She didn’t look at him. Or me. Or Gregor. She kept staring at the counter like if she concentrated hard enough, her body might stop doing whatever it had decided to do.
“I think...” She sucked in a breath so sharp it made my own chest lock up. “I think something’s wrong.”
That landed somewhere low and ugly.
Gregor did not waste a second. “Car. Now.”
I grabbed my jacket and was out the door before Gregor finished the sentence. The stairs blurred under my feet. The car was across the road. I hit the unlock, got in, and started the engine with hands that were shaking from panic. I spun the car around in the road, landing right at the curb outside of the cafe.
Gregor was already there with Maeve in his arms. That image did something violent to me.
Not because it was tender, though it was. Gregor held her like she was precious and breakable and he’d kill the street itself if it made her hurt more. But because Maeve had let him.
Her face was buried against his shoulder, one hand fisted in his jacket, breath coming in short little bursts that made every instinct in me sit up and bare my teeth.
Artem got in beside them so fast he practically teleported.
I drove.
In the back seat, Gregor kept one arm around her shoulders while Artem held her hand like if he let go something terrible might happen. Maeve was trying not to make noise, which somehow made it worse. Every tight inhale from the back seat hit me like a nail under the ribs.
“Breathe,” Artem said quietly.
“I am breathing,” she managed.
“That one sounded sarcastic,” I said.
“That’s because I’m in pain,” she snapped.
