Page 36 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

She blinks once, then nods quickly and comes around the counter, smoothing her apron with both hands. A younger assistant lifts the dress off the mannequin and brings it over carefully.

“It’ll suit your skin tone beautifully,” the owner says, putting on her sales voice now that she’s found it.

Soft fabric, small faded flowers, a fitted waist, sleeves with room to move, a skirt that would let me breathe and still feel like myself. I run my fingers over the fabric once, then hand it back.

“Pack it.”

Then she shows me another one. Dark silk, expensive without shouting, the kind of deep blue-black that throws color into my eyes when I hold it up. I stare at it longer than I mean to.

“Pack this one.”

She wraps it in crisp tissue, slides it into a heavy paper bag with ribbon handles.

“Matching earrings, perhaps?”

“No.”

I leave annoyed, because the guard by the door has checked his watch twice and the one near the mirrors keeps tracking every hand that comes within three feet of me. I don’t get to linger near the silks or hold colors against my skin. I don’t get to drift through the racks until something feels right. I point, pay, and walk out with armed men.

I step back onto the pavement with the dress bag in my hand, and the clinic sign catches my eye across the lane. I saw it last time, pretended I hadn’t, and remembered every word. Women’s health. Basic scans. Blood work.

The guard nearest me turns at once. “What is it?”

I press one hand to my head and stop near the curb.

“Headache,” I say, pressing my fingers to my temple. “That shop smelled of mothballs and perfume. I feel sick.”

His eyes move over my face. “We can take you back to the car.”

“No.” I swallow hard and make myself look embarrassed instead of scared. “There’s a clinic right there. I need five minutes.”

The men exchange looks, and one murmurs into his mic without using Maksim’s name. I hear “clinic” and “nausea,” then the smallest pause.

“Five minutes,” the guard says.

“Fine.”

He escorts me across the lane and up the narrow stairwell while the other two stay near the entrance with my dress bags.

A woman behind the desk looks from me to the man at my shoulder, and her face tightens.

“I need a doctor,” I say. “I’m dizzy and nauseous.”

The guard steps in. “Quick check.”

The receptionist looks at him, then me. “He waits outside.”

His eyes cut to the receptionist, then he steps back.

A nurse takes me inside, and the door shuts between us.

The doctor is a woman in her fifties with clipped gray hair and tired eyes. She asks when my last cycle was, and I answer with my hands locked together in my lap. She runs the test first, then orders a quick ultrasound because my dates put me close to seven weeks.

I lie back on the paper-covered table and stare at the ceiling while she works. The room is hot, my mouth is dry, and the guard is somewhere outside.

She presses the probe low on my stomach and turns the screen toward herself first.

Then she turns the screen toward me and points to a tiny flicker.