Page 7

Her eyes stay on Ivy against his shoulder before she gives a small nod of her own.

“Alright then,” she says firmly. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

The apartment feels wrong the instant I walk inside, too quiet and normal after everything that’s happened tonight. This morning feels like it happened a hundred years ago.

Mama locks the door behind us while Alexei lowers Ivy onto the couch. She leans against the pillows, her swollen eyes barely open, while one small hand keeps reaching toward me like she’s afraid I might disappear if she lets me out of her sight.

I kneel beside her and brush shaky fingers through her hair. “I’m just gonna take a quick shower, baby. I’ll be back in a jiffy, alright?”

Her lip trembles. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

Only then does she slowly release the death grip she has on my hand.

Mama disappears toward the kitchen, already reaching for the kettle. “I’m gonna get some tea boiled.”

I nod distractedly, unable to stand the feeling of dried blood on my skin another second. Before I can walk away, Alexei crosses the room and stops close enough that I notice the clean scent of his cologne still clinging faintly to his clothes beneath the long, exhausting night.

His eyes move slowly over my face. “You don’t have to hold yourself together for everyone right now,” he says low enough that only I hear it.

Emotion swells inside me while the reality of everything that happened suddenly feels unbearable.

I look away first. “I’ll be quick.”

His hand brushes lightly against my cheek before he steps back toward the couch. “Take your time.”

I turn the shower on too hot before fumbling with my clothes, peeling off my shirt and jeans as fast as my trembling hands will allow. I step beneath the spray, and the water immediately turns pink around my feet while blood slides down my arms and disappears into the drain.

Irina’s blood.

The thought rips through me as I brace one hand against the tile wall to stay standing. A broken sound escapes me before I can swallow it down, and then the tears come all at once. Not the quiet kind either. The kind that leaves my heart aching while my shoulders shake beneath the hot water.

I begin to scrub frantically at my arms, my hands, beneath my fingernails, and through my hair. But no matter how hard I scrub, I still feel blood everywhere. I see Irina gasping for breath. I hear Ivy screaming. I feel that horrible stillness when Irina’s hand stopped moving beneath mine.

“Oh God,” I sob, leaning my forehead against the tile. “Oh God.”

For several long minutes I stand there crying. Eventually the water runs completely clear, and I force myself to breathe again. I wash my face, pull on clean clothes, and stare at my reflection in the mirror, looking pale, hollowed out, and older than I did this morning.

I wipe at my swollen eyes and walk back out into the apartment, where Ivy reaches for me the moment she sees me again.

“There’s my girl,” Mama says gently from the kitchen table, where she already has my half-packed duffel bag sitting open beside a mug of untouched tea. Clothes are spread across the table and couch cushions while she folds shirts with the quick, practiced hands only Southern mamas seem to have, even in the middle of a crisis.

Alexei stands near the front windows, speaking low into his phone while Ivy clings to my side.

Mama looks up at me. “I threw a few extra things in there for you. Toothbrush, charger, clean pajamas.”

Tears well up in my eyes all over again. “Thanks, Mama.”

She waves me off and hands me a folded sweatshirt. “You can thank me later and help me finish packin’ before this tea gets cold.”

I manage a weak nod before sitting beside the duffel bag while Ivy refuses to leave my side.

Across the apartment, Alexei ends his call and slips his phone back into his pants pocket. The exhaustion on his face looks even heavier now beneath the warm light.

I glance toward Mama before looking back at him. “Can I have a minute alone with Mama before we go?”

“Of course.”