He still sees me, though. It’s good—when they don’t die immediately, there’s hope.
Nikki arrives. “Fuck.” I hear her call 911.
Viktor needs help sooner.
“Can you walk? Do we move you or wait? What happens if we help you to the car?”
Sometimes you can ask the wounded such things. Sometimes when life is on the line, they get such clarity.
“Yes. Let’s try.”
Nikki and I pull him up and get him down the hall. It’s slow, and his breathing doesn’t sound right. A collapsed lung.
We get out of the building, down two steps that didn’t seem so bad before. I spot Viktor’s car. “There. The Navigator.”
“Keys, right pocket,” he gasps.
Nikki grabs them and opens the back door for us. Viktor stumbles in and flops sideways, taking the whole seat. I wedge myself into the little space between the back seat and the back of the front seat, crouching between. I press my hand to his chest. “You think you can take the whole seat?” I joke.
Viktor groans as the car peels out. Nikki drives like hell to the hospital.
“Will he make it?” she says, screaming around a corner.
“He better. He owes me,” I say.
He stares up at me. Anguish in his eyes. He wants to apologize again.
“Shhh,” I say. “They shot each other like we imagined. Can you believe it?”
Soon enough, his eyes start getting unfocused. He tries to help me press his chest.
“I have you,” I say.
I press his chest like it’s my own heart.
Because it is.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Viktor
She’s there like an angel, holding my hand. Everything around her is bright and hazy. I think she is an angel.
I try to smile, but tubes going out of my mouth stop me. I lift my arms to take them out, but she has my wrists. “Be still, pryanichek.”
She calls out to Aleksio. He’s here?
I try to say her name, but my mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton.
“Shh. You’re going to be okay.”
I’m alive? How can it be?
But I am.
I’m alive, and she’s sitting at my bedside. She drizzles a bit of water into my mouth. I swallow it down. I search her beautiful face. She drizzles some more.
“You forgave me,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
I try to sit up, but the pain twists through me.
“Stop it. The doctor says you’ll have to stay in bed for two weeks straight, and already you’re trying to leave. Once we move you out of here, maybe I’ll chain you to the wall by your ankle. What do you think? A nice ankle cuff?”
“I should’ve let you go. You wanted so badly to go.”
“I did, yes,” she says.
“You need to go. The convent is your heart’s desire.”
“It’s okay.” She strokes a hand over my forehead. “The best parts I carry with me.”
She won’t go back?
“I want to go back,” she says, reading my face. “But I want to go back with you. To bring you, to show you. Maybe after we all find Kiro?”
After we all find Kiro.
I don’t know if the tightness in my chest is from the bullet ravaging me or from Tanechka forgiving me. Joining us.
She leans down to kiss my cheek. Figures loom behind her. I squint as Aleksio comes into view.
“The bullet just missed your heart.” He kneels at my side. “You scared us.”
Yuri’s there, arm in a sling. “They shot each other. You and Tanechka are officially insane.”
My laugh feels like it rips my chest open.
“Stop,” Tanechka say softly.
My awareness expands out, and my mind clicks back online. Armed men stand around the edges of the room. I remember the war. We’re in a hospital, but it’s not safe here. A doctor muscles through.
“Kiro,” I try to say.
“We’ll find him, don’t worry. We’re on it. The Dragusha brothers will be together. Even you can’t fuck that up with your insane choreography. Have I ever told you fucking Russians are way too fucking dramatic?”
I try to reply.
“Don’t make him talk.” Tanechka takes out a tube of lip moisturizer and smooths it onto my lips.
I feel light. Like a weight off.
Suddenly I know things will turn out with these people I love at my side. I believe that we’ll find Kiro. I believe in our family.
I believe that someday Tanechka and I will go lie on the hillock in Donetsk and visit with her sisters there and her goats.
I have faith in her. I have faith our love.
Peace comes over me as I give myself up to her. She takes my hand and I close my eyes, awash in love.