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The sedative continues to course through my veins, taking the last of my strength. I can hardly turn my head to blink blearily as the back doors of the ambulance burst apart. Through my fuzzy vision I make out the shape of someone entering the vehicle. They're white as snow—something bright flashes in their grip.
Pop pop pop! My ears ring from the closeness of the gun going off.
Blood flicks onto my chest from the skull of the man nearest me. He collapses, his mouth agape.
"I've got him!" A woman's voice yells. I think it's familiar, but my ears are buzzing, making every sound an echo of itself. A white ski mask and a pair of dark eyes fill my world. Mila rips the mask away, reaching for me. "Jesus, you look like shit."
"Mila?" I whisper.
"Help me with him," she says to someone just behind her. Men—my men—fill the ambulance. They kick aside the corpses until there's enough clearance to lift my gurney onto its wheels, then they cut my straps away.
My heart beats quicker as relief floods me in a dizzying rush. "What are you doing here?" I groan.
"Saving your ass," Mila says. "Move him to the car, and fast."
I try not to grimace when three men hoist me under my arms and around my ankles. I'm carried like a sack of corn out of the ambulance. As we move over the snow, I see a silver car parked nearby, its headlights blinding me. Another car—a black Tesla—is crammed against the ambulance. Its whole front is crumpled in. One of my men is reversing it out of the snow and back onto the road as two others push the front of it to help.
As I'm placed in the rear of the silver car, I let out a ragged groan. "Apologies, my Pakhan," the man holding my feet says, trying to ease me in more gently.
Mila rips the other door open, sitting beside me. She works to ease me up, but I'm struggling to move my own head. My eyelids won't obey either, they keep drooping.
"The fuck did they do to you?" she growls.
I spread my lips—no sound comes out. She grabs my shoulder, shaking me. Now she's moving her lips and no sound is exiting. My whole head is throbbing. The pain is finally slipping away. It's taking my energy with it.
I'm going to live. I'll be able to stop Yevgeniy. He won't win, he can’t win.
I won't let him.
I'll... I'll stop him and I'll... save her.
I have to save her.
"Hey!" Mila's voice sounds like it's a hundred feet above me. "Stay with me! Wake up!"
I can't see anything. My eyelids are too heavy to lift. With the last of my strength being sapped away, I manage one word before sinking into nothingness.
"Galina."
Galina twirls across the stage, her long hair barely keeping up with her. The fullness of her skirt is white as the moon. There's no music that I hear, but she spins to the rhythm, in tune in a way only someone who grew up dancing could be. Bright lights illuminate her movements, blocking out everything else. I can't see beyond the pitch-black shadows around the edges of the stage.
"Galina," I utter, taking a step towards her. My legs feel wrong. I'm jittery all over. She spins further away, not once looking at me. "Galina!" My legs give out, knees slamming onto the hard surface of the stage.
I look at my hands where they brace on the wood. They're bare. My wedding ring is gone.
With ice in my stomach and my heart in my throat, I lift my head. Galina continues to twirl, her skirt practically glowing. But when she stops short, heels together, and pivot to face me, the blood is easy to see. Red streaks across her stomach. It's not rounded with our baby anymore. It should be round. It should be fucking round.
"Galina!" I gasp, sitting up sharply.
Mila chuckles to my left. "He rises from the dead."
Hunching forward, I look at the blanket stretched over my lap. I recognize the blue cotton that pills too easily—I'd wanted to have it replaced but kept forgetting to tell someone, other issues always taken precedence over something as small as linens.
I'm in the cabin by the lake.
"When did we?" I whisper in amazement.
Mila releases an annoyed sound. "Not that long ago."
