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“But I saw him,” I breathe, shaking my head. “I saw him bleeding out just like…”
Like our father.
When Nik was lying on the pavement, blood pooled around him, there was only one way that could end. I’d seen it before. I’d been in that exact fucking spot before, holding someone I loved as they bled out. Nik couldn’t survive.
“He’s alive,” Mariya repeats. “The nurse told me.”
I turn to the door. “I need to see him.”
I’ll bust into the operating room if I need to. No one is going to get between me and my brother. I have to lay eyes on him. I won’t believe he’s still breathing until I do.
Then the phone chimes in my hand. A shrill beep-beep-beep I’ve never heard before. Nikandr always keeps his phone on vibrate.
I almost forgot about the phone, even though it’s what started all of this.
“It’s been doing that for an hour,” Mariya complains. “But I don’t know his passcode. I can’t turn it off.”
I want to ignore it. Mariya can deal with some beeping while I go make sure our brother is alive. But he’s supposedly in surgery anyway. I have time.
I sigh and tap in his six-digit code while Mariya gawks at me. “You know his password?”
“It was for emergencies.”
Like when he gets shot and is unconscious in an operating room.
“Well, isn’t that sweet,” she muses. I detect a hint of jealousy, but I’m too busy scrolling through the long list of notifications.
There are calls from the hospital—probably from the nurses when Mariya was in surgery. Our mother has texted a few times. I’ll figure out what to tell her way later. Maybe never, if I can help it.
But far and away the most notifications are from a tracking app. It’s the same message over and over. New location for Little Sis.
“Who is blowing up his phone?” Mariya asks.
“You are, actually.”
She holds her empty hands up. “It’s not me.”
“It’s a tracking app. Nik had it installed after?—”
“A tracking app?!” She swipes for the phone, but I pull it away. “You put a tracker on me?”
“We had to because you snuck out and got yourself kidnapped.”
“Yeah, I did. But then we agreed that was a mistake. I wouldn’t do it again.”
“And we made sure of that.” I wave Nik’s phone in the air to highlight my point.
“This is such an invasion of privacy! I cannot believe you two!”
I expect Mariya’s location to be pinging at the hospital. But the red dot labeled LS is way north. Nowhere near the blue dot showing our current location.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. This cheap fucking app is broken.”
“Why? It doesn’t work?”
I flip the screen towards her. “It’s showing you aren’t even in the city.”
She cackles. “That is karma. It’s what you get for lying.”
