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“Please,” I manage, just before she levers her arm back. Time dilates. I’m tortured by being forced to watch the infinitely slow way death comes for me. In a smooth thrust, the blade jams into my stomach.
I have a single, mind-splitting, agonizing thought about my poor baby.
I never even got to name it.
“No!” I manage to yell the word, sitting upright, clutching at my belly. I feel my skin, the lingering pain of the stab wound fading as I realize I’m not hurt. I’m wet from sweat, not blood. Around me is the familiar scene of Arsen’s bedroom.
It was just a nightmare.
Frantic to confirm he’s all right, I look over at Arsen. He isn’t just alive; he’s sitting up and gawking at me with his eyebrows pressed together so tight that they’ve become one.
“Galina! What’s wrong?” he asks in a panic.
“I just had an awful nightmare.” Trembling, but overcome by an urge to touch Arsen, I clasp his cheeks. “Why do you feel so cold?” I gasp. The imagery of his bleeding corpse swims up.
“I’m not. You’re just overheated.” He palms my forehead to remove some of my perspiration. “Let me get you some water.”
“No, stay.”
But he’s already gone, hurrying to the mini fridge on the far side of his room. Returning with a small bottle, he cracks it open and hands it to me. The chill is good, but drinking it is heaven. “Tell me about the nightmare, Galina.”
The tender way he speaks encourages me to be honest. I swallow down more water, then feel a wave of anguish as I relive the terrible dream, I force the words out. “It was god-awful. Madison … she took a knife to your throat, dropping you to the ground. Then she came at me and—” Gulping, I rub my belly protectively. “It was so real.”
“It wasn’t,” he assures me. His eyes warm over with fierce compassion. “It was only a dream.”
The memory of Madison cowering on his office floor comes back to me, but the version of her in my nightmare doesn’t leave.
“Would you have really killed Madison?” I whisper hesitantly. It’s hard to look him in the eye.
I hate that he doesn’t answer right away.
Frowning, he makes a soft noise in his throat. The hand that was on my cheek now runs through his own hair, like he’s flustered. “I don’t know.”
My heart calcifies like limestone in a dark cave.
“What I do know,” he says, looking at me with sincerity, “is that I would have felt haunted by her death. More so than any of my other kills.” He presses his palm to his chest, as if to check that his own heart is still there. “Because each kill stays with you. Those memories will never leave.”
My brain is looping back on itself, drawing at myriad concerning things. Madison’s death would have weighed on him more than Pyotr? Why is one child’s death worth more than another’s? Arsen strokes my hair, trying to relax me, but I’m too wired. The adrenaline from the nightmare that had faded has been replaced by new anxiety over this question that continues to plague me. He killed Pyotr—I know he did—but why?
Ulyana said if I wanted to pry, I’d have to do it myself.
She also warned me this would unleash pain on all of us.
But I have to know.
Steeling my nerves, I shift enough to peer into his face. I need to see how he reacts. “Yevgeniy told me that you killed his son.”
Arsen’s jaw slips open. I spot every minor twinge of his lips and eyebrows. He’s taken aback by my sudden question. But it’s not shock I care to see from him; it’s shame. I want him to feel bad for what he did.
I need him to.
It’s so damn important to me and whatever future we’re trying to build together.
“Yes,” he sighs after a moment. “I did kill Pyotr.”
Tension that had consumed me for days breaks off in sheets like ice on a mountain. I sway forward, our heads almost touching. We could be kids sharing stories after dark while hoping no adults catch us in the act. “Why?”
“Can we go back to discussing nightmares?” he chuckles wearily. “Those are easier. I’ve had plenty of my own.”
