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Damn.
Much.
It all leaves me cramping and shaking and hysterical on the inside and the out. After everything I’ve been through to get pregnant, I can’t possibly let anything happen to this baby.
Hell, I can’t even go down that rabbit hole. The thought itself literally leaves me numb.
When the back doors of the jeep are thrown open, I make the attempt to get out on my own, but Dmitri stops me by gathering me up into his arms and walking me into the elevators himself. He’s the one bleeding right now, but I’m the one being coddled like a delicate little lamb. It doesn’t make sense, but I’m in no place to question anything.
“Wren? Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Bee is looking right at me where I’m all snug as a bug in her fiancé’s arms. I see her mouth move and the sound of her words hits my eardrums, but something happens between perception and understanding. Something short-circuits and fizzles and does not compute.
“She’s in shock,” answers Dmitri. “Give her space.”
I blink and suddenly, we go from the elevator to my bedroom. At some point, a cold compress finds its way onto my forehead. I wince at the shock of the ice, then settle into a wordless murmur.
I blink again and Bee’s at my side, still saying things that I still can’t decipher. My eyes still keep flitting to Dmitri. Dmitri’s arm still keeps bleeding.
Bee’s fingers snap in front of my face. I flinch back and Dmitri grabs Bee’s arm and hauls her away from my bedside. “I told you, she’s in shock. You can leave; I’ll handle this.”
Bee starts to say something, then changes her mind and shuffles out of the room. Dmitri takes her place on the bed. Those silver eyes are scorching with something; I just don’t know what kind of something it might be.
“Wren.” His voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it. Almost tender. Perhaps that’s why I start getting sucked back into my body. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
I look down at my stomach and place a trembling hand on it. The cramping has settled and I don’t feel any real pain.
I’m whole. I’m intact. The precious cargo in my womb is just as safe as I am.
“Your arm…” I whisper to him. Complete sentences aren’t quite in my reach yet, but that’s a start.
“Don’t worry about me.” He almost sounds irritated by the wound.
“Lots of… lots of blood.”
He glances down at the drying scabs and the fresh blood trickling past his elbow whenever he moves or flexes. “Would you prefer I clean up? Are you uncomfortable around blood?”
I blink and a freeze frame of Rose’s body appears behind my eyelids. She’s lying frozen on that police table like a slab of meat on a butcher’s counter. Her blood has dried on her skin and it is everywhere, so much of it, so much blood…
“I wasn’t, until…” I choke on my own words. This is the kind of traffic jam in your throat that tears were invented to cure, but apparently, I wasted all my tears earlier today. Just when I need them most, I’m fresh out.
A part of me is relieved. Crying is exhausting business.
“Let me wash up.” He heads into my bathroom and a moment later, I hear the tap start to run.
I’m not sure why I swing my legs off the bed and follow him gingerly. Maybe I just want to prove that I can. That I haven’t lost the ability to function entirely.
I pause on the threshold. Dmitri is standing tall in front of the sink with his shirt off, using one of the hand towels to wipe the blood off from his torn bicep. His muscles ripple under the light even when he doesn’t move. Little by little, the streaks of red disappear, though the towel comes away slick with crimson.
I wasn’t the one to clean Rose’s body. The coroner had taken care of that, partly because it was his job, but also because I was a little bit preoccupied with hurling up my guts in the hospital bathroom.
There are days when I still regret it. It felt like something a sister ought to do. God knows I’d spent so many days and nights combing out Rose’s hair or forcing her to sit still while I practiced doing makeup on her. I ought to have been the last one to do those things, too.
With shaking fingers, I pick up another towel from the shelf and inch closer to Dmitri. He doesn’t see me until I reach out to pass the towel under the running faucet.
When he does realize what I’m doing, he freezes. His hands still and fall to his sides.
I don’t meet his eyes. The only sounds are our mingled breathing and the gushing of the tap. I focus on the blood he can’t reach, smeared up the back of his arm.
