“We’re going to take care of both of you.”
Both of you. The words almost undo me.
They lift me onto a stretcher. Pain tears through my side again, and I scream, grabbing at the nearest arm. Someone tells me to breathe. Someone else says my blood pressure is dropping. The words move around me too quickly.
“Anya,” the female paramedic says, close to my face. “Stay with me.”
“My husband,” I gasp.
“We’ll contact him.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
The ambulance starts moving.
Everything shakes.
The pain becomes a living thing. It claws up my side, pulls at my breath, makes the ceiling blur. A mask comes over my face. Oxygen rushes in cold and sharp.
I try to pull it away. “My baby.”
The paramedic stops my hand gently. “Leave it on.”
“My baby,” I repeat, because I don’t have any other words now.
“I know. We’re monitoring you.”
“Can you hear a heartbeat?”
“Not here. The hospital will check.”
The hospital. Too far.
Everything feels too far.
I turn my head, and through the small back window, I see the river disappearing behind us. The siren screams above us. The paramedic keeps speaking, but her voice starts to drift. The lights overhead stretch and blur. My body feels far away now, cold and heavy and wet, even under the blankets they pile over me.
“Anya, keep your eyes open.”
I try. I really do.
But darkness gathers at the edges.
The last thing I feel is my hand over my stomach.
The last thing I think is Yaromir’s name.
Then the ambulance siren fades into nothing.
32
YAROMIR
By nightfall,my dining room has become a war room.
Maps cover the table. Not the kind men use in offices, clean and printed and useless. These are marked by hand with routes, buildings, guards, entrances, blind spots, names of men who owe me and men who still pretend they owe my father.
The old Volkov house is circled in red.
