Page 69 of Bratva Sacrifice

The water greys around us as the filth coating her skin sloughs off. I bite off a curse, kick out the stopper so the water can drain, and begin the process of filling the tub all over again. Her skin is a symphony of bruises and abrasions in various stages of healing. Some not healing at all—some inflamed and oozing, some scabbed over. Some, I know from experience, will scar her beautiful skin. The water must sting in those wounds. She must be suffering.

Still, she does not react. I reach for the sponge she prefers, the pink puffy thing shaped like a blooming rose, and pour out a stream of liquid soap, working up a lather. Even beneath the layer of dirt and blood and sweat, her skin is almost grey. I can rub it clean, but I cannot force the pinkness back into her flesh. It is a long, difficult process to get her clean again. I have to be gentle with her—so gentle with this fragile, broken woman I have created.

“Koshechka,” I murmur against her shoulder, which is still cold, even after a thorough clean and rinse, even with the heat of the water. “Talk to me. Please.”

No response. Not even the slightest quickening of breath, or flutter of pulse. At last, I think, she has found a way to escape. My heart clenches with fear, with regret. She escaped this life before. She escaped it when she first fled her family, and I pulled her back into it—and then I abandoned her when she needed me most. Now, she has escaped the only way left to her. Into her mind, where nothing can touch her.

Not even me. Maybe especially not me.

I cradle her against my chest and thread my fingers through the damp, tangled locks of her hair, massaging through her flowery-scented shampoo. The sky blue of her eyes stares sightlessly into the middle distance. Unblinking, even when I am certain the handheld shower attachment I wield clumsily sprays the dregs of the shampoo into them. Such a minor sting is nothing to her now.

The conditioner sorts out the worst of the tangles, and her hair slips through my fingers again without tangles. But its vibrant shine is dimmed, as if it has greyed along with the rest of her. As if she is coated in a thick film of despair. One I could never hope to wash away.

Water sluices off of us as I lift her from the tub. It is awkward to shove her limp limbs into the arms of a bathrobe and to wrap her wet hair within a towel. I drip a river across the floor I carry her to the bed and lay her upon it. She should look comfortable there, nestled into the plush mattress, her damp hair now spread out upon the towel that protects the pillows beneath her head.

She only looks vacant. As if she might as well still be lying upon that cold concrete floor. The ruined flesh around her ankle seeps bright blood into the sheet beneath her. Little pinpricks of blood begin to dot the bathrobe wrapped around her. Fuck.

I strip off my clothes, rubbing my skin dry with a spare towel, and I pull on a clean, dry pair of boxers. Somewhere buried deep beneath other clothing in my drawers I unearth a set of flannel pajamas I have never worn. Too big for her by far, but her own silky nightclothes will not warm her.

The first aid kit is still in the bathroom. I retrieve it, pausing only a moment to crank up the heat on the thermostat as I do.

She is still too cold.

And she hasn’t moved a muscle. She does not, even as I peel back the edges of the bathrobe to discover it already sticking to her wounded skin. I tear open packets of antiseptic wipes, ointment, gauze pads, and tape. “This will hurt, koshechka. I’m sorry.”

But it doesn’t. Nothing hurts her now. And she lies there like one already dead as I clean her wounds, smooth ointment over the worst of them, and bandage them. I feel like I am dressing a corpse as I dress her in warm flannel, as I run a brush through her hair.

I feel like I have already killed her.

∞∞∞

I feel as if I have betrayed her anew when I have to let the doctor examine her, to bare intimate parts of her body to a stranger without her consent. But there are lacerations that must be tended with more competency than I can offer to her, and to do that, I have to peel back the thick covers encapsulating her, unbutton the flannel nightshirt, slide down the pajama pants.

“I don’t like the look of these,” the doctor says with a disapproving hum. The laceration on her breast is the deepest, with a thick yellow pus that has already saturated the bandage I have placed over it.

I don’t like the familiar way he touches her. I don’t want anyone touching her but me.

“Hm,” he said. “She’s got a goose egg. Concussed?”

I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. What happened to her in those days she was gone is something known only to her, only to those who inflicted this damage upon her. It makes me sick to my stomach only to know what happened to her in the days she was in the Pit.

“Catatonia,” he pronounces thoughtfully. “She isn’t reacting to stimuli. Low blood pressure.” A hesitation. “She’s malnourished and dangerously dehydrated. When did she last eat or drink?”

All that emerges is a guttural growl, full of self-loathing. Days. Days at least. Piotr was waiting for her to die, expecting her to. Probably he did not kill her himself only because he has no access to the security room to erase the evidence of this. In this way, he can blame me for her fate.

The doctor sighs, “I’ll have to set up an IV. Safest at this point. She really should be in the hospital—”

“Nyet.” It’s a snarl. She has been taken from me once already. I cannot protect her there—not like I can here. Not like I should have here.

The doctor is well-trained. He knows what I am, knows he will be paid well for both his care and his silence. He knows better than to argue. “Some of these lacerations will need stitching. She’ll benefit from a sedative.”

“Get it done.” And while the doctor scrambles to assemble the necessary equipment, I take a seat at the edge of the bed and collect Katya’s cold hand in mine. Her fingers are so small, the nails chipped and broken, some straight down to the quick. Her bright pink polish is ruined. I chafe her hand in mine, buss a kiss across her knuckles.

But she does not feel this.

She also does not feel the prick of the IV needle sliding into her vein. Or the quick, efficient stitches the doctor delivers to her torn flesh. Eventually, as the drugs move through her system, her eyelids droop.

She is deep in sleep when at last the doctor departs, and I crawl into bed beside her, opposite the IV to leave her arm undisturbed. She sleeps—but not peacefully. Wherever her conscious mind has taken itself off to, it cannot protect her in sleep. Little whimpers climb up her throat. Her body twitches and twists.