Page 138 of Cruel Demands

“Not why you’re asking.”

Her expression hardens. “Because men like my son do not let go easily.”

The room tilts slightly. I lower myself back into the chair.

Nikita sits beside me rather than returning to her place across the table, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. “He would protect you,” she continues. “He would provide for you. He would put the world beneath your feet if he thought it would keep you near him.”

“That doesn’t sound terrible.”

“No. It does not. That is why it is dangerous.”

I think of the market. A fox pin becoming an entire stall. One request to go outside becoming four guards and an armored car. A room bigger than my apartment. Protection and possession have started to look dangerously similar.

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” I say.

“No?” she asks, reaching over the table for my hands.

I give them to her and she flips them over, stroking my wrists. There is no mark there, only a memory. I flinch at it. “We are in love, Nikita. We weren’t then.”

She reaches into the pocket of her robe. She places a small paper bag on the table. The pharmacy logo is printed across the front.

“What is this?” I laugh weakly, confused, pulling a box out of it.

I stare at a pregnancy test. I feel like I’m staring into its eyes, like it’s a monster. My throat tightens. “Oh, Nikita, that’s ridiculous. This is invasive.”

“When did you last bleed?”

The question is so direct that for a moment I think I’ve misunderstood her. “What?”

“Your monthly bleeding.”

“I know what you meant. I’m not going to tell you that.”

“If there is a child,” she says, “he will consider you his family.”

“That doesn’t mean he would⁠—”

“Yes,” she says. “It does.” I look at her. She’s not trying to scare me. She’s trying to help me. Which is scaring the shit out of me. “How late?”

I stare at her. She stares back. Something cold begins to spread beneath my ribs. Not fear. Not yet. A warning.

I take out my phone. My fingers feel clumsy as I open the calendar. I don’t track every period. I’m not that organized. But I remember the last one because it started the morning of an important meeting, and I had spent the first half of it silently furious at every man in the room for having a functioning uterus-free body.

I scroll back. Then further. My thumb stops. The kitchen seems suddenly too quiet. Nikita watches my face.

“I’m not.” It comes out immediately. Too quickly.

Her eyes don’t move. I count again. Then again, as though the dates might rearrange themselves if I stare long enough. Sixteen days. “It’s nothing,” I say.

“You are tired.”

“I’ve been through a lot.”

“You are nauseous.”

“I ate something.”

“You are sensitive to smells.”