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I know her nails are digging into my skin over and over again, but the adrenaline pumping through my veins has processed all of that as background information. Not important right now. The only thing that matters now is fighting and getting away.
Fight. Get away.
Back to my family.
“I’ll send Milaya away,” Rian screams. Her voice is shrill and panicked. “I’ll send her to another country, and you’ll never see her again.”
Her words give me pause for only a second before I tighten my hold on her neck. If she kidnapped me and Milaya, then the likelihood that she was ever going to give Milaya back was slim anyway. Fighting doesn’t lessen my chances of seeing her.
For a brief second, I allow myself to think about what she has done to Luka.
If she has taken me and Milaya, then where is he? Is he alive?
I push the thought from my mind as soon as it materializes. I can’t live in that pain yet. Not until I know for sure. Until it is proven otherwise, I’ll believe Luka is alive.
I just need to get the hell out of here and find out.
Rian is going limp in my arms, the fight falling out of her, and I think I am succeeding in suffocating her, but then I feel a sharp pain in my thigh.
I look down to see a syringe jammed into my leg, pumping a clear fluid into my body.
“No,” I growl, throwing my body forward to pin Rian against the leather seats.
I pull the syringe from my leg, but it is too late. There is nothing left. Whatever it was, it is coursing through my veins now, which means I likely only have minutes left to fight.
My movements become hurried, panicked. Move by move, I lose the upper hand.
Rian kicks a leg up and around my back, leveraging her weight to roll over me and pin me on the floorboards.
I kick both feet up and into her stomach, knocking the air out of her, but before I can use the advantage, the rear passenger door opens and the hulking figure of the driver is standing over me.
His hands are warm and meaty, and they clamp onto my arms like I am nothing but a toothpick in the grip of a giant.
He hauls me out of the car and onto the crunchy grass of the ditch, throwing me back in the dirt.
I try to scramble to my feet, but my vision is blurred. My connection to my arms and legs is slipping, and even the simplest movements feel like a chore. Wet sand collects in my hands and my brain has liquefied and is sloshing against the sides of my skull.
I push myself away from the car, scooting further into the brush alongside the road, all the while Rian and her driver are moving towards me.
Rian looks wrecked. Her white shirt has blood around the collar and her lip is already swelling up. Even as I slip from consciousness, I can’t help but be a little proud of my fight.
“She is gone,” Rian says, though I can’t see her anymore. “Put her back in the car.”
* * *
Suddenly, I’m floating. My head lolls back, and I open my eyes to look up at the sky. At the stars.
Except, they aren’t the stars.
Just above the tree line in the distance, I can see the lights of the city behind me. The lights of home.
I imagine being there with Luka and Milaya.
We are at the butterfly conservatory. A large building with floor-to-ceiling windows and skylights and a vast garden stretching in every direction.
Luka complains about the humidity and pulls at his shirt, but when he sees the smile on Milaya’s tiny face, he can’t help but smile, too.
We are both slaves to that smile. Anything we can do to make her happy, we will.
