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So instead of fighting as I might once have or demanding answers, I simply close my eyes and let myself slip away.
* * *
The next timeI open my eyes, there are hands on me again, but this time the man hovering over me is much older and much less handsome. I realize as his face swims into focus that I’m naked on the bed again, but I can’t quite summon the embarrassment that I feel like I should have. At this point, what does it matter? Nothing about my body could possibly be attractive now, and nothing about the hands on me feel anything but clinical.He must be the doctor,I think dimly, letting my eyes slide closed again as I feel a cold chill wash over me.
“She’s burning up with fever,” I hear the doctor say to someone—Viktor, maybe?— I want to protest that I don’t know how that could be, not when I’m so cold. “These wounds were left open to infection for too long.”
“I cleaned them as soon as I was able to get her here.” Viktor’s deep voice rumbles from somewhere beside the bed, and I feel a small flicker of surprise.Did he clean me up? Did he take care of me?Somehow I can’t quite imagine Viktor sitting at my bedside, tending to me. It sounds like something he would pass off to someone else, to Olga maybe, if she were here. She’s not, of course, but somehow I’m still surprised that he would take the time to tend to me that carefully.
It softens something inside of me, makes me question again if I should suspect him at all.He could be lying,I think, and I squeeze my eyes shut, hating every second of this. I feel like I’m losing my mind.
I have no one I can trust anymore, except for Luca and Sofia, and they’re so far away that they might as well be on another planet.
I’m somewhere out in the Russian wilderness with my husband, and he’s the last person I should trust right now.
But that might be my only chance at surviving this.
I turn my head to one side, trying not to think about the doctor’s hands moving over my body. “How bad is it?” I hear Viktor ask quietly, and I feel the doctor hesitate.
“The fever is dangerous,” he says after a moment. “She’s far from being on the other side of this. There are possibilities that I can’t check for here—internal bleeding or injuries, for example.” His hand presses against my lower ribs, and I cry out before I can stop myself, biting the inside of my cheek at the startled pain.
“A cracked or broken rib,” the doctor says. “There could be much worse.”
“Was she—did they—” Viktor seems to be having a hard time asking the question that’s on the tip of his tongue. “Was she violated?”
I feel myself tense at the question, my heart stuttering in my chest. Even I don’t know the answer to that. Not while I was awake—but I wouldn’t have put it past Andrei or Stepan to enjoy me while I was unconscious and unable to fight back. With so much pain everywhere, I can’t even isolate it enough to determine if any part of my body has been hurt.
“It’s impossible to tell for certain,” the doctor says carefully. “But I don’t see any sign of it.” He hesitates then, his hand resting on my lower stomach. “Is there any chance that she could have been pregnant?”
There’s a sudden, heavy silence in the room, and I feel my chest constrict. I feel that sudden flash of protectiveness again, the need to keep that slight possibility safe, even if it’s nothing but a figment of my imagination, something that’s already gone or maybe never existed at all.
“I’m not sure if it’s been long enough,” Viktor says finally. “But it’s possible. We were married a little over a month ago.”
There’s another thick silence, and then the papery fingers leave my stomach.
“If she was, I don’t see how the pregnancy could have survived what she’s been through,” the doctor says with a finality that feels as if it pierces straight to my heart. “A pregnancy that early is fragile, and she’s been through extreme stress. I would expect that she might have some trouble conceiving after she heals for a while, as well. She’ll have considerable healing to do.”
“I understand,” Viktor says, and I can’t quite parse out what the tone of his voice means. “It’s her that I’m worried about, not a pregnancy.” He says the last with emphasis, as if it’s the last thing in the world on his mind, and that sends another jolt of uncertainty through me.
“She’ll need close, round the clock care if she’s going to survive this—”
“You’ll stay,” Viktor says, with authority and finality to his voice that would have terrified me if it were in my direction. “You’ll stay, and you’ll make sure she lives.”
“Ussuri—” There’s a tremor of fear in the doctor’s voice, and I almost want to open my eyes, just so I can see the look on his face. But they feel too heavy again, glued down with exhaustion and fever. “Ussuri, I can’t promise—”
“You’ll make sure she lives,” Viktor repeats, the threat clear in his voice. “And whatever care she needs, I’ll see to it myself. But you won’t leave this cabin until she’s well.”
There’s that threat again, the undercurrent that says if I don’t get well, he might not leave at all. It makes me feel a small flutter of guilt because I can’t be responsible for someone else getting hurt just because I can’t beat the things that were done to me.
Does he even care that much?I’d never envisioned Viktor flying into a rage because I died, taking out his anger and grief on the person who might have been able to save me. It doesn’t make any sense to me, because Viktor doesn’t feel the kinds of things for me that lead to anger or grief.
Right?
They’re saying something else now, the doctor insisting that he’ll do his best, but he can’t make promises, and Viktor’s rumbling voice replying that his “best” will mean that I live.
I want to say that I can’t make any promises either, but the fever is pulling at me, dragging me back into the dark depths that I’m honestly glad to return to.
At least there, it’s warm, and nothing hurts.
