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“How good is hope when it ends with you dead?”
“Hope isn’t what killed Ilya. It was containment.”
“Containment,” Kirill snorts derisively. “It’s not like he was in a fucking prison.”
“The apartment wasn’t much different! He couldn’t leave, Kirill. You built him a nice little gilded cage and then you abandoned him to—”
“I never abandoned my brother!” he roars.
“Bullshit!” I cry right back. I raise my voice even higher. “He felt stifled, so he found a way to get out on his own. Ilya didn’t die because he had hope. He died because you didn’t!”
The moment the last word leaves my lips, all the intensity that has been building deflates. My body has been running on adrenaline and anger for too long. I can’t even find it in me to be scared about how Kirill will respond.
I stare at him, waiting for his rebuttal. Waiting for him to grab me and pin me against the wooden fence or maybe just throw me right over.
Honestly, I wouldn’t blame him. I didn’t just toe the line; I danced all over it.
Instead, Kirill looks out over the water for a few seconds… and then he turns back towards the car.
He takes a few steps before I can get my brain in gear and question what he’s doing. “That’s it? You’re leaving?”
“We have nothing more to talk about.”
“We have everything to talk about,” I argue. Nothing is settled for me. He just dug up years of guilt and shame and resentment. I can’t bottle that all in again.
He doesn’t respond. Silently, he pulls the car keys out of his pocket and reaches for the driver’s side door.
Before I can question what I’m doing, I charge around the car and slap the keys out of his hands. “You’re not running away from me.”
Apparently, I’ve found a second wind.
His eyes narrow on the keys laying in the dirt. Then he glares up at me. “I’ve never run a day in my fucking life. Now, get in the car so I can take you home. Before I change my mind.”
I shake my head. “This is what I’m talking about. You disengage. You don’t like what I’m saying, so you withdraw. If I let you take me home, how many days will it be before I hear from you again?”
“Oh, were you hoping for a second date?” Sarcasm is thick in the deep rumble of his voice.
“It doesn’t matter what I want—you’ll show up whenever you like. Probably when I decide to dance with another guy, right? As soon as I think about moving on, you’ll show up long enough to ruin my night and remind me you exist. Then you’ll disappear again.”
He bends down and swipes the keys off the ground. When he stands, he doesn’t even look at me. His green eyes are fixed on a point over my head, a frown on his lips. “Dance with whoever you want, Rayne. But when you find yourself bent over another counter, don’t wait for me to shatter the glass and pull you out of there.”
My heart stutters over his words, refusing to accept them.
He doesn’t mean it. He can’t.
“I’m not surprised. You’ve never been there for me when I really needed you,” I fire back, barely believing what I’m saying.
He wasn’t there when I was nearly crushed under guilt after Ilya died.
He wasn’t there when I was back at work two weeks after Yuliana was born, struggling to pay rent.
When I raised our daughter by myself for the last four years. When I cried myself to sleep at night.
I want to tell him all of it. But I can’t.
So instead, I storm past him, headed for the trail down the mountain.
“Where the fuck are you going?” he calls.
