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“It was fake. We needed everyone to believe I was killed. I’m very much alive, I assure you. Please look at me.” He turned his head, giving orders in Russian. I heard activity outside the plane, more footsteps boarding the plane. My head was starting to pound. I peeked at him while his head was turned. The lights were so bright, but there was something familiar about his profile. I squinted, trying to adjust to the light. I reached out and touched his face lightly. He didn’t move. He just closed his eyes, leaning into my touch. A single tear fell from his eye.
“It can’t be you. I saw you go down. I saw everybody run to you.”
He took a deep breath. He turned his head, his blue eyes filled with tears as he looked at me with nothing but regret. “This was not how this was supposed to go. You were not supposed to get hurt.”
He tried to find a place that he could rest his hands, but my road rash was even worse this time. Pro tip: don’t jump out of a moving vehicle in lace and satin. It offers zero protection from the hard concrete. As he looked me over, another tear fell from his eye. I reached up and wiped his eye with my thumb.
“Please forgive me, solnishko. Please forgive me.” His head dropped, resting against my legs. I felt fresh tears welling up in my eyes. I wanted to touch his hair. I wanted to console him. My head was pounding so badly that I could barely think.
I lightly touched his hair. “Is it really you?”
He looked up at me, hopeful, his eyes wet with tears. “It’s really me, solnishko.”
I stared at him for a few minutes, not saying anything. My brain still struggling to process everything. He never took his eyes off me. I reached out and touched his face again. “You know your old girlfriends are still mad because you never told them your name?”
He laughed, his smile pulling at something in my chest.
The plane moved forward on the runway, taxiing for take-off. I tensed. Before I knew what happened, he had lifted me from the seat to a couch on the other side of the plane. He put me in his lap, his arms wrapped tightly around me. I rested my head on his shoulder. “My head really hurts,” I said before closing my eyes and letting the darkness take over.
I was back in the ballroom, watching Adrik go down, over and over. Each time, I was frozen in place, like I couldn’t move until I was grabbed from behind. Each time the guy grabbed me, he said something that I couldn’t hear or understand.
I heard voices. Familiar voices.
“Princess…”
“Gazelle…”
“Spider monkey…”
“Sestrichka…”
“Solnishko…”
A different voice would pull me briefly out of the ballroom each time, only to return to have to watch the scene again and be frozen in place again. It felt like I was drowning, watching him go down, not being able to do anything about it. I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t even save myself.
I felt arms around me, shifting me, holding me. Warmth that made my body relax. Fingers in my hair. Back in the ballroom, watching him go down again. This time, I found myself crying. I couldn’t watch anymore. I shut my eyes. I can’t watch anymore. I can’t take it. I would rather have the darkness than be forced to watch this over again.
I hear a voice, calling my name. Everything is darkness. I can only see my body, nothing else. It’s like I’m swimming in the nothing. The voice is still there. Calling me. I try to go toward it. It gets louder. I can hear it clearer.
“Sephie, please come back to me. I can’t possibly live without you. Please just follow the sound of my voice. Come back to me. I love you.”
I know that voice. I want to go to that voice. I try to go toward that voice, only to hear a new voice. “He’s lying. He doesn’t love you. No one loves you. No one will ever love you.” I know this voice too. I know those words. Grant would say those words over and over to me as he was beating me. Like he was beating those words into me.
No, no, no. It can’t be him. I got away from him. I locked that voice away tight.
“You didn’t lock it up tight enough, stupid girl. I’m still here.”
Again, the voice calling me. “Sephie, please come back to me. Follow the sound of my voice. I love you.”
The other voice, laughing. “He’s so pathetic. Begging you to come back to him, like you’re worth a damn. Sickening.”
I feel the familiar pull toward the voice calling me. I want to go toward it, but every time I move toward it, the other voice comes out.
“Solnishko, you have to wake up, my love. You have to come back to me, malishka.”
I move toward it again. The other voice, yelling now, “YOU THINK HE LOVES YOU? YOU’RE MORE STUPID THAN I THOUGHT. NOBODY WILL EVER LOVE YOU, STUPID GIRL.”
No, no, no. It can’t be right. He can’t be right. It’s not right.
