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“Car,” I say.

Sergei is already moving. “At the front.”

“Hospital. Call them on the way.”

“Yes.”

Elara reaches the bottom of the stairs in my shirt, barefoot and pale. She sees Anya in my arms and stops as if the air has gone out of her. “Nikolai⁠—”

“She’s breathing.”

Her hand goes to her mouth. “I’m coming,” she says.

I don’t argue. Anya will want her if she wakes. “Come.”

I carry Anya through the hall. Doors open around me. Someone moves a chair out of the way. Galina goes ahead and pulls the front door wide.

Outside, the car’s already there with the engine running.

I get into the back with Anya still in my arms. Elara climbs in from the other side, shaking, and reaches for Anya’s hand.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she whispers. “We’re going to the hospital, okay? Your papa’s got you.”

I look down at my daughter’s face and keep my hand at her neck so I can feel the pulse under my fingers. “Stay with me,” I say. “You hear me, baby? Stay with me.”

Elara cries silently beside us, still holding Anya’s hand.

24

ELARA

I pace the hospital corridor until Galina tells me to sit. I do sit, for maybe half a minute. Then I stand again.

No one stops me the second time.

The corridor outside imaging is too narrow for the number of people Nikolai has brought with him. Sergei stands near the double doors, phone in his hand, speaking quietly every few minutes and then falling silent. Two men I don’t know wait by the wall. A nurse has already asked them once to move farther back, and they did, but not by much.

Nikolai is at the far end of the corridor. He hasn’t sat down.

There’s something awful about how calm he is. He answers questions. He signs papers. He asks the doctor about scans and bleeding and observation windows. His face gives nothing away.

I keep thinking about his hands last night.

His mouth at my temple. His arm around my waist. The way he had been half-asleep when I woke once and still pulled me closer before settling again.

It feels disgusting to think about now, but I can’t stop. Last night, I thought something had changed between us.

Maybe it had. Maybe that’s why this feels so cruel.

I press both hands over my face and breathe through my fingers. My stomach keeps rolling. I have not eaten, and the coffee someone handed me is going cold on the chair beside Galina.

“My poor sweet girl,” Galina says quietly. “She doesn’t deserve this.”

“She’ll be alright; she has to be,” I say more to myself.

Galina’s face softens. “Are you okay?”

I drop my hands.