Page 174 of Twilight Sins

I’d know. If something happened to Yakov, I’d feel it, wouldn’t I?

“I’m going to make sure everything is safe,” she says.

It’s a bad idea. I feel it in my gut. But I also know I can’t stop her.

So when Mariya opens the door, I force myself across the room and into the hallway after her. I owe Yakov that much.

I’ve lived in this mansion for months, but it seems different now. Possible threats loom everywhere. We pass door after door and I keep whipping around to make sure no one is creeping up behind us.

At the top of the stairs, Mariya stops and ducks down. The front door is hanging open, but the hum of cicadas is the only sound floating in from the lawn.

“The guards on the porch are gone,” Mariya whispers.

“Is that normal? For them to leave their post?”

Her mouth twists to the side. Her non-answer is answer enough.

No. It’s not normal at all.

She stands up. “I’m going to go out there and see what’s going on.”

I grab her wrist and drag her back to the floor. “Mariya! No. I can’t let you do that.”

“You don’t get to ‘let me’ do anything,” she says with a sad smile. “I’m going, Luna. You can’t stop me.”

“Mariya,” I rasp, “it’s not safe. I can feel it. Something is wrong. We should hide and wait for Yakov and Nikandr to get back here.”

She lays her hand over mine and squeezes. “It might be too late for that.”

“No.” I shake my head as tears well in my eyes. “They’re fine, Mariya. They’re coming back. They’ll be here soon. I know it.”

I don’t know it. Mariya is right: we can’t sit and wait for help that might never come.

I’m shaking, so she drapes her jacket over my shoulders. “You’re pregnant, Luna. You should stay here.”

“And you’re a kid! I can’t let you go fight alone.”

She shrugs casually. “I’ve been in weapons training and Krav Maga classes since I was four.”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“Exactly. No offense, but you should stay here. You’d just distract me.” Mariya grins, almost hiding the anxiety burning in her eyes. “The guards have probably handled the threat by now, anyway.”

I want to believe her.

I try to.

But as Mariya creeps down the stairs and through the front door of the mansion, every cell in my body is screaming that this is wrong. Yakov would never have let her go out there alone.

Yakov isn’t here.

I grip the railing just for something to hold onto. For some way to keep myself from flying out the door behind Mariya and dragging her back inside.

“She’ll be fine,” I whisper to myself. “She knows what she’s doing.”

Just as I’ve almost convinced myself everything will be okay…

That’s when the screaming starts.

---