Page 208 of Cashmere Ruin

“I said wake up!” she shrieks. “I’m not done with you! I haven’t forgiven you yet!”

I want to tell her there’s hope, but I’m not sure that’s true. I try to find a pulse, but I’m not a nurse, so I have no idea if I’m doing it right. All I know is that I can’t feel anything under my fingers, nothing except…

Cold.

I glance at Yuri’s hand. It’s clutching his phone, something it wasn’t doing before, when I was here by his side. The screen’s covered in blood, but it looks like he’d been trying to text someone.

He was trying to save us. With his last breath, he was still…

Matvey’s gaze follows mine, and I can tell he’s come to my same conclusion. His face is a complicated tangle of emotions. Strong, conflicting emotions, all warring in the icy pools of his eyes.

“Give me that,” he rasps. “We need to call?—”

BOOM!

One of the walls bursts open, revealing another hidden door. And from that door…

“Vlad’s men,” Matvey growls. “Looks like the fight isn’t over yet.”

“Like hell it isn’t,” Petra spits. She tries to stand up, but?—

“Easy,” I murmur. “You’ve been fighting all this time. You’re in no condition.”

“You’re right. So help me up.”

I blink. It’s the last request I expected from Petra:help me.“Okay.”

We both hold her up, me on one side, Matvey on the other. “Petra…”

“Carry me to my father’s corpse.”

We do.

The Solovyov traitors surround us. I glance back at Yuri, but we don’t need to walk too far before Petra shrugs us both off.

Then she plants her foot on her father’s chest. “The king is dead. You have ten seconds to say, ‘Long live the queen’ or end up like him.”

“What’s she trying to do?” I whisper.

“Rule by consensus,” Matvey whispers back. “But it won’t work. Not with Vlad’s men.”

He’s right. I realize it immediately: for every recruit who moves over to our side, there are ten who don’t. Who sneer and spit out insults:sukahere,shlyukhathere.

Funnily enough, I don’t feel like I need a dictionary for these ones.

“What are we gonna do?”

Matvey steps in front of me. “Fight.”

It’s so unfair. Yuri’s still lying there; Petra’s tears haven’t even dried yet; andMatvey.He escaped death twice for me today. Will we really be lucky enough for a third time?

“I want a gun, too,” I decide.

“No fucking way.”

“Matvey, I need to protect May, I need?—”

“So you know how to shoot one?”

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