Page 28 of In the Dark

“I can’t,” she bit out. “Or are you too stupid to understand?”

“I was just saying—”

Karsia stared at her. “Well, don’t.”

“Let’s not argue,” Aisanna said with a hint of suppressed emotion. “We’re here and that’s what counts. It’s always what counts in the end.”

They surrounded the bed and held their breath as though it would be mere minutes until Varvara opened her eyes. Shrugged off her chains of tubes and monitors to tell them it was all an elaborate joke.

Eventually, Thorvald wore himself out with worry and passed into a fitful sleep. He curled in the chair, light snores intermittently breaking the hush. The instant he did, Astix and Aisanna rose to use the bathroom, leaving Karsia alone with her mother.

The machines did not stop, did not tire as they pumped oxygen into her broken body. Karsia listened to it in the silence before tensing her hands.

“How could you do something like this? Now, of all times. How could you?”

She spoke to the empty air, anger rising, clouding her vision in red and causing goose bumps to rise on her skin. Her mind and heart wanted separate things. She was tired, even if her body didn’t feel it. She was tired of having to run, always feeling the wolf at her back and forcing her feet to keep moving ahead.

“I’m having such problems, Mom.” She bit the inside of her lip, squeezing her eyes closed. “You’re not here for me to talk to. You’re not here to tell me everything is going to be all right. Why would someone do this to you?” She hung her head.

Unfortunately, there was no one there to answer her questions.

“This horrible thing has happened to me, and when my mind clears, when I finally have a fucking minute of lucidity, I know I shouldn’t have left you. I shouldn’t have left you without a word because I know you worry. But I thought it would help. You would be safer without me.”

At last, she crossed the distance separating them, taking Varvara’s limp fingers in her own. She linked them together and tried to draw on her magic. Tried to draw on the healing energy she kept cocooned inside her body. It should have been easy, but she hit a wall. There was no familiar heat burning her fingertips. Instead of sadness, bitterness grew from a tiny seed. It took root until she only saw her failures.

“This is my fault, Mom. It’s my fault, and you’re paying the price. And there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do about it.”

Thorvald woke when his two older daughters returned. Woke and broke down, weeping in front of his children without a care. He sank down to his knees. One large fist balled in those blankets and came down hard, the blow absorbed by the mattress.

“Please stop crying.” Astix began to pace, long strides up and down the length of the room. “I can’t handle your blubbering.”

“Then get out of the room!” Thorvald bellowed. His hand crept across the bed to his wife and clutched at whatever part of her was closest. “Get out!”

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