Page 48 of Vasily the Nail

I tilt up to see her all compressed into her tiniest ball in one of my hoodies. “Why are you here?” I bellow.

Her big brown eyes go damp as she says, “I’m waiting to see a doctor,” in a weak, warbly voice.

I’m about to explode, to go just fucking ape shit on everyone in the hospital for making her wait whenshe could have died, but Artyom gets my attention with a squeeze of the back of my neck and says, “I’ll take care of it right now.”

Ana’s puffy little bottom lip trembles. “You scared me.”

I crawl off of Dima to walk on my knees over to her. Standing up doesn’t seem important right now. “I shouldn’t have left last night.”

“No, now. Dima, are you okay?”

Dima lets out a rough cough, but at my glare, he nods and gets himself up on his feet. “Yep, just gonna, ahh, take a leak,” he says, grunting as he staggers not to the bathroom but to the desk where Artyom is currently chewing out a nurse. Two security guards are also approaching both him and me, but they’re intercepted by Alex and Kostya.

“He saved me,” Ana says as I sit down next to her and pull her into my lap reflexively. As soon as I was up and moving, Artyom told me she was fine, but no one goes to the emergency room if they’re fine. I’ve gotten shot three times in one night and still didn’t have to go to the ER. “You shouldn’t have attacked him like that.”

I respond with a thoughtful hum but nothing more. I don’t want to talk right now. My heart’s been beating hard enough I thought it was going to explode the entire twelve-minute drive to the hospital. Now that I’m holding her, I just want to take some deep breaths and get myself back to human again.

She’s not getting sent back to her brother’s today. That shit is off the table.

“Does he really live with you?” she asks.

I’m thrown off enough by the question that I chuckle. “Yeah. Whose bedroom did you think that was?”

“I thought it was a guest room! I stole his pillow,” she mutters, mortified.

“You humped that pillow,” I remind her, keeping my voice low so no one else hears it.

It doesn’t keep her from turning bright red, though. “You’ll get him a new one, right?”

“Hell no! He can buy his own pillows.” But it feels good to joke. She’s okay. She needs to see a doctor,right now,but she’s okay.

She huffs but then drops her head down to my shoulder. I feel her exhaustion in her weight. I’m also pretty sure I smell vodka in her hair. She twirls the laces on the hood of the jacket Artyom threw to me on our way out of the house and says, “So don’t freak out when I say this, but I just almost died, and—”

“I’m going to fucking kill Dima,” I snarl.

“That’s not even what I was worried about you freaking out about!” she laughs incredulously. “What I was going to say is tomorrow’s Sunday, so I really feel like I need to go to church after all this.”

“Okay, yeah. But we’ll have to go to my church.”

She peels herself off of me so she can look me in the eye, searching for the joke there.

“What, you think I don’t have a church?”

“Mrs. Baranov?” a nurse calls from up front. “Mrs. Analiese Baranov?”

Ana gives me a peevish look. “Did you tell someone I’m your wife?”

I kiss her petite, upturned nose. “No, I’m sure Artyom told her you’re his sister-in-law. Probably along with either a knife or a death threat.”

Analiese

I’m discharged withina couple hours. An exam, some prescription strength antihistamines and a new epi-pen, a strong lecture about not eating food I’m allergic to, and that’s about it. I’ve been through this before, and every time, the lecture gets a little more embarrassing. When I was a kid, they were all sweet and encouraging. Now, my first time going through this as an adult, it’s got a you-know-better vibe to it.

I do. The longer I sit there in the hospital gown, the stupider I feel. I swear I’m never drinking again. Alcohol makes me dumb.

Once we get home, the rest of the day feels awkward and forced. Vasily and Dima are unified that I need to go right to bed, and neither of them will accept the fact that I’m not sick and could probably run laps around the building. I had to go to the hospital; therefore, I’m an invalid.

Dima reviews my list of allergies at least a dozen times despite it being a whole four items and buys me about twelve pounds of fruit to prove he understands the list.

---