Page 58 of 10 Days to Surrender

I make a few half-hearted attempts at the salad before I give up, lean over toward the open window, and scrape the whole thing out into the courtyard. Maybe that asshole rooster will choke on a beet.

The empty plate comes back wet as the storm rages on. I’m fishing for my journal again when suddenly, with a mournfulwheeze, the power goes out. And when the lights die this time, they don’t come back.

I count sixty-three heartbeats before I decide,Screw this.

My legs wobble when I swing them over the mattress. An oversized robe hangs from the bedpost. I cinch it around my belly, fabric straining over the growing swell. The floorboards creak as I shuffle toward the door with one hand braced against the wall for support.

Darkness clusters in the hallway. I know these turns by now—right at the crack in the plaster, left where the grandfather clock ticks. Thunder snarls as I reach the stairs from the second story to the ground floor.

A faint, guttural Russian curse rolls up from the shadows.

“Sasha?”

No answer. Just the rasp of labored breathing.

I descend step by step, palm slick on the railing. When I reach the ground floor, I pause and listen. For a moment, there’s nothing. Then I hear it again.

“Motherfuckinggoddamnblyat’blyat’blyat.”

I suppress a smile. I take it that generator repair is not going so well.

Shuffling my way blindly over to the cellar door, I start the hike downstairs. It’s slow-going in the dark and the stairs are old, so I’m extra careful. But when I reach the bottom, there’s some light.

A flashlight lies propped up in one corner. Its beam catches Sasha crouched against the wall, shirt abandoned to reveal fresh blood seeping through his bandages.

The generator’s guts spill across the floor like it’s just as broken as he is—wires severed, parts scattered. Sasha’s knuckles drip onto a wrench.

“I didn’t know they made handymen so foul-mouthed out here,” I remark.

There’s a clank and another curse as Sasha extracts his head from the mess. “Someone has to do it.”

I can’t help giggling. “Hero complex acting up again?”

He scowls at me. “It’s more useful than your martyr fetish.”

“Says the man who’d rather bleed out than ask for help.”

“This generator is going to be the one bleeding out if it doesn’t start fucking cooperating,” he spits, like he can intimidate the thing into proper working order.

“It takes a big man to insult an inanimate object to its face like that,” I say, suppressing another laugh.

Sasha remains unamused. “You’re supposed to be in bed, not down here antagonizing me from the fucking peanut gallery.”

“Bed is a lot less fun.”

A lot less visually interesting, too.Sasha’s shirtless body may be a wreck, but it’s a beautiful one. His muscles flex as he wrestles a rusted bolt. Sweat glazes the scarred planes of his back, tattoos shifting with every motion.

“And yet, for at least—” He checks his watch by the glow of the flashlight. “—sixteen more hours, it’s the only place you’re allowed to be. Besides,” he adds with a devilish gleam in his eye, “I can think of plenty of ways to have fun in bed.”

That rasping edge in his voice makes my insides squirm in a way I haven’t felt in six long months.

“Stay over there,” I warn him. “The generator is a lot more likely to let you stick your hands in it than I am.”

Sasha laughs. “You weren’t all that hard to convince, if I remember correctly.”

My jaw falls open. “Asshole!” I look around for something to weaponize. Finding a bundle of wires by my feet, I chuck them at his head.

He ducks and keeps laughing. Then it fades into something more serious. “I mean it, though, Ariel. This isn’t me being a control freak; I just want you and the babies to be safe.”

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