Page 13 of Conquer
“Hello,” I tell her, struggling to regain my charming persona. “I’m here to see the patient in 2207. My name is Tiffany Connors.”
The woman nods and turns to her computer screen. Whatever she sees makes her frown and rise from her desk. “I’ll be right back, Miss.”
She disappears down a hallway only to return seconds later with Vadim in tow. He looks awful, a man apart from who he was only a few hours ago. The darkness once again has claimed his expression, but glimpsed without the filter of his wall…
It’s terrifying.
“Thank you,” he says to the clerk. Then he advances toward me and inclines his head to a small sitting room just off the unit entrance. “We need to talk.”
I follow him, still clutching Magda’s things to my chest. Before he can even say a word, I feel the need to place her suitcase on a nearby coffee table, open it and fish out It. “She needs this,” I tell him, shoving the bear into his hands. “And I brought her brush and some ribbon.”
He accepts the offering, but his expression doesn’t ease one damn iota. If anything, the line of his jaw hardens against me. “You shouldn’t have come.”
I blink. “What… What do you mean? She needs her clothes and her bear, and—”
“I mean this is the time when she needs stability,” Vadim says, his tone harsh. “A parent. Someone she can trust not to leave when she needs them the most. Someone who won’t be cavalier with her health—”
“What…” I’m still processing his word usage.Cavalier—reckless. “What are you talking about?”
His eyes flash. In a violent motion, he tosses the bear across the room so hard it rebounds off a nearby couch, and I’m left stunned in the face of such a display.
“I mean, you refuse to adopt her,” he growls, straining to keep his voice low. “You refuse to marry me. And now you want to tease her at a time when her health and safety is of the utmost importance? Was this your aim all along when you got her soaking wet in forty-degree weather? Slip out while she’s rushed to the hospital? And what, you got cold feet and came back in guilt?”
I turn away from him, hunting for a chair, and I hurriedly perch myself on the edge of it. My brain is spinning, thoughts so tangled, it’s almost painful to form coherence from his statements, pairing his anger with his words. But when I finally do, the resulting implication is soul-crushing.
“Are you saying I got her sick on purpose?” I whip my head around to face him. He doesn’t even have the nerve to flinch. Look guilty. Anything but face me with such a cold, hostile expression.
I can feel something inside me crack—right in my chest. No therapy, sex, or wine could ever soothe this pain. And I know there’s no way he could be doing this on purpose.
“You’re upset,” I say, staggering to my feet. “I can understand that. Let’s just go see her—”
“No.” He steps back, denying me the ability to reach for him. “You should leave.”
A startled laugh escapes me before I can bite it back. “I’m not leaving her alone. No. I’m not.” I picture the stoic figure who held a grudge against her father for leaving her in foster care, paired with the innocent girl who begged me to teach her to swim. “I’m not,” I insist, shaking my head.
“She needsme,” Vadim says, flicking his collar. “Someone she can trust.”
“How…how dare you?” I can’t breathe. My chest feels so damn tight. Looking at the man before me, I can’t reconcile him with the figure who held me at night or bathed me with care. I’m numb, barely aware of the wetness sliding down my cheeks until my vision blurs, and I’m blinded by tears. “How dare you?”
“How dare I?” I sense him move—his shape distorted as more tears fall, impossible to stem. “You’ve already denied her once,” he points out. “I think it’s better if you leave now. Let her heal from your mistake, and your absence before your eventual departure hurts her more.”
He grabs her suitcase and crosses the room, snatching It from the floor. Then he heads toward the unit, leaving me to scramble after him.
“Vadim, don’t do this. Just let me see her—”
He stops short, so suddenly I nearly run into him. “I think it’s best for everyone if you just go. Now. Ena will take you back to the house. Help yourself to what you wish. Just be gone by the time I return.”
He marches forward, breezing past the front desk. When I try to follow, the woman seated there stands, her voice apologetic. “I’m sorry, Miss, but due to the nature of our unit, I can’t let you by without permission from a parent or guardian.”
I keep blinking at her as if that single action will make her disappear. Make this pain go away. I’ll wake up in bed beside the Vadim I thought I knew, and this will all turn out to be some horrid nightmare.
I just keep blinking, as my legs move woodenly to navigate my way back into the elevator and down to the lobby. I keep blinking even as I find Ena waiting out front, his expression stern.
I just keep blinking.
But I never wake up from this nightmare.
