Page 44 of Crimson Curse
I look at Naomi once more. I refuse to let the past overwrite the present. “Do not move her from recovery without me,” I insist.
Arkady inclines his head. “We would not dare.”
I force my feet to carry me to the locker room. The water runs rust-brown before it clears. I stand under it until the floor swirl loses all color and heat crawls into my bones. I pull on a set of fresh scrubs a nurse gave me, then return to the corridor with wet hair and skin scrubbed nearly raw.
I take the chair beside Naomi’s bed like a throne I never asked for and lace our fingers together, refusing the space that separates sleep from waking. Machines hum around us. Lex sinks into a chair against the far wall with a line of texts running under his thumb. Timur dozes upright, his chin tucked, a watchdog even in rest.
Arkady stops in the doorway once, glances at our small kingdom of stubbornness, and leaves us to it.
I lift Naomi’s hand to my lips and press a steady kiss to the place where her pulse stutters. “I’m here,” I murmur. “And I will be here when you open your eyes. Viktor is gone. You and I, we still have a life to build.”
Her breathing deepens, then smooths.
When morning drags itself toward the city, I intend to watch it crawl into this room and find us both still holding on.
17
NAOMI
Harsh white light hums above me, and the air tastes like antiseptic. A steady beep drills through the fog in my head until it becomes the only focus I can cling to. Pain blooms along my side, sharp and hot, but the ache is a distant second to the panic that claws up my throat.
I suck in a breath that scrapes like sand. My fingers tear at the blanket, then at the thin cotton of a gown that is not mine. The metal railing bites my forearm as I reach for my abdomen. I’m not prepared for the terror that surges through me when my palm meets my skin.
“The baby,” I choke out, my voice cracked and raw. My heart races so hard I can feel it under my tongue. “Oh God, the baby. Please, please.”
My vision swims as if the room cannot decide what stays and what goes. A warm hand closes around mine and tethers me before I drown.
“Naomi,” Daniil murmurs, low and urgent. “Look at me.”
I fight through the sting of tears. His face comes into focus first, then the rest of him, like a photograph developing in a tray. Unshaven jaw, eyes ringed with sleeplessness, mouth pulled taut. His palm covers the back of my hand, and his thumb moves in small, firm circles meant to calm me. The heat of him eases some part of me that doesn’t listen to logic.
“You didn’t lose the baby,dushenka,” he says, each word careful and sure, like bricks laid straight and strong. He leans closer, his breath warm on my hairline. “You are both okay.”
The world tilts and rights itself on those words. Not a promise or a guess. A truth he has already checked and checked again. The sob that escapes me leaves me shaking from relief that makes every muscle go watery. Tears leak out and slide into my hair. I press his hand to my cheek and try to breathe through the tremors that will not stop.
“You came back to me,” he whispers, as if he is afraid to say it too loudly. His forehead rests against mine for a heartbeat, and the contact makes me feel held in a way that has nothing to do with metal beds or monitors. “Both of you did.”
I let out a shaky laugh that breaks at the edges. “I was so scared.”
“I know.” His mouth slides against my skin. “I know.”
The room grows more clearly piece by piece. The ceiling tile over my bed has a thin crack that runs like a river through the plaster. The fluorescent light sings in a way I wish it would not. The walls are the color of oatmeal, and the window is a rectangle of black. The monitor to my right tracks my pulse and blood pressure in soft green lines. A saline bag hangs from an IV pole near my shoulder, with a clear tube taped to my arm.
A nurse in pale blue scrubs quietly appears at the foot of my bed. She checks the monitor, then moves around to my left. She is petite, with kind eyes and quick hands that know where everything lives in this room. Her gaze flits to Daniil, then back to me with a professionalism that does not change.
“Welcome back, sweetheart,” she says, in that easy medical tone that somehow makes you feel twelve and brave. “You gave us a scare for a little while, but your vitals stabilized. The pain on your side is to be expected. I can adjust medication once the doctor clears it, since we are looking out for the little one.”
I catch her sleeve. “Please,” I rasp. “The heartbeat.”
“We can do that now.” She slides a small rolling machine closer, squeezes gel onto a wand and lifts the gown just above my abdomen. The gel is cool and startling against my skin. Daniil’s fingers tighten around mine.
The nurse moves the wand with the patience born from finding a thousand tiny heartbeats in a thousand different bodies. For a moment, I hear only the whoosh of my own blood and the bustle of something beyond the closed door. Then it breaks through, gentle and astonishing, fast as a hummingbird. A gallop, steady and sure. A rhythm of life.
I cover my mouth. The tears that come now are not jagged, but warm and steady, and I let them fall. The nurse smiles without looking away from the screen.
“There we are,” she says softly. “Strong and steady. Measuring right where we want at this stage.”
Daniil doesn’t make a sound. When I turn my head, I find him watching the monitor the way a man watches the horizon for a ship he prayed would find its way home. His eyes shinewith a brightness he never shows to anyone else. He brings my knuckles to his lips and kisses them, just once, and that small tenderness wrecks me.
