Page 91 of Forever My Saint

Saint turns over his shoulder to look at me, but I give him a weak smile, not wanting to worry him.

“These winding roads are making me queasy. That’s all.” Holy shit, as far as excuses go, that is fucking lame,LAME, seeing as I was stuck on a yacht for days, but it’s the best I can do.

“I’ll slow down,” Pavel says, and I’m thankful at least one person believes me.

Closing my eyes, I inhale and exhale slowly, shutting out what Larisa said, but the harder I try to ignore it, the louder and more persistent it becomes.

Larisa has said all of five words to me since I arrived at her home and then decides to drop this philosophical bombshell on me the moment I leave. Now she expects me to understand what the hell she was trying to say.

With eyes closed, I’m able to shut out the white noise and focus on her words because there is a meaning behind them. What I think is right—that ship has sailed long ago. There is nothing right about this entire shitshow.

From the first moment to this very end, everything has revolved around surviving, regardless if it was right or not. So what changes now?

Ingrid is left broken and alone, headed to god knows where to heal her wounds—where is the right in that? Sara is left without Hans, without a family—where is the right in that? We’re headed toward an airstrip where we will board a plane and are supposed to forget the atrocities that occurred to us—where in the ever-living fuck…

Fuck.

Fuck.

Zoey once called Larisa a witch doctor. I now see why.

“Stop the van,” I whisper so softly, I’m unsure if I spoke it aloud or just in my head. “Stop it.”

When the van continues driving, the need to flee suffocates me. I need to get out. I’m going to vomit. “Stop the van!”

Saint frantically turns over his shoulder. “A?????”

Pavel stops talking, peering at me in the rearview mirror. I thought I’d see surprise reflected back at me, but I don’t. He pulls over to the side of the road, and before he has a chance to stop, I rip open the door and fly outside.

My boots skid along the icy road, but I grip the guardrail and take three deep breaths. I feel slightly better, but when Saint grips me by the elbow and spins me around, the nausea returns.

“What’s wrong?”

Holy shit, I think the better question here is what’s right? Larisa allowed me to see this, allowed me to see what I knew was there all along. Back at her house, there was something I needed to do. I didn’t know what that was until now.

God save me from the mess I’m about to make.

“We have to go back,” I say, watching in utter fear as Saint steps back, stunned. But this is nothing compared to what’s coming.

“What?”

“We, we can’t leave him,” I reply, licking my sudden dry lips. “If we do, we’re no better than them.”

Saint shakes his head furiously. “Let me get this straight, you want to go back tohim? To Aleksei?”

A single word can bring down a nation, just as I have. “Yes.”

“Willow…why?” Saint is barely reining in the rage as his fists clench and unclench dangerously slow.

“Because it’s the right thing to do.” Larisa’s words only confirm my truth. “No matter what’s been done, we can’t let him die.”

“Wewill die,” Saint snarls, eyeing me like I’m the enemy.

“Only He knows that.” The cross around my neck tingles, a confirmation I’m doing the right thing.

“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”

I nod, wishing I could take away his pain. But I can’t.

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