Page 26 of Sapphire Tears

He coughs up spit, but his eyes are laser-focused on me, still seething with old resentments. “I’m saving her fromyou.”

“Please,” June begs weakly. She grips the frame of the door, barely keeping her feet. “Please stop this. Kolya, he is your brother. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you killed him.”

“There’s only one way to find that out for sure.”

“No!” she cries. “Kolya, please. Don’t be the monster your father was.”

Those words hit a nerve. I grimace, but I loosen my grip on Adrian.

Which is when he acts.

The moment he senses opportunity, he acts, smashing his fist into my chest and shoving me off him. I make a grab for my gun, but by the time I’ve swung around and taken aim, he’s bursting through the entrance in an explosion of rotted wooden planks.

“No…” June whimpers, swaying in place. Her eyelashes flicker like the reception on an old television. I’d be stunned if she can stay upright for more than another breath or two.

I have a two-second window, and I can only do one thing: shoot Adrian or catch June. I can’t do both.

So I make the choice that will allow my conscience to rest easy at night. The only choice left that makes any sense.

12

JUNE

I have just enough time to see Kolya drop the gun to the floor and run to me before the darkness comes.

* * *

When I wake up, his face is hanging over mine. I reach up, my fingers tingling with the desire—no, theneed—to touch him.

He is really here.

He really found me.

Then I remember everything else, and my hand recoils like I’d been shocked.

I push myself back against the wall and shrink away from him. Something passes over his face, a dark cloud of emotion, before he wrestles it all back into place.

“I need to check your arm.”

“My arm is fine. It’s bandaged.”

“It doesn’t smell right.”

“I’m the one with the sense of smell, remember?” I throw back at him. “And it smells fine to me.”

“June,” he says in a voice so soft it envelops me in warmth, “I think it may be infected. Have you been to a doctor?” He sighs, as frustrated as ever by my stubbornness. “At least let me get you into a proper seat.”

I roll my eyes, but I let him help me upright and guide me back to the bed in the rear room. He sets me down, then backs away and sits on top of Adrian’s upturned crate. I try to ignore the shapes swimming in the mildewed wall just over his shoulder.

Cars crashing in the night.

Babies tucked up inside of darkened wombs.

Kolya doesn’t look at me for a while. He cracks his neck in both directions, checks the clip on his gun, then sets the weapon down on the floor at his feet, right next to the phone Adrian left me. He massages his hands and swipes a thumb over his scabbing lip.

When he finally speaks, he still won’t look up. “How are you feeling?”

“Betrayed, mostly.”

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