Page 33 of Sapphire Tears

He doesn’t respond to that at all.

“The baby’s doing good,” Sara announces a minute or two later. “I’m getting a nice, strong heartbeat. Everything’s good there.”

I nod, feeling a fierce sense of relief. I place my hand over my belly, taking comfort in the small but sure swell of my stomach. I notice Kolya’s eyes following my movements. He misses nothing.

“Will you sit up for me, June?” Sara says. “I’ll remove your bandage and we can tend to this next.”

I struggle upright. When I’m good, Sara starts pulling at the bandage gently. I smell something foul on my skin, something acrid and sickly, just before the bandage comes off completely.

“Fuck,” Sara mutters.

“Not sure that was very professional of you, Doc,” I mumble.

Kolya growls low and his eyes darken with anger. “You should have been taken to a doctor days ago.”

I glance down at my arm. The skin has mostly crumbled away like dry dirt. What’s left is dark red and purple and the edges of the bullet’s path ripple with a nasty yellowish foam. “Is that—”

“Pus,” Sara finishes. “The wound’s been infected.”

I breathe out and twist my head in the opposite direction so I don’t have to look at it anymore. “Fuck.”

“Don’t move. I need supplies.”

She moves into the supply closet and starts rummaging around. In my peripheral vision, I notice that Kolya has started pacing.

“You’re giving me a headache.”

“You sure it’s not your rotting flesh?”

I grimace. “Sara will fix it.”

“She wouldn’t need to fix anything if that wound had been properly treated from the beginning.”

“I was a little distracted, what with people trying to murder me and all,” I snark. “And I made sure to change the bandages often.”

“Smart,” he snaps, coming to a stop right in front of me. “Really fucking smart. Put a clean bandage on an infected wound and the infection just goes away, does it?”

“Why are you mad at me?”

“Why the fuck did you stay with him?” Kolya demands. He doesn’t ever raise his voice, but now, it ripples with strain I’ve never heard him display before. He points vehemently at my arm. “The idiot clearly didn’t have a clue what he was doing.”

I cringe back at his anger, but I don’t really have an answer for him. WhydidI stay with Adrian?

The answer comes to me in a mental whisper that’s full of shame, dripping with regret, soaked in grief.

Because you didn’t think you had anyone else to turn to.

“Kolya,” Sara says, walking out of the closet with an armful of supplies, “this is not the time, okay? She needs rest. Maybe you should go upstairs. Get some rest yourself.”

“I’m fine right here,” he snarls.

Unfortunately for me, she doesn’t fight him on it. Instead, she spreads her supplies out on the examination table next to me. “I’m going to try to pull out all the pus,” she says. “This might hurt a little. Maybe a lot, actually.”

I turn my head away and clench my teeth as Sara gets started. She’s tender at first, just probing at the very edges of the wound. I wince and bite down, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.

Then I realize that she’s barely even begun.

The first pass over my infected skin makes me gasp out loud and drool with agony. Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve reached out and snagged Kolya’s hand. I didn’t even realize he was close enough to grab.

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