Page 59 of Savage Princess

The wayeverythingwith him has felt.

I can’t lose him like this.

I don’t bother getting dressed again when I step out of the shower. There’s one clean towel, and I dry off with it, wrapping it around myself as I walk back out to the bedroom and the one bed, where Levin is lying where I left him.

There’s not much room for me. But I crawl in next to him anyway, atop the covers like he is, still wrapped in the towel as I lay on my side and look at his face in the dim light coming in through the sliver of an opening in the curtains.

He’s breathing lightly. I run my hand over his face, feeling the scrape of stubble against my palm, and I will him to come back to life. To make it through this.

It’s not that I don’t think I could do it alone if I had to.

I don’t want to do anything without him.

Levin

Ihave no idea what’s real and what isn’t.

I remember the car. It’s the last thing I remember, Elena with a gun in her hands, the sound of the shot, her scrambling into the driver’s seat. I remember thinking dazedly that I had to be hallucinating. That even she, tough as she’s shown herself to be, couldn’t dothat.

But then she ran him over and started to drive—and the pain from how much her driving jostled me wasn’t something I could have imagined.

I’d been sure that I was going to die. The pain wasn’t the worst part, not really. I’ve felt plenty of pain in my life. It was the feeling of the blood leaking out of me, my life draining away bit by bit, and I thought of Lidiya as I slumped against the seat, the fabric of my shirt sticking to me as my blood soaked it. I thought of her, bleeding out in the bed in our home, of the scene I’d come back to all those years ago.

I’d failed her then. And now I was failing Elena.

She wanted to take me to a hospital, but I knew better. There’s no place at a hospital for a man like me, not one that doesn’t end with handcuffs and a Brazilian jail cell, and only the faintest hope of Viktor actually being able to do something about it. Maybe if I were extradited—but I know how these things go. There’s no good end for me if the law gets involved.

Thank fuck she listened.

I heard her voice as I slipped in and out of consciousness, telling me that I’d be alright. That I was going to make it. That she was going to take care of everything. Even now, hovering on the greyish edge of sleep or actual oblivion—I can’t tell which—I can’t believe she got me into a motel room. That she somehow made it that far.

I’m not sure it’s real.

The pain made me think it was real. The burn of alcohol in my wound, the stabbing of the needle as she stitched me up. The irony wasn’t lost on me, how I’d had to do the same to her on the beach after the plane crash, though she hadn’t come back to consciousness at all for that.

Every time I thought I was going to pass out, however, the pain pulled me right back.

I wanted to tell her that it was alright. That I knew she didn’t want to hurt me. That if I could wake up and do it myself, I would. But I couldn’t form the words. They made it to the tip of my tongue, but my lips wouldn’t move. I didn’t have the strength.

I have no idea how much time has passed.

First, there’s cold, and then the fever. When I feel the shaking, bone-deep chills, I know that my chances of making it out of this are much slimmer than before. I never know how long I’m out for. Sometimes, when I open my eyes, I think I see Lidiya there, her blonde hair falling in her face, her lips pressed against my forehead as she strokes my cheek and tells menot yet, I’m sorry, my love, but not yet.

I don’t understand what she means.

Other times, I know it’s Elena there, her dark hair tied up on her head, her face scrunched up as she tends to my wound and forces pills down my throat, and takes care of me in every way that she can. And in those moments, when I see her and crave her touch, when I want her to stay by my side and never leave, I feel the awful weight of my guilt for howmuchI want it.

It’s been so long since anyone cared for me. Since I didn’t feel a vast, endless loneliness that couldn’t be fixed, no matter how much alcohol or sex I threw down the yawning pit of it.

I tried to fight it, all this time that I’ve been with Elena. But now all my defenses are down, and all I feel is need. The ache is worse than the pain in my side, worse than the pain from the fever, worse than anything I could ever physically feel. I realize, with every moment that she stays by my side, with every touch, how very alone I’ve been for so long.

When I can speak, I try to tell her to take the money and go to Vasquez, to try to pay him off, to go back to Boston. I’m never entirely sure if I actually manage to speak through the pain and the fever or if it’s only in my head—but I think I hear her say no. That she won’t leave me. That she’s not going to let me die—that she’ll stay until I get better.

She should leave me. No matter how much I don’t want to die alone in a cheap Rio motel, she’s in more and more danger the longer she’s here. My job was to protect her—but I can’t even do that by convincing her to leave.

I think she sleeps next to me every night. She coaxes broth and soup and water down my throat when she can, and keeps giving me the pills that I hope to god are something I should actually take. And eventually, I feel the fever start to lessen.

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