Page 126 of Midnight Sanctuary

“Anjelika!” Grigory’s voice slices through out of nowhere, more forceful than I’ve ever heard it before. “You can go out back. The boss wants to see you.” The nurse shoots me one more scowl before ducking out of the room.

Then the door closes and Grigory turns to me. “Sorry about that. She shouldn’t have been so rough with you.”

“Dr. Grigory,” I plead, still trying to play nice. “Please. I’m begging you. If you take my babies out now, they’ll die.”

He sighs. “We’ve been over this, Alyssa. There’s nothing I can do. If I defy Boris, he’ll kill me; he’ll kill my wife and my kids. I have nothing against you. I don’t want to see you suffer. But if it comes down to my family or yours… I’m choosing mine.”

I brace myself as another contraction rips through my body. I can swear I hear bones cracking, organs defeating. By the time it’s done with me, I have fresh tears in my eyes.

Maybe it’s the pain that makes things clear but suddenly, I’m starting to figure everything out. It’s like all the bullshit fades away in the face of the pain and only the true things are left behind. “You’re the one who helped Boris escape,” I whisper, sweating and shivering. “The day he escaped…youwere at the house giving me an exam.”

He doesn’t bother denying it. “Your contractions are getting closer together.”

I ignore him.Tell me something I don’t know, asshole.“And at the hospital, you’re the one that told Uri that my babies weren’t his.”

“I really didn’t think that would work. I overestimated how much your man trusts you.”

Another contraction hits me like a runaway train. I clamp down because I won’t give these monsters the satisfaction of hearing my screams, though I think I fuck up my jaw with how hard it is to keep them swallowed down.

“Don’t talk to me about trust,” I pant when the wave subsides. “You’re an idiot to trust that Boris is going to keep his word and leave you and your family unharmed. The moment he’s got me out of the way, he’s going to kill you, too.”

Grigory shrugs. “I’m useful to him. As long as I continue to be useful to him, he’ll keep me alive.”

“You really want to live your entire life with that noose around your neck?” He moves wordlessly to my feet and starts undoing my restraints. “What are you doing?”

He starts to transfer my legs into stirrups. I summon as much strength as I can muster and kick him in the chest. The first blow takes him by surprise and he stumbles backward, but I don’t have time to get in a second before he seizes my ankle hard with both hands and slams it down into the stirrup.

“You’re only making this worse for yourself,” he growls, repeating the same process with my other leg.

“What does it even matter?” I cry out. “He’s going to kill me and my babies anyway. If I’m gonna go down, I might as well go down fighting.”

Those words sound a lot more badass than they feel. As my legs are locked down with tight cuffs, I feel my spirit die a little inside. My babies aren’t even born yet and already, I’m failing at motherhood.

Grigory adjusts the stirrups out to each side and my legs part against my will. “I’m going to check for dilation. This might hurt a little.”

“No. Stop.Stop.”

He doesn’t stop. He pulls on a glove and inserts his hand between my legs. I wince against the sharp pain as another contraction starts up. They’re coming fast now. Too fast. Too fucking fast.

“You’re at eight centimeters. It’s almost time to start pushing.”

Pushing?

“Y-you’re not cutting me open?”

His eyes meet mine over my swollen stomach. “If we cut you open, we risk losing you on the table. Boris wants you alive for… after.”

I’m not sure why but I’m relieved. Probably because the thought of this group of people cutting me open feels a little bit like being a piece of meat at a butcher’s shop. At least I’ll have the small dignity of delivering my babies myself.

The butchery will come afterward.

“I’m going to give you an epidural for the pain.”

“No!”

He pauses. “No?”

“If I’m going to be forced to have my babies now, I want to remember every single detail. I want tofeelit. Every single thing.”

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