Chapter 37
Mary
He’s not dead. He can’t be.
That’s the first thought, stupid and loud, as I press my palms into the hole in his chest like I can argue with the blood.
Sirens scream somewhere far beyond the freight yard fence, muffled by the static roar inside my skull. A different sound cuts through closer—engines braking hard, tires grinding over gravel, the glare of headlights flooding between the stacked containers.
White light flashes across the scene, harsh and blinding. It catches on my shaking hands, on Anton’s face gone too still, on the dark smear spreading under him.
I’m kneeling in gravel. My knees are raw. I can’t feel them. His weight’s slumped across my legs; dead weight that shouldn’t be real. My fingers slide through his hair, searching for any sign of warmth, any proof he’s still here.
He’s heavy. So goddamn heavy.
Someone’s shouting coordinates. Metal scrapes. The smell of oil and smoke burns my throat. Men move like machines—guns, gloves, shouts. Everything too loud and too far away at the same time.
Someone’s calling my name. Distant, like through water. I can’t tell who it is—Dima, one of his men, maybe both—but it doesn’t matter. I can’t look away from Anton.
His eyelashes don’t even flicker. His skin’s gone pale under the blood. There’s a pulse at his throat, faint and stuttering, and I focus on it like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
“Anton.” My voice cracks. I try again, softer. “Anton, please.”
Nothing. Just a wet breath, shallow and slow.
I can’t stop whispering his name. It’s like my brain’s forgotten every other word. Just Anton. Over and over. Like maybe the repetition will tether him here.
One of Dima’s men reaches for him, and I jerk back hard enough to make my vision blur.
“Don’t touch him!” My voice sounds raw, unrecognizable. “Don’t—” Hands grab at me, trying to pull me away. I dig my nails into the asphalt, into his shirt, into anything I can. “He’s not… He can’t—”
Then Dima’s in front of me. Calm, steady, the only unmoving thing in this chaos. His hands land on my shoulders, firm. “Mary.”
I shake my head. “No. No, he needs me—”
“He’s breathing,” Dima says. “Let us work.”
The sound of it breaks something open in me. I let go. My hands drop uselessly to my sides. They lift Anton and load him onto a stretcher. I can’t stand. I just watch his blood trail through the dust, red soaking into black.
Somewhere past the fence, real sirens wail—closer now. Dima’s men move faster, clearing shell casings, shouting in Russian. Headlights cut through the smoke as their SUVs roar to life.
When they carry him toward one of them, the distant police lights strobe against the containers—red, blue, red—and for a second everything slows. His hand slips off the side of the stretcher. Falls limp.
The sight punches the air out of me.
That’s when I notice my hands. Still red. Still trembling. Blood drying in the lines of my palms. My nails look black. Gunpowder.
And then I feel it—warm, wet, different.
Lower.
I blink down at my lap, confusion moving slowly through the fog. There’s another stain there. Darker. Spreading.
No.
No, that’s not right.
My brain tries to make sense of it. Maybe it’s his blood, maybe—
But then the pain hits. A deep, twisting ache that starts low and turns sharp, like someone’s pulling something out of me.
I press my palm to it, and my fingers come away smeared red.
No. No, no.
I whisper the word before I even realize it’s out loud. “No…”
The air goes thin. I try to breathe, but it’s like sucking in static.
I look toward the SUV—Dima shouting orders, men loading Anton inside—but it’s getting harder to focus. The ground shifts.
I think of Grandma’s kitchen. Her humming while she cooked. The sound of her voice calling me.
I think of the apartment—the stupid cactus on my windowsill, the one I haven’t watered in a week.
And Anton—God, Anton—bleeding out in the back of that SUV.
I should be running to him. I should be screaming at them not to leave me. But my body won’t move. Everything inside me feels like it’s sliding apart.
Someone’s shouting my name. Dima maybe. The world narrows to lights and sound and pain.
I try to sit up, but the pain catches again, sharp enough to blind me. The gravel digs into my palms. My stomach turns.
It can’t be happening. It can’t—
I press my hand harder against myself, but it doesn’t stop. The blood keeps coming, warm against my skin.
A flash of memory hits. Anton’s voice earlier, steady and low: Stay behind me.
I didn’t.
“Mary!” Dima’s voice this time, closer.
I blink up at him, half sitting. The edges of his face blur in the siren light. I want to say something—anything—but my tongue feels heavy.
The sky spins. My ears fill with white noise.
I taste metal.
“I’m… I…” don’t know what’s happening… I breathe, though I don’t know if it’s a word or a thought anymore.
Dima catches me as I fall. His arm hooks around my shoulders before my head hits the ground. I can hear him shouting something, but it’s fading fast.
My last clear image is the SUV door slamming shut, the taillights cutting through the dark.
He’s gone.
And I’m still here, bleeding, shaking, holding on to nothing.
The sirens fade, replaced by the hum of wind over metal.
It’s almost quiet now. Almost peaceful.
For half a second, I let myself believe he’s still breathing. That this isn’t the end. That maybe when I open my eyes again, he’ll be there—alive, furious, whole.
But the darkness doesn’t care about belief. It just keeps coming.
And I fall into it.
Pain wakes me before sound does.
It starts low, in my stomach—a deep, twisting burn—and climbs until it feels like my insides are being ripped apart. I try to move, but my body won’t listen.
Then the noise hits. Muffled. Fragmented. Boots on concrete. Russian curses thrown like gunfire.
Something heavy slams. A door. An engine roars and cuts.
“Keep pressure! She’s losing too much!” a voice shouts.
Another voice answers, sharper, older. “Anton Malikov—critical. Move faster!”
Anton.
The name drags me back like a hook through skin. My heart claws against my ribs. I try to open my eyes, to find him, but everything’s dark.
I smell antiseptic. Metal. Burned rubber. The world feels like it’s spinning, like I’m underwater and gravity forgot me.
Cold air hits my skin. Then fingers—fast, impersonal—cutting fabric, pushing, pressing. Someone’s trying to keep pressure on my side; another’s shouting for more gauze.
“Pulse weak,” the man says, voice close and clipped. “She’s losing too much. Get her to Doc now.”
“She’s crashing,” another answers. “Heart rate’s erratic; something’s off.”
The first voice swears under his breath. “Then move. Malikov’s critical.”
I try to speak, to ask if he’s alive, but my mouth won’t work.
“Keep her awake!” someone shouts. A hand slaps my cheek. “You hear me? Stay with us, sestra.”
I try. God, I try. But my body’s slipping out from under me. My heartbeat stutters, and everything whirls.
The pain shifts, lower this time, deep and hot. My breath catches, and I flinch, but no sound comes out.
“Pressure’s dropping again!” “She’s hemorrhaging. Get Doc ready!”
I think I hear Dima’s voice, somewhere in the chaos. “She better not die on me, you hear?”
The cold creeps deeper.
Someone’s hand squeezes mine, rough and quick. “She’s still with us.”
Anton’s name drags through my thoughts, heavy and desperate.
Then the world fades again—engines roaring, voices blurring, all of it swallowed by the dark.