Chapter 22 #2
Mikhail’s mouth pulls into the faintest, knowing smile. “You’re here, aren’t you? He hates needing people. But he doesn’t push you away.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I look down, and after a beat he stands, pats his brother’s good shoulder gently, and gives me a small nod—almost respectful, almost grateful—before murmuring, “Call me if he gets worse,” and slipping quietly out the door, leaving the room warmer and smaller and so much more intimate than before.
Artyom is still asleep, his breathing deep and steady, his face slack with exhaustion.
I stay beside him, watching the rise and fall of his chest, tracing the lines of tension still etched into his brow, the faint twitch of his jaw every time he exhales, as if even sleep isn’t strong enough to smooth out the knots life has tied inside him.
I just sit there on the small couch near the bed, my knees pulled up, my head resting lightly against the cushion, listening to the soft hum of the air conditioner and the heavy, steady sound of his breathing, and before long the exhaustion that’s been pounding at the back of my skull starts pulling me under.
My eyes drift closed, just for a second, just long enough for the room to blur—
Then he jolts upright with a violent, ragged inhale.
My heart jumps, my body snapping awake instantly, the blanket slipping off my lap as I scramble out of the couch and rush to his side.
He’s sitting forward with his hands gripping the sheets so tightly his knuckles have gone white, chest rising in sharp, painful heaves.
His eyes are unfocused, wide, like he’s still trapped somewhere he can’t escape from.
“Artyom,” I whisper, touching his arm gently. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re here.”
He drags a hand over his face, shaking, his breath catching like he’s swallowed broken glass, and it takes him a moment before his eyes finally find mine. There’s panic there, but also something deeper I’ve never seen before in his eyes.
I move without thinking and sit on the edge of the bed, reaching for his hand with slow, careful movements, the way you approach an injured animal you don’t want to startle. He doesn’t resist. His fingers curl around mine immediately, tight and desperate.
“She was calling me,” he whispers, his voice rough and cracked open. “I heard her… I heard her calling me again. My… my mom.”
I shift closer, gently pushing his hair back from his forehead. “It was a dream. Just a dream.”
“No,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “It wasn’t. It’s the same since I was a fifteen. I always see her… right before it happens.”
My breath stills.
“Tell me,” I whisper, because he needs to say it, because this isn’t a wound he can keep stitched shut forever.
He exhales shakily, his voice small in a way I’ve never heard.
“My father was at war with another powerful family in the city.” He pauses, staring somewhere over my shoulder, like the room has dissolved and he’s watching something behind it. “They came to kill him.”
His fingers tighten around mine, rough and shaking.
“They came at night. Three of them. I remember the sound before anything else—the door hitting the wall, my father yelling my name, my mother grabbing my arm so hard her nails dug in. She… she put herself in front of me.”
His throat works once, a painful swallow.
“She kept pushing me back, even when they were shouting at my father, and one of them cocked the gun. I was fifteen, Kira. Fifteen. Old enough to understand what was happening, too young to do a damn thing about it.”
His jaw tightens, a tremor running through it.
“She kept saying my name, telling me to stay behind her. I tried to pull her back, I swear I did, but she shoved me behind her and stood there like she could take the whole fucking world on her own.”
He blinks hard, his breath shaking.
“And one of them just… lifted his arm and shot. No warning. Just—” He stops, breath catching.
I slide my hand to his cheek, my thumb brushing his skin and he leans into it like he can’t help himself.
“She went down so fast,” he whispers. “I thought she slipped. I thought she’d stand up. I dropped to my knees and she—” His voice thins, raw. “She looked at me like she was sorry. Like she had failed. She tried to speak and all this blood—”
He squeezes his eyes shut.
“She apologized for not protecting me, while she was dying.” His breath breaks on the last word.
I wrap my arms around him immediately, because there’s nothing else to do, and he lets me pull him in, his forehead dropping against my shoulder, his breath warm against my skin, his whole body trembling with something he’s held on to for too many years.
His shoulders shake once, a subtle tremor that somehow hurts more than if he were sobbing openly. I slide my arms around him, pulling him into me, and he comes without resistance, lowering his head to my shoulder like he’s forgotten how to carry the weight of this alone.
He wraps one arm around my waist, carefully, pulling me close enough that our chests press together, and I can feel his breath on my collarbone, warm and uneven, can feel the tension in his body slowly unwinding under my hands.
“You were just a kid,” I whisper into his hair, my fingers tracing soothing lines down the back of his neck. “You couldn’t have saved her.”
He doesn’t respond, he just holds me tighter.
I shift slightly, just enough to press my forehead to his, my hands sliding to his jaw, lifting his face toward mine so he can see the truth I can’t put into words. His eyes are red around the edges, tired.
And in that fragile little moment—just him and me, breathing the same uneven breaths—I feel something shift between us so clearly it’s almost physical.
I lean in and he meets me halfway.
The kiss is soft, tender in a way that contradicts everything about him, his lips brushing mine like he’s terrified of breaking something important. His fingers curl in the back of my shirt, holding me close as if the contact itself is keeping him grounded.
I kiss him back with the same gentleness, because now it isn’t about fire or hunger. It’s about trying to heal something in him that’s been bleeding for years. It’s about the fact that he needs me, and the terrifying truth that I want to be here.
When we finally pull away, he rests his forehead against mine again, his eyes closed, our breaths mingling softly in the stillness of the room.
“Stay,” he whispers, barely audible and almost afraid.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reply, and I mean it more than I’ve meant anything.
I lie down beside him carefully, tucking myself against his uninjured side, his arm coming around me instinctively, pulling me into the warmth of his chest. His breathing slows little by little, his hand resting at my waist like he needs the reassurance of my presence to fall asleep again.
And as I lie there in the dark, listening to his heartbeat steady under my palm, I realize with sudden clarity just how deeply everything has changed—how the fear I felt for him on the street, the worry, the instinct to protect him, didn’t come from obligation or survival or the fake engagement we’re wrapped in.
It came from something else. Because the truth is, I care about him. And lying here in his arms, feeling his breath warm against my cheek, I know that whatever this is, it’s already far too late to stop it.