41 #3
I inhale deep, fill my lungs with air, morning air, freedom air. In the living room, Nat’s still alive, snoring on the couch. I squeeze Vega’s hand, cheesy and tender, because otherwise we’ll lose our shit.
"Yeah. It’s done, sis."
Vega doesn’t talk; she presses her forehead to mine, and that’s it. We’ve known each other since the womb; with that gesture we give each other a silent okay. For a second we’re eleven again and we believe touching foreheads transfers powers.
"I don’t feel sorry, okay... For them, I mean. They deserved it; they’ve paid; they’re not going to hurt anyone again. I’m worried you’ll carry it, that it’ll weigh on you and keep you up at night."
"Relax, I don’t regret it. And I’m not gonna play the victim. No laments, no whining, no drama. Not even in my best fever dreams did I think we’d actually kill them, that we’d go that far, that we could pull off something like this."
We stick together, bodies warm and heads calmer. Outside the forest makes noise—birds, wind, rain. Inside, we wake up too, but with darker circles, more marks, and a fear of the existential hangover, of whatever’s coming, of consequences.
"If the cops ask us... maybe they interrogate us, maybe we end up on some trashy afternoon talk show or on a tabloid front page looking like psychos with a screaming headline."
"I don’t give a fuck, Vega. These women will fix it for sure. They’re the bosses, they pull strings, they’ve got connections. Let’s trust them."
She looks at me sideways and that little smile that smells like 2012 shows up, from before tragedy crashed down on us.
"By the way, the ‘I’m Alaska Popova’ was smooth as hell, Lasky."
I start laughing; I don’t want to wake Nat, she’s dragging enough as it is.
My brain takes off for a second: I see myself as the boss of a secret crew with an invisible cape, leopard boots, a blue check, an army of weird girls coordinated on Telegram, and a sticker pack of our faces kicking off a revolution in Stories.
Then I come back, forehead to Vega’s, hands sticky with a story that wouldn’t fit in an ethics paper, not even in tiny type.
"Turns out Irina didn’t even get pissed about the Nat thing."
"It’s just that today everything went to shit—like, Tarantino-sized," I say. "After what we lived through, that’s just a subplot, a tiny detail, a throwaway anecdote."
She nods, and we go quiet; sometimes silence is the only thing that doesn’t pick a fight. Vega’s eyes close in two blinks, and I leave my hand on her belly, tracing slow circles, and it lowers my pulse more than hers and slows my racing brain.
"Was this part of the master plan too?" I whisper in her ear.
"This had nothing to do with it. Pure improv," she answers, half asleep, half in Narnia, half on airplane mode.
I look at her and an "aw, how cute" slips out, and I’m not the melting type. I tuck the rogue strand behind her ear, because if I don’t, I get anxious.
I hear Nat roll over on the living room couch, a tiny creak, and my paranoid brain opens a case file and tells me there are cameras, satellites, and a drone in the lamp, but nope—it’s just the wood doing its little routine.
A dim light slips in through the window, the kind that makes you talk softly without anyone asking.
I close my eyes with my hand near the thing that might be a long story someday or might not.
And today I let myself believe everything smells good, clean, calm, even if it’s a useful lie I’m telling myself so I can breathe without making weird noises.
The tension drains from Vega’s face. I fix the strand again, relentless, and plant a kiss on her forehead, tender, no speeches, no songs.
As soon as I make sure she’s asleep, I slip down the hallway without a sound, and in my head I open a portal and cross it in a second, but my feet do their little walk and the wood complains at every step.
Nat isn’t very asleep. She’s got radar for storms, gossip, and my clumsy footsteps.
She clocks me coming in with one eye open, lifts an eyebrow, and gives me her signature little “come here” gesture.
May has the place warm, and Nat’s only got a sheet up to her waist—an improvised set piece that would rack up likes all by itself.
I throw myself on top with full faith—head on her collarbone, arm at her waist, legs fitted together on this ridiculous couch that’s had our skeletons in back-alley-circus mode for weeks and now works as a shabby, perfect little trench.
I take the chance and grab her T-shirt by the hem, a little tug from the excitement and because I’m convinced I’m directing tonight’s episode—the thick-rimmed-glasses showrunner declaring we’re premiering right here.
“Off,” I whisper in her ear, low and bossy.
She doesn’t play coy, just peels it off and tosses it to the floor, and it makes me laugh because she’s got style even for that.
I plant my cheek on her chest; she smells like wet pavement and that trace of gunpowder not even today’s downpour washed away.
She strokes my back slowly. I close my eyes.
The kisses come easy. Tonight isn’t about fireworks or music-video heat; tonight is real tenderness, full attention, care.
The sheet slides off and we don’t even look for it—no shame.
I hear her breathe and a dumb little laugh bubbles up inside me: for the first time in ages, my heart isn’t putting on a circus.
My inner drama queen flares, but what slips out is half a laugh, with that shaky confidence I get when everything’s going right and I don’t entirely believe it.
“Do you still love me, or are you about to pull a Jon Snow on Daenerys?” I ask, bracing for her to tell me I’m being dumb, it’s fine, to relax.
Nat turns my face gently, brushes me with her knuckles—very tender-gesture checklist—and plants a kiss on my forehead with the care of someone who knows how to do things right when she feels like it. None of that cloying TV-movie sugar; affection with a well-organized mean streak.
“I love you on grimy Tuesdays and in the zombie apocalypse. And drop the bit—I don’t see you as a hero or a martyr.
I watched you stop someone who’s been hurting people forever, and it was about time.
I’m not giving you a hero speech. You’re not one.
Neither am I. We’re two wrecked women who did hard things today.
More will come tomorrow. You’re going to see me fail, burn breakfast, lose my patience; you’re going to be smart, clumsy, soft, and stone, all at once.
And even so, Alaska Popova… you’ve got me. You’re my fascination and my problem.”
“Does that include stealing your T-shirts at night?” I poke, because my brand is never knowing how to end an intense moment without tossing in a dumb joke to save me from crying.
“Especially if you steal them. That’s real love.”
“Confirmed by science.”
I think of Irina, the clearing, the rage, the shot, Nat. I daydream that Wes Anderson is directing our life and the shot comes out perfectly symmetrical with quirky music, but nope—we’ve got a wrinkled sheet and terrible hair.
“Irina’s known for a while,” I tell her. “She winked and called you Nat. If that’s not a green light...”
“We’re alive,” she says, serious and without irony. “And we’ve got a couch and your sister, who barely snores—have you noticed?”
I plant another quick kiss on her.
“I love you.”
“Same, your aim included, Popova.”
“I’ve had training, okay? I learned from the best.”
She goes quiet and I brace for an epic line, though I’m secretly wishing she’d say, “order sushi.”
“Make me a promise. If I need you, two taps and you come. If I spiral and get lost, you whistle. If something in you shakes, I steady it. If it’s me, you hold me through the meltdown. You pick the next safeword.”
“May,” I tell her, because it’s what we’ve got and I won’t forget it.
“Approved. May it is.” And she kisses my temple.
I curl in closer, pull up the sheet. Outside, the world grudgingly cranks into morning, and here we are, in our tiny, fifty-square-foot theme park.
I think about Mini Alaska, the one who thought protecting meant stepping in front and taking it.
Now I’m learning that protecting also means staying right here, pressed close, even when everything’s loud.
I loosen my grip, but I don’t let go. The sheet on top; the ceiling almost seems friendly.
I close my eyes. If anyone ever asks how our story ends, I want to answer like this: two decent breaths, zero epic, and a safeword that does more for us than any speech.
May. And the same stubborn, sweet idea as always: we’ve got each other.
For today, that gives me the best alternate ending.