31. Anya
ANYA
Cold.
That’s the first thing I know.
Not pain. Not fear. Not even my own name.
Cold.
It’s everywhere. In my mouth, my nose, my ears, my bones. It drags at me, heavy and dark, filling my lungs with panic before I understand I’m still alive enough to panic.
Water closes over my face. I try to breathe and swallow river instead.
My body convulses. My arms move weakly, uselessly, as if they belong to someone else. There’s light somewhere above me, gray and broken, but every time I reach for it, the water pulls me back down.
Something burns in my side.
No, not burns. Tears. A sharp, hot ripping pain beneath the cold.
Then there are hands on me. Someone grabs the back of my coat and hauls me upward. My face breaks the surface, and I choke on air so violently it feels like my chest is splitting. I cough, gagging, water spilling from my mouth as a man drags me toward the bank.
“Hold on,” he grunts. “Hold on, I’ve got you.”
I don’t know him. I don’t know where I am.
The sky is pale above us. The river wall is slick under his boots. He curses as he pulls me over the edge and onto wet concrete. My shoulder hits the ground first, then my hip, and pain explodes through me so brightly that the world goes white.
I scream. Or I think I do. The sound comes out broken.
The man rolls me onto my side, and more water pours from my mouth. I cough until my throat feels raw, until I can breathe in small, jagged pieces.
“Oh God,” he says. His voice changes.
I blink up at him. He’s middle-aged, maybe. Bearded. Wearing an old brown jacket. His face is wet, eyes wide with horror as he looks down at me.
Then I see why.
There’s blood on my coat. Too much. Dark, spreading from my side, turning black fabric darker. My hand moves there before I can stop it, and when my fingers touch the wound, pain rips through me again.
A memory flashes.
Dmitri’s voice.
Run, baby. Run.
My feet slipping on gravel.
A shout behind me.
The river ahead.
The crack of a gun.
I gasp. “No.”
The man pulls out his phone with shaking hands. “Stay still. I’m calling.”
My head turns weakly. “No. No, I have to?—”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I have to go.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” He presses the phone to his ear. “I need an ambulance. A woman’s been shot. She was in the water. Yes, shot. She’s breathing.”
Shot.
The word reaches me slowly.
I look down at myself again. The pain in my side has a center now. A place. A wound.
Dmitri shot me.
The memory comes in fragments, each one worse than the last.
I’m running. My scarf tears on the wire.
Someone shouts my name.
I turn for half a second because I hear anger and disbelief in Dmitri’s voice, as if even while chasing me, he can’t believe I’m still choosing to run from him.
“You don’t get to leave me twice,” he says.
Then the gun. The sound. The force hitting my body.
I fall backward.
Then the river takes me.
“Tell them about the warehouse,” I say.
“There’s no warehouse here,” the man says. “Jesus where did you come down from?”
No warehouse? Where am I? How far did I drift down from the place where I was shot? It’s a blessing and a curse, but probably the reason Dmitri couldn’t find me and finish the job.
“It’s a miracle you’re still alive,” the stranger tells me. “When I saw you like that, I thought you were…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He leans closer. “Miss, stay with me.”
“My husband,” I whisper.
“He’ll be called. Just stay awake.”
“No. He doesn’t know.”
My teeth begin to chatter. I can’t stop them. My whole body shakes against the concrete, half from cold, half from pain. The man takes off his jacket and spreads it over me, pressing one hand near my side.
I cry out.
“Sorry,” he says quickly. “I’m sorry. I have to stop the bleeding.”
The pressure makes the world blur.
I grip his wrist weakly. “My baby.”
He freezes. “What?”
My hand moves to my stomach.
Not my side. Lower. Protective.
Terrified.
“My baby,” I say, louder this time, though it tears my throat. “I’m pregnant.”
His face changes completely. “Okay,” he says, too fast. “Okay. I’ll tell them. Don’t move.”
“Is my baby okay?”
“I don’t know. The ambulance is coming.”
“Please.”
“I know. I know.”
He doesn’t know.
No one knows.
Panic rises so fast I almost choke on it. I try to sit up, but pain slams me back down.
“No, no, no,” he says, pushing me gently but firmly. “Stay down.”
“I need to know.”
“You need to stay alive.”
The words scare me enough to make me listen.
Stay alive.
For the baby.
For Yaromir.
I close my eyes, and the second I do, I see him. Standing in front of the fire. Carrying me upstairs. Looking at me over breakfast like he wants to say no to the whole world on my behalf. His hand at my stomach in bed sometimes, casual, possessive, not knowing what rests beneath it.
I was going to tell him. I was going to find the right moment, the right words, something that wouldn’t make him lock every door between me and the sky.
Now I might die before I say it.
“No,” I whisper.
The man’s hand presses harder to my wound. “Stay awake.”
“I am.”
“You’re closing your eyes.”
“They’re heavy.”
“Open them.”
I try. The sky swims.
Somewhere far away, sirens begin to wail. The sound moves closer, thin at first, then louder, bouncing off the the river. The man looks toward the road and raises one arm.
“Here!” he shouts. “Over here!”
Footsteps pound. Voices.
A woman kneels beside me in a bright jacket, her hands already moving. Someone cuts open my coat. Another person shines a light in my eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Anya,” I say.
“Anya, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been shot. We’re going to help you.”
“My baby,” I say immediately.
The paramedic pauses only for a fraction of a second. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“How far along?”
“I don’t know.”
“When was your last period?”
“I don’t know. Late. I just found out.” My voice breaks. “Please, my baby.”
“We’re going to take care of both of you.”
Both of you. The words almost undo me.
They lift me onto a stretcher. Pain tears through my side again, and I scream, grabbing at the nearest arm. Someone tells me to breathe. Someone else says my blood pressure is dropping. The words move around me too quickly.
“Anya,” the female paramedic says, close to my face. “Stay with me.”
“My husband,” I gasp.
“We’ll contact him.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
The ambulance starts moving.
Everything shakes.
The pain becomes a living thing. It claws up my side, pulls at my breath, makes the ceiling blur. A mask comes over my face. Oxygen rushes in cold and sharp.
I try to pull it away. “My baby.”
The paramedic stops my hand gently. “Leave it on.”
“My baby,” I repeat, because I don’t have any other words now.
“I know. We’re monitoring you.”
“Can you hear a heartbeat?”
“Not here. The hospital will check.”
The hospital. Too far.
Everything feels too far.
I turn my head, and through the small back window, I see the river disappearing behind us.
The siren screams above us. The paramedic keeps speaking, but her voice starts to drift.
The lights overhead stretch and blur. My body feels far away now, cold and heavy and wet, even under the blankets they pile over me.
“Anya, keep your eyes open.”
I try. I really do.
But darkness gathers at the edges.
The last thing I feel is my hand over my stomach.
The last thing I think is Yaromir’s name.
Then the ambulance siren fades into nothing.