39. Chapter 39
Chapter thirty-nine
JUDE GRAVES
I wake up choking on a scream. My body jerks violently off the sleeper sofa before my brain catches up, panic ripping through me so hard that for one disoriented second, I genuinely think I’m back there again.
Back in the basement. Back with Alexei’s voice demanding my inner monster obey while Emma claws at my wrists beneath my hands.
“Подчиняться.”
The command echoes through my head like a gunshot. Emma’s terrified face flashes behind my eyes, while my fingers tighten around her throat because of two fucking words that were drilled into my goddamn head over and over and over again.
I suck in a brutal breath and nearly stumble into the hospital bed beside me, my entire body drenched in sweat while the room slowly comes back into focus piece by piece. Okay…Emma is still here, breathing, and the monitor is still beeping.
I brace one hand against the edge of her mattress, lowering my head while my pulse pounds wildly.
The room is dim except for the faint blue glow of monitors and the pale gray light bleeding in through the windows overlooking Moscow.
Snow drifts steadily outside, coating the city in soft white.
It almost melted, but it started up again last night during a new winter storm.
Five days.
It’s been five fucking days since Emma stopped breathing on an operating table. Since Adriana died. Since I killed Alexei.
I stare at my girl for a long moment, trying to ground myself in the steady rise and fall of her chest beneath the blankets. The ventilator is gone now, thank fuck, but there are still enough machines surrounding her to remind me how close I came to losing her forever.
My breathing slowly evens out as I drag a hand over my face.
The bandages wrapped around my knuckles are annoying, but the nurses keep applying ointment and wrapping them.
I’ve barely slept. And when I have been blessed with a few hours of rest, the nightmares always fucking rip me awake.
I wonder how long that’s going to happen.
Sometimes I still hear Alexei’s voice when the room gets too quiet.
Or feel Emma’s pulse fluttering frantically beneath my hands before I snapped out of it in the basement.
That one destroys me every fucking time I think about it.
I choked the hell out of her twice. The first time, I truly almost killed her.
I barely remember it, but I can see fragments of it here and there.
I sink slowly onto the chair beside her bed and reach for her hand. “You moved your fingers yesterday,” I murmur quietly, my voice rough from sleep deprivation. “The doctor said that’s good.”
No response.
The silence in here has become its own kind of torture. Days measured by medication schedules, nurses changing IV bags, and the occasional twitch of her fingers whenever I hold her hand long enough.
I glance toward the small table near the couch, where untouched food containers are stacked beside bottled water and paperwork Levi keeps bringing in. Legal documents, statements, timelines…questions I barely even remember answering, honestly.
I haven’t left this room much except to see Micah. And even then, guilt follows me down every hallway. The hospital staff recognizes me now. Some of them stare after realizing who I am from the articles online. Others avoid eye contact entirely. A few look at me with pity.
I still don’t have social media back on my phone. I don’t think I can deal with seeing what the world is saying yet. Instead, my world has shrunk down to this room.
This girl.
A quiet vibration pulls my attention toward the chair where Emma’s phone rests, charging beside mine. I reach for it, mostly out of habit now. Her mother texted earlier asking for another update, and my chest still aches every time I have to answer questions I don’t fully know myself.
She misses her daughter, and I almost got her killed. Fuck…I almost killed her.
I unlock the screen carefully before opening the messages again, but my thumb pauses when I notice the small Instagram icon.
I don’t even know why I open the app. Maybe because five days trapped in a hospital room leaves too much time for memories.
Maybe because I’m terrified there are parts of Emma I’ll never get back after this.
I want to hear her voice in her videos and see her smiling with Heather and snuggling with Nova on her couch.
But when I open it…I realize that it’s not her main account.
My brows pull together as I look at this private one without a profile picture, posts, or follows. Well, except one.
Me.
A hollow sound leaves my throat.
Jesus Christ.
For years, I thought she hated me. Thought blocking her was mercy because seeing her move on would have fucking destroyed me.
Meanwhile, she was still here in ways I never saw, standing just outside the wreckage of my life, watching from a distance where I couldn’t hurt her.
Or maybe where she couldn’t stop loving me.
My vision blurs suddenly. I bow my head over our joined hands before the tears can fall onto the blanket between us, exhausted grief pouring out of me all over again.
They come quietly this time instead of my big emotional breakdowns a few days ago.
Just silent tears slipping down my face while dawn slowly brightens the room.
“I’m so tired, Em,” I whisper shakily. “I don’t know how to do this without you.”
The confession hangs there between us. My thumb brushes weakly across her knuckles as another memory surfaces from two nights ago.
Rafe was with me for a while as Emma slept. The room had been dark except for the city lights outside, and he’d in the chair beside mine with his arm strapped and stitched beneath a black shirt. For a while, neither of us said anything. We just listened to the monitors.
Then, eventually, he looked at me and said, “You know this doesn’t end when you leave here, right?”
I remember staring at him and being too exhausted to even respond after sobbing earlier.
“You need help, Jude.”
I swallowed hard, staring down at Emma’s sleeping face. “I almost killed her.”
Rafe had been quiet for a long moment after that. Then his hand settled heavily against my shoulder. “And you stopped.”
“I don’t give a shit, man,” I said.
He had just sighed and looked at me. “When you get out of all of this, please go to therapy. Don’t let this shit kill you. Trust me, Adela saved my damn life when she made me go.”
I close my eyes now, remembering that. His words should comfort me. Instead, fear settles more in my chest with every passing day. Logically, I get that therapy could help me. But I wish I could just force everything into a dark corner of my mind and lock it the fuck up. I’m scared.
Because what if she wakes up and remembers all of it? What if she sees me differently now? What if, when Emma finally opens her eyes again, she looks at me and sees exactly what Alexei turned me into?
***
I must have fallen asleep at some point.
My body is half folded into the chair beside Emma’s bed, my head tilted forward where it rests against the mattress near her motionless hand.
My fingers are spread across her thighs over the blanket, enjoying the warmth of her body.
My neck aches from the angle, and there’s a dull, constant throb in my knuckles beneath the bandages.
I sigh, exhaustion pulling under again, but then I freeze when I feel movement. Fingers. Threading slowly into my hair.
This is a dream. It has to be. It has to be my brain finally breaking after five days of waiting for something it couldn’t guarantee would ever come.
“Jude.”
My eyes snap open, my gaze immediately finding those beautiful, honey brown eyes. Watching me.
Her hand drops from my hair and brushes the stubble on my jaw. My heart is beating out of my chest.
She’s awake. She’s alive. She came back to me.
Her eyes track me slowly, still unfocused.
“Hey,” I manage, and my voice breaks on the word.
God. It hurts. It actually hurts to see her like this.
I swallow hard, forcing air into my lungs. But I don’t move. I can’t stop zeroing in on the feeling of her fingers weakly rubbing my cheek. Plus, I don’t want to startle her by moving too fast. “Don’t move too much, okay? You’re in the hospital.”
Her gaze flickers slightly, as if that information takes effort to process. Her brow furrows in confusion, and only then does she seem to feel the pain. A small, sharp inhale escapes her, and her hand flinches against my jaw.
I finally sit up and lean closer. “Easy,” I murmur softly. “You’ve got injuries near your ribs. But you’re okay. You’re safe.”
Her eyes search mine again, and I can see it now more clearly. She’s piecing together broken memories, remembering just how we came to be here.
I press my forehead back to the edge of her mattress, trying to steady the shaking in my hands. I feel like I can barely keep myself upright. “You’re awake,” I breathe. “Ugh, thank god.”
Her lips part, but nothing comes out yet. She tries again, and this time it’s barely a sound. “You…you’re here.”
I let out a sound that’s like a laugh and a broken exhale as my thumb strokes lightly over her knuckles. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I’m here. I’m always right here, baby.”
Her fingers tangle in my hair once more, a smile forming on her lips when I reference the lyrics to our song.
I swallow again, forcing my voice to stay steady for her. But it doesn’t, because tears are rolling down my cheeks. “We did it, Em. We escaped.”
An exhausted sound leaves her, like it was supposed to be a short laugh.
“And Micah’s okay,” I add quickly, because I know her. I know that’s the first thing she would ask if she could remember everything. “He made it. Heather is with him.”
Her smile grows as her fingernails scratch soothingly on my scalp.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” I admit quietly. “I thought I was gonna have to…” I can’t finish the sentence. Bury her.