Chapter 42 Bastian
BASTIAN
break·down: /?brāk?doun/: verb
I hold Eliana against my chest. She’s shaking for half a dozen reasons, and I’m responsible for damn near every one of them: the orgasms, the crying, the violence.
Everything I just put her through. My anger drains away like water through a sieve, leaving nothing behind except bone-deep exhaustion and the realization of what I’ve done.
I spanked her. Fucked her with my fingers while her ass was still burning from the spatula. Made her repeat my promises until I was convinced she believed them.
And she let me.
She let me.
Fuck.
“Come on,” I murmur against her hair. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I scoop her up and stand with her in my arms. She doesn’t protest, just curls against me like she’s trying to burrow inside my ribcage. The shower is just down the hall. I manage to turn the water on one-handed, keeping her tucked close.
Steam fills the tiny bathroom. I set her down gently on the closed toilet lid and peel off my ruined shirt. The blood—his, not mine—has dried into stiff patches across the fabric. I drop it on the floor and kick it into the corner where I don’t have to look at it.
When I kneel in front of her to remove her shoes, she finally speaks. “I can do it myself.”
“I know.” I unlace her sneakers anyway, sliding them off along with her socks. “But let me.”
To my surprise, she doesn’t argue. Only watches me with those wide hazel eyes while I strip away the last of her clothes—her sweatshirt, her sports bra. The bandages on her palms are coming loose, edges curling and damp with sweat. I peel them off carefully and examine the scrapes underneath.
They’re healing. They’ll scar, maybe, but they’ll heal.
Unlike some things.
I shed my jeans and boxer briefs, then help her to her feet and guide her into the shower. The water hits us both, hot enough to sting. Eliana tilts her face up into the spray and closes her eyes. Red marks bloom across her ass where the spatula landed.
I did that. Marked her. Claimed her.
Mine.
I grab her strawberry shampoo from the shelf and squeeze some into my palm. “Turn around.”
She obeys without question, and that trust, that absolute, unthinking fucking trust, makes me cringe. I work the shampoo through her copper curls, massaging her scalp with my fingertips. She makes a small sound of contentment and leans back against me.
I rinse the shampoo from her hair, watching the suds swirl down the drain. My hands move on autopilot. Conditioner next, working it through the ends of her curls. She sways, exhausted, and I steady her with a hand on her hip.
“Sit down,” I say. “Before you fall down.”
We sink to the shower floor together. The water beats down on us from above. Steam blurs the hard outlines of things, turning the world melted and hazy. I pull her back against my chest. She fits there perfectly, like she was made for this exact spot.
Her breathing is already slowing, evening out. The adrenaline crash is hitting her hard.
“Bastian?” I can barely hear her over the spray.
“Mm?”
“What happens now?”
I don’t have an answer. Not one that won’t scare the living fuck out of us both. So instead, I press my lips to her temple and start to sing.
It’s an old Russian lullaby. Spi, mladenets moy prekrasny.
Sleep, my beautiful baby. Mama used to sing it to me when I was small, back before the vodka and the drugs and the merciless men ruined her voice.
Aleksei sang it to me later, after she stopped.
When I was scared or sick or just needed someone to remind me I wasn’t completely alone in the world, he’d sing.
And then I sang it to Sage. Every night for the first few years after Mama died and he came to live with me, when he’d wake up screaming from nightmares he was too young to understand, I’d rock him in my arms and sing until his sobs quieted and his tiny fists unclenched.
The words come back easier than I expect. My voice is awful, but Eliana relaxes against me anyway. Her head lolls against my shoulder.
Bayushki-bayu. Bayushki-bayu.
Hush now. Hush now.
I don’t know all the verses anymore. Some of them are lost to time and trauma, and others to sixteen years of deliberate attempts to forget. But I know enough. The melody, at least. The rhythm that says, You’re safe, you’re loved, you’re not alone.
Her breathing deepens. Her body goes heavy and pliant in my arms.
She’s asleep.
I keep singing anyway, even after the water starts to run cold. Because maybe I’m not singing for her. Not just for her, at least.
I’m also singing for the twelve-year-old boy who watched his brother choose darkness so he wouldn’t have to. For the young man who held an abandoned newborn and promised to keep him safe, then failed spectacularly. For every version of myself that’s ever been too scared to let someone in.
Bayushki-bayu.
Hush now.
I press my face into Eliana’s wet hair and let my voice fall quiet.
Eventually, long after the song ends, I reach up to turn off the water. Eliana stirs when I shift her weight, mumbling something incoherent, but she doesn’t fully wake. I dry her off with one of her threadbare towels and carry her to the bed.
She’s dead weight in my arms. I pull back the covers and lay her down as gently as I can manage. Her hair fans out across the pillow, still damp, curling at the ends.
I pull the covers up to her chin and step back, intending to grab my ruined clothes and leave her to sleep in peace.
I make it two steps before her hand shoots out and catches my wrist. “Don’t go,” she mumbles, eyes still closed. “Please.”
I freeze. Every instinct screams at me to pull away. I need to put distance between us before this shit gets any more complicated than it already is.
“I’m just—” I start.
“Stay.” Her eyes crack open, hazel and unfocused. “Just until I’m asleep.”
I can’t say no to her. Not when she’s looking at me like that. So I climb into bed beside her, and she immediately huddles against my chest. Her leg hooks over mine. Her arm wraps around my waist. Within seconds, her breathing evens out again.
I lie there rigid as a board, staring at the water-stained ceiling of her studio apartment, holding a woman I have no business touching while she sleeps like I’m the safest place in the world.
Bayushki-bayu, I think grimly. Hush now.
I wait another ten minutes, counting her breaths until I’m sure she’s deep under. Then I carefully extract myself from her grip. She makes a small whimper of protest when I shift away, but I tuck the blanket around her shoulders and step back and eventually, she settles back down.
When I emerge into the kitchen, the knife I left on the coffee table catches the moonlight filtering through the tiny slivers in the blinds. I grab it.
The deadbolt and chain slide open with barely a whisper. I wedge the chair back under the doorknob from the outside. It won’t keep anyone out for long, but it’ll slow them down and sound the alarm. Give her time to scream, time for neighbors to call 911.
I take the stairs down two at a time, knife tucked against my thigh.
Aleksei wants to play games? Fine.
Let’s play.