Chapter 54 Eliana
ELIANA
the weeds /T?H? wēdz/: noun
In all the history of human civilization, no minutes have ever passed slower than these.
I’m curled up on the couch with my hand pressed to my belly. Baby Hale has been active tonight, full of endless little flutters and jabs. Normally, that would make me smile between winces. But tonight, those one-two combos feel like they’re synced to my anxiety.
Kick. Still no text.
Punch. Still no call.
Hook, cross, uppercut. Still nothing but this awful, terrible, suffocating silence.
But I don’t let myself show any sign of the internal turmoil.
Everyone else around me has apparently gotten the same memo.
We’re all pretending everything is ship-shape, nothing to be concerned about.
Just another day in the very normal life of this band of wily fugitives.
Zeke cleans the kitchen, Yasmin paints her nails, Mom knits, Sage hammers away at his keyboard.
Everyone is acting as this is just another evening. Everyone is failing miserably.
I poke my phone to wake it up again. The screen reader announces the time—9:51 P.M.—and confirms what I already knew: There are no new messages. My little heart emoji from two hours ago sits there like the sad, lonely little organ it is, unread and unanswered.
He’s fine. These things take time. Clandestine federal meetings don’t wrap up in twenty minutes.
I let my head fall back against the couch cushions and try my best to think of happier times.
There are so many to choose from, even in this latest, darkest chapter of our lives.
Morning walks through the neighborhood, Bastian describing every mundane detail—the color of a mailbox, sunlight caught in a sprinkler’s arc—as if he were narrating a love letter to the world.
To me. The nights spooning together in sheets that smelled like him, his hand always finding my belly in sleep, fingers spread wide like he was trying to hold everything together at once.
We’d been happy.
For the first time since this nightmare began, I’d let myself believe we might actually get that little house with the yard. The refrigerator covered in crayon drawings. The gloriously mundane future I want more than my next breath.
Then Baby kicks again and I remember that all of that is currently dangling by a thread.
Where are you, Bastian? As if answering my question, the doorbell rings.
My heart leapfrogs into my throat. Could it really be him? Back so soon? Is that a good sign or a bad one? Are we gonna make it or are we all—
No. Can’t think like that. Good thoughts only.
“I’ll get it,” Zeke barks as we all start to stir at once. “Everyone stay put.”
His footsteps thud toward the door. I hear the deadbolt and the hinges creak as he pulls it open.
Then Zeke’s sharp intake of breath.
A strangled “What the f—”
Something wet and heavy thuds against flesh.
Yasmin screams.
The sound of a body hitting the floor sends me springing to my feet. My fingers close around the familiar grip of my cane just as chaos erupts around me—Mom shouting, Sage’s wheelchair scraping against the floor, more footsteps pouring through the doorway, heavy boots on hardwood.
An unfamiliar voice fills the room. It’s smooth and cultured, adorned with the faintest trace of a Russian accent. “Please, everyone stay calm. I’m not here to hurt anyone who cooperates.”
I know without having to ask:
Aleksei is here.