7. The First Patient
The First Patient
Monika
The knocking wakes me from a dream I don't remember.
It's not the soft knock of a servant, or the perfunctory rap of Viktor checking on the house. It's urgent. Demanding. The kind of knocking that means someone needs something they can't wait for.
I'm out of bed before I'm fully awake, my body moving on instinct.
The clock on my nightstand reads 3:17 AM.
The fire in my hearth has burned down to embers, leaving the room cold and dark.
I grab a robe—silk, one of the ones Aleksander bought me—and pull it around my shoulders as I cross to the door.
Nathan is standing in the hallway.
His face is pale. His jaw is tight. His clothes are wrong—not the tailored suits he usually wears, but dark jeans and a black sweater, the kind of thing you wear when you don't want to be noticed. There's blood on his hands. Not a lot. Just enough to see in the dim light of the sconces.
"I need you," he says.
"What's happened?"
"No questions." He reaches for my arm. His grip is firm, urgent. "Just come."
He leads me through the mansion. The hallways are dark, the servants asleep, the portraits on the walls watching us pass like silent witnesses. We go down the main staircase, through the foyer, past Aleksander's study—the door is closed, the light off—and toward the back of the house.
The back of the house is where the garages are. Where the cars are kept. Where things are brought in that aren't meant to be seen.
A black SUV is parked in the center of the garage, its engine still warm, its headlights off. The back door is open.
And inside, there's a child.
She's small.
That's the first thing I notice. She's so small, curled up on the back seat, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around herself like she's trying to hold her body together.
She's wearing clothes that don't fit—a man's t-shirt, too big, stained with something dark.
Her hair is matted. Her face is bruised.
Her arm is broken.
I can see it from here—the unnatural angle of her forearm, the swelling around the wrist. It's not a fresh break. It's been hours, maybe longer. The kind of break that needs a hospital, a surgeon, proper care.
"Nathan." My voice is steady. I don't know how. "She needs a hospital."
"She needs someone who won't ask questions." His voice is flat. Clinical. The same voice he uses when he's talking about business. "Fix her, Monika."
"Fix her? Nathan, look at her. She needs—"
"I know what she needs." He cuts me off. His eyes are dark, unreadable. "But she can't go to a hospital. The people who did this to her—they're looking for her. If she shows up in an emergency room, they'll find her. And they'll finish what they started."
I stare at him. The garage is cold, the concrete floor seeping chill through my bare feet. The child hasn't moved. Hasn't made a sound. She's just lying there, her eyes open, staring at nothing.
"Who did this to her?" I ask.
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"Monika." Nathan's voice is sharp. "I didn't bring you here to ask questions. I brought you here to help her. Can you do that, or do I need to find someone else?"
I should say no. I should walk away. I should call the police, the FBI, someone with a badge and a gun and the authority to protect this child.
But I don't.
Because I'm already complicit. I've been complicit for a year. And this child—this small, broken child—is the consequence of everything I've allowed to happen.
"I can help her," I say. "But I need supplies. My kit is in the kitchen."
"I'll get it." Nathan turns to go, then pauses. "Monika."
"What?"
"Thank you."
The words are strange coming from him. Nathan doesn't thank anyone. Nathan takes what he wants and moves on.
But he's thanking me now. And I don't know what that means.
I carry her inside.
She weighs nothing—a feather, a breath, a ghost. I can feel her bones through the thin fabric of the t-shirt, sharp and fragile. She doesn't make a sound as I lift her from the car, doesn't flinch when I carry her through the garage and into the house.
I take her to my room.
It's the safest place I can think of—the one place in this mansion where I have control, where I know the locks and the lights and the shadows. I lay her on my bed, on the sheets Aleksander bought me, and I kneel beside her.
"Hey," I say softly. "Hey, sweetheart. Can you hear me?"
She doesn't respond. Her eyes are open, but they're not seeing anything. They're empty. Hollow. The kind of empty that comes from seeing too much, from feeling too much, from having everything inside you broken into pieces too small to put back together.
I've seen that look before. On animals, mostly—the ones that have been abused, neglected, left to die. The ones that have given up.
It breaks my heart every time.
"My name is Monika," I say. "I'm going to help you. I'm going to fix your arm, and clean your cuts, and make you feel better. Is that okay?"
Nothing.
"I need you to know that you're safe now. No one is going to hurt you. I won't let them."
Nothing.
I touch her hand—gentle, careful—and she flinches. A small, involuntary movement, the kind of reflex that's been trained into her. She pulls her hand away and curls into herself, her body language screaming don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me.
My throat tightens.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I whisper. "I promise. I'm going to help you."
Nathan returns with my kit.
He sets it on the nightstand—the black canvas bag that holds my supplies, the one he bought me after the second time I stitched up one of his men. He doesn't say anything. He just stands in the doorway, watching.
"I need you to leave," I say.
"What?"
"I need you to leave. She's scared. She's been through something terrible. And you—" I pause. "You're a stranger. You're a man. She doesn't need you here."
Nathan's jaw tightens. For a moment, I think he's going to argue. But then he nods, just once, and steps back into the hallway.
"I'll be outside," he says.
The door closes behind him.
I turn back to the child.
I start with the arm.
It's the most urgent thing—the most painful, the most dangerous. If I don't set it properly, she could lose function in her hand. She could lose the arm entirely.
I open my kit and pull out what I need. A splint. Gauze. Medical tape. The kind of supplies a real doctor would have, not the fishing line and vodka I used on Aleksander a year ago.
"I'm going to touch your arm now," I say softly. "It's going to hurt. But I'm going to be as gentle as I can."
She doesn't respond. She just stares at the ceiling.
I reach for her arm. She flinches again, but this time she doesn't pull away. She just lies there, her body rigid, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps.
"I know it hurts," I say. "I know. But I need to set the bone. If I don't, it won't heal right."
I work quickly. I've set bones before—on animals, on the farm, on the men who come to me with injuries they can't take to a hospital. It's not the same as a human child. It's not the same as anything.
I feel for the break—a clean fracture of the radius, just above the wrist. It's a common break, the kind that happens when you fall and try to catch yourself. Or when someone grabs your arm and twists it too hard.
I align the bones. The child gasps—a small, sharp sound—and I feel her body tense beneath my hands.
"I know," I whisper. "I know. It's almost over."
I splint the arm. I wrap it with gauze. I secure it with tape, checking the tension, making sure it's not too tight. The child's breathing slows. Her body relaxes, just slightly.
"There," I say. "That's better. That's better."
I clean her wounds next.
There are so many of them. Cuts on her arms, her legs, her face. Bruises on her ribs, her back, her stomach. A burn on her shoulder—the kind of burn that comes from a cigarette, or a lighter, or something worse.
She doesn't flinch when I clean them. She doesn't cry. She just lies there, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, and lets me work.
"Can you tell me your name?" I ask.
Nothing.
"Can you tell me how old you are?"
Nothing.
"Can you tell me anything?"
Nothing.
I stop. I set down the gauze. I look at her—really look at her—and I feel something inside me break.
She's not just injured. She's not just scared. She's gone. The girl who used to inhabit this body, the girl with a name and a birthday and favorite colors—she's been erased. What's left is a shell. A vessel. A thing that breathes and bleeds and feels nothing.
I've seen this before. In the barn, when an animal has been so badly abused that it stops responding to anything. When it stops eating. When it stops moving. When it just lies there, waiting to die.
It's called learned helplessness. It's what happens when you're hurt so many times that you stop trying to escape.
I reach for her hand. This time, she doesn't pull away. She just lies there, her fingers limp in mine, her eyes empty.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I say. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you. Do you understand?"
She doesn't respond.
"I'm going to keep you safe. I don't know how yet, but I'm going to figure it out. I promise."
She blinks. It's the first movement I've seen from her that wasn't a flinch. A small, involuntary blink.
And then, so softly I almost miss it, she speaks.
"Tasha."
Her voice is a whisper. A breath. A ghost of a sound.
"My name is Tasha."
I finish cleaning her wounds.
I bandage her ribs. I apply salve to the burn on her shoulder. I clean the dirt from her hair, as best I can without a proper bath. I find a clean t-shirt—one of mine, soft and worn—and help her put it on.
She's still watching me. Still wary. But there's something different in her eyes now. Something that looks almost like curiosity.
"Tasha," I say. "That's a beautiful name."
She doesn't respond. But she doesn't look away either.
"Where are you from, Tasha?"
Nothing.
"How did you get here?"
Nothing.