1. Maggie #3
Alexei lifts Ivy out of the SUV when Luka opens the door. She curls against him again, exhausted and pale beneath the parking lot lights, while one tiny hand grips the front of his shirt.
Mama’s eyes go straight to her.
“Oh, baby,” she whispers.
Mama studies him before looking back at me.
“He stayin’ with y’all?”
I nod.
Her eyes stay on Ivy against his shoulder before she gives a small nod of her own.
“Alright then,” she says firmly. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
The apartment feels wrong the instant I walk inside, too quiet and normal after everything that’s happened tonight. This morning feels like it happened a hundred years ago.
Mama locks the door behind us while Alexei lowers Ivy onto the couch. She leans against the pillows, her swollen eyes barely open, while one small hand keeps reaching toward me like she’s afraid I might disappear if she lets me out of her sight.
I kneel beside her and brush shaky fingers through her hair. “I’m just gonna take a quick shower, baby. I’ll be back in a jiffy, alright?”
Her lip trembles. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
Only then does she slowly release the death grip she has on my hand.
Mama disappears toward the kitchen, already reaching for the kettle. “I’m gonna get some tea boiled.”
I nod distractedly, unable to stand the feeling of dried blood on my skin another second. Before I can walk away, Alexei crosses the room and stops close enough that I notice the clean scent of his cologne still clinging faintly to his clothes beneath the long, exhausting night.
His eyes move slowly over my face. “You don’t have to hold yourself together for everyone right now,” he says low enough that only I hear it.
Emotion swells inside me while the reality of everything that happened suddenly feels unbearable.
I look away first. “I’ll be quick.”
His hand brushes lightly against my cheek before he steps back toward the couch. “Take your time.”
I turn the shower on too hot before fumbling with my clothes, peeling off my shirt and jeans as fast as my trembling hands will allow. I step beneath the spray, and the water immediately turns pink around my feet while blood slides down my arms and disappears into the drain.
Irina’s blood.
The thought rips through me as I brace one hand against the tile wall to stay standing. A broken sound escapes me before I can swallow it down, and then the tears come all at once. Not the quiet kind either. The kind that leaves my heart aching while my shoulders shake beneath the hot water.
I begin to scrub frantically at my arms, my hands, beneath my fingernails, and through my hair. But no matter how hard I scrub, I still feel blood everywhere. I see Irina gasping for breath. I hear Ivy screaming. I feel that horrible stillness when Irina’s hand stopped moving beneath mine.
“Oh God,” I sob, leaning my forehead against the tile. “Oh God.”
For several long minutes I stand there crying. Eventually the water runs completely clear, and I force myself to breathe again. I wash my face, pull on clean clothes, and stare at my reflection in the mirror, looking pale, hollowed out, and older than I did this morning.
I wipe at my swollen eyes and walk back out into the apartment, where Ivy reaches for me the moment she sees me again.
“There’s my girl,” Mama says gently from the kitchen table, where she already has my half-packed duffel bag sitting open beside a mug of untouched tea.
Clothes are spread across the table and couch cushions while she folds shirts with the quick, practiced hands only Southern mamas seem to have, even in the middle of a crisis.
Alexei stands near the front windows, speaking low into his phone while Ivy clings to my side.
Mama looks up at me. “I threw a few extra things in there for you. Toothbrush, charger, clean pajamas.”
Tears well up in my eyes all over again. “Thanks, Mama.”
She waves me off and hands me a folded sweatshirt. “You can thank me later and help me finish packin’ before this tea gets cold.”
I manage a weak nod before sitting beside the duffel bag while Ivy refuses to leave my side.
Across the apartment, Alexei ends his call and slips his phone back into his pants pocket. The exhaustion on his face looks even heavier now beneath the warm light.
I glance toward Mama before looking back at him. “Can I have a minute alone with Mama before we go?”
“Of course.”
As soon as Ivy realizes I’m about to stand up, panic flashes across her face. “No.”
“Baby, I’m just gonna talk to Mama for one quick minute.”
Her fingers tighten desperately around my arm. “No.”
Before I can calm her, Alexei crosses the room and lifts her into his arms. She clings to him while fresh tears fill her swollen eyes.
“We’ll wait outside for Maggie,” he tells her while cradling her closer. “She’ll only be a few minutes.”
I stand and smooth Ivy’s hair back from her face. “I promise, sweetheart. Just a few minutes.”
A tear slips slowly down her cheek anyway. My heart nearly breaks right there.
Alexei drops a kiss on top of Ivy's head as Luka moves toward the front door and opens it for them without a word. Ivy keeps her eyes locked on me the entire way out of the apartment until the door closes behind them.
Mama continues folding clothes before speaking. “When you called me tonight, I thought I was gonna lose you.” Her voice wavers on the last word.
I stop shoving clothes into the bag long enough to press both hands against my eyes as emotion crashes into me again. “I was scared too.”
Mama moves beside me, wrapping one arm tightly around my shoulders. “Maggie.”
The way she says my name stops me cold.
“You watched somebody die tonight.” Tears fill her eyes, too, now. “You’re allowed to hurt after somethin’ like that.” She wraps both arms around me and pulls me into a tight hug.
I lean into her, holding on just as tightly. “I don’t know what’s happenin’ anymore,” I whisper against her shoulder.
Mama smooths one hand through my hair exactly the way she did when I was little. “Then let somebody help carry it tonight.”
Out in the hallway, Alexei’s voice slips faintly through the apartment door while he speaks with Luka. The words are too low to make out, but the sound sends another uneasy knot through my stomach because every conversation seems to pull him deeper into a world I barely understand.
Mama notices it too. “You trust him?” she asks.
I look toward the apartment door.
“Yes,” I answer. “With my life.”
Mama looks me over before nodding. “Alright.”
Five minutes later, my belongings are packed in my duffel bag. Mama hugs me one last time next to the SUV before cupping my face between both hands again.
“You call me in the mornin’.”
“I will,” I promise.
“And Maggie,” she adds, “you come home if you need to.”
I blink hard against another wave of tears. “Okay.”
She kisses my forehead before finally stepping back.