Page 147 of Requiem
Levi steps back slightly, already shifting the conversation forward. “You will all remain reachable,” he says. “No one leaves this facility without authorization.” He glances behind his shoulder toward the hall, lowering his voice. “They’ve been told to contain you here for right now. A lothappened tonight, including death on a wide scale. And especially since foreign nationals are involved…they need to investigate.”
Rafe gives a short nod, accepting it without resistance. Adela does the same, though her eyes flick briefly toward me.
“That’s fine,” I mutter.
“I appreciate your friends helping with translation,” Levi says, turning toward the door. “Get some rest. I’ll return shortly.”
After he leaves, Adela immediately faces me. “I know how we’re going to get you out of this.”
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.
“???????????.”
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 oftwo fucking wordsthat 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 blueglow 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 hertwice. 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.
