Nikolai gasps, stealing attention from both of us. His gray eyes widen for a moment, flicking to look at me, then at her. He holds her gaze and I watch her closely. More emotions than I can name dance across her glassy eyes. I can’t look away from her. This hurt and pain and shock she’s feeling sits like a heavy weight in my stomach. It’s a weight that begs me to carry it so she doesn’t have to. But whatever it is she’s feeling in this moment…it belongs to her.
Her emotion, her burden, her weight.
Her hand falls heavily on his chest, almost as though she wants to hit him but stops herself at the last possible second. His head slowly rolls toward her and I look at him expectantly, waiting for his final words.
But they never come.
The light has gone from his eyes.
No breath or sound comes.
His pulse is gone.
I look at Anya and have the misfortune of having to watch as she comes to the realization that his heart is no longer beating
“Nikolai,” she whispers, looking at him expectantly. She lifts her hand and lets it fall on his chest. “Nikolai?”
I shake my head, though she doesn’t look at me. “I think he’s—”
“Don’t say it!” she shouts at me.
Her words hit me with such force that it pushes me backward as they echo through the studio. I sit on my heels, letting go of his hand and setting it on the floor by his side.
Anya bends over him, putting her hands on his cheeks. She smacks her right hand against his cheek, but he doesn’t flinch.
He doesn’t blink.
He doesn’t breathe.
He doesn’t move.
My blue-eyed girl’s face is a dreadful mixture of all the worst emotions she could ever possibly express. I rub my palm over my chest, recognizing how my heart aches to see anything but happiness on her face.
This shouldn’t be a sad moment…but it is.
She smacks his face again. “Don’t you dare.” Her voice is low, deep, full of fury and pain. “Look at me!” she screams and I watch helplessly as she slips into emotional overload, climbing on top of him, straddling his waist with her knees on either side. “Look at me!”
She lets go of his cheeks and his head falls limply to the side. She pounds a fist against his chest and waits.
She pounds again.
She slaps his cheek.
Then again.
She screams and beats on his chest with both fists, over and over. “I hate you! I detest you! You ruined me! You ruined my life!”
I rub my palms over my thighs, watching her with wide eyes. I don’t really know what to do here; whether I should stop her or let her blaze in the fire of her emotions and wait for her to burn out on her own.
She grabs his face again and leans down over him, her voice shifting from anger to softness with one jarring beat.
“Nikolai. Nikolai, wake up. Look at me.” Her entire body trembles. “If you really love me, you’ll open your goddamn eyes and look at me…”
Anya presses her lips to his, lingering with a kiss, and I freeze. She has stunned me into silence, and I can’t move.
What is she doing?
Why did she do that?
“Nikolai?” she says, her voice hardly a whisper as she stares at him, the tips of their noses practically touching. “Nikolai?”
Her voice catches and tears stream down her cheeks like waterfalls. She sobs, letting her cry echo through the open space of the dance studio, the sound of her sadness bouncing off the walls and slamming into my heart.
“It hurts. I hate him.” Her sobs take over everything and nothing else is happening in the world right now. “I hate him so much. Why does this hurt? Why does it hurt?”
I latch my arms around her waist and drag her from Nikolai’s dead body. She reaches for me as I pull her closer, her small limbs wrapping around me as I hold her tight. She squeezes me harder than ever before and sobs into the side of my neck, drenching me in her pain.
My own tears fall.
Not for Nikolai, but for my girl.
As far as I’m concerned, this is just one more awful thing that Nikolai has done to her. He tried to redeem himself at the final hour, only to go and die on her.
“Why does it hurt?” she repeats softly.
I rub my hands over her back, trying to comfort her when I have no idea how. I give her silence, letting her have her emotional purge. The longer we sit here with each other, the more she cries and hurts, the more my own pain washes over me. Before long I’m crying with her, and I can’t even say why.
Nikolai stole us.
He enslaved us, he hurt us, he brutalized us.
He sold Anya to someone more sadistic than himself.
And then he helped us.
He helped us.
There are so many questions left unanswered and they’re all rushing around in my head, scrambling my brain. But the questions tumble down our cheeks as tears because we will never get those answers.
The whys, the what ifs, the how could he possibly…
They all just died with Nikolai.
Anya’s crying slows and her sobs fade into small hiccups of hurt. All her tears have been shed and she goes quiet and still in my arms. I reach up behind her, cradling the back of her head before stroking my hand down her long, dark hair. She pulls her head back so she can look at me and lets her forehead fall against mine.
“I’m sorry for being crazy again,” she whispers.
“Nothing to apologize for.”
“I kissed him.” Her eyes glass over again with fresh tears as she looks at me. “I’m so sorry. I kissed him.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know why I kissed him.”
“Hey. It’s okay. It’s okay, baby.” I stroke her hair again. “It’s all okay. I promise.”
I take a deep breath, holding her gaze with hope that I can feed her strength from within me. It forces me to swallow my own pain—it does hurt that she willingly put her lips to his, but I don’t feel justified judging her for that. I know my only choice is to get over it.
Somehow.
But that’s not her concern.
This whole damn thing is the cluster fuck to end all cluster fucks.
I tuck her hair behind her ear. “The four families could be coming at any time.”
She lifts her head from mine and nods. “I know.”
“We’re gonna have to drive out there to the helipad when they get here. We took the car. There’s no way for them to get here once they land.”