It’s not real.
The faucet is off.
Vigo is dead.
I’m safe for the moment.
Vigo is dead.
I close my eyes and all I can see is his face rippling above me as I look up at him from beneath water. My eyes snap open again immediately and I half expect to see him standing in front of me. I breathe in and out, in and out, willing my hammering heartbeat to settle, but it only beats faster. My lungs strain as my breaths quicken and shorten until I’m panting, desperate for a decent breath…as if I’m under water again.
I’m hyperventilating.
I’m panicking.
“Stop it,” I say to myself. “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”
I need Ezra.
I need to...to breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I gasp with no success.
I topple sideways to the floor.
Consciousness slips away.
Crying.
I hear crying.
I open my eyes to see that I’ve fallen asleep in the rocking chair. I look down, though the baby isn’t in my arms. I glance around the room until my eyes fall on the beautiful wooden crib in the corner. I’m humming an unfamiliar tune as I rise from my seat and slowly move toward it.
I look down over the side of it to see a tiny baby lying on his back, arms and legs stiffly pawing at the air as he reaches for his mother with uncoordinated movements.
He’s brand-new to the world.
I want to keep him safe.
His eyes are closed as he cries out and I’m drawn to him. His one-piece pajamas have a pattern of tiny rainbows printed on them. At least, I think they’re rainbows. I don’t see any color. I blink, glancing around the room again and realize that nothing is in color.
Everything is black and white.
I’m still humming the tune I don’t recognize.
The baby boy screams harder and I can’t ignore the instinctual pull to lift him, to hold him, to comfort him in my arms. I reach over the edge of the crib and place my hand on his belly, rubbing a gentle, soft circle to comfort him with my touch.
That’s when he opens his eyes.
That’s when color returns to my world.
Bright green light sparkles in his familiar gaze and from it, color ripples throughout the room.
Green eyes.
Enchanting green eyes and sandy blond hair.
Ezra.
He looks like Ezra.
This is my baby…our baby.
I smile so wide it makes my cheeks ache and I lift the tiny squirming boy from his crib. I hold him closely to my chest, still humming that tune. Perhaps it’s a lullaby I heard somewhere before.
My baby boy calms in my arms, his cries gently change to soft coos of happiness. He’s where he belongs, right here in my arms.
“I’m so lucky to be yours.” Ezra’s voice comes from behind me and I turn to see him in the doorway to the nursery.
His eyes and our baby’s look the same. Perfect, green, filled with light and goodness.
We smile at each other.
But then Ezra’s eyebrows raise in shock and he gasps. He looks down and my eyes follow. Blood soaks his white T-shirt, circling outward, the spot growing larger as moments pass. And then he falls to the floor. I jump back, holding our baby tighter against my chest.
Ezra is dead and I didn’t even see it coming.
Oh, God.
Why is he bleeding?
What caused the wound?
There was no gunshot, and I didn’t see a knife. I don’t understand how he’s dead.
He’s dead.
No. No!
I back away until my backside bumps into the edge of the crib. I don’t know what to do. I want to help him, I want to save him, but I can’t let go of our baby.
I have to protect our baby.
I’m still humming that song.
What song is this?
Where have I heard it before?
“Give me the child.” Nikolai’s voice booms from the doorway and my body goes rigid.
Nikolai is dead; he is death standing in my doorway. He still bleeds from his gunshot wound and it drips down to the carpet beneath his feet. His face is pale, expressionless, lifeless. He steps forward and I shout, but then he falls to his knees before dropping lifelessly onto the floor beside Ezra.
I’m humming the song.
I hum it louder as unseen voices swirl around me.
“Give me the baby.”
“That baby is mine.”
“He’s a Mikhailov.”
“He’s a Vittori.”
“He’s mine.”
“Kill him. Kill them both.”
“Stop!” I scream and the voices fall silent.
But then the song comes again, only I’m no longer humming.
It’s....it’s Vigo.
His sound carries from the hallway outside the nursery. The humming becomes whistling, growing louder and louder until he finally appears in the doorway. Blood pours from him, from every part of his body, spilling like morbid waterfalls and pooling on the carpet. He bleeds so much and so fast that it cascades into the room like a flash flood. It spills and spills, filling the space.
And the pool rises.
Slowly, it rises.
The song.
The one he’s whistling, the one that I was humming.
It’s the tune he whistled when he left me to die in his bathtub, locked beneath the mirror and the running faucet.
The blood is to his knees when he stretches his arms out wide. He tilts his head back. As if he’s willed it to happen, he explodes, bursting into crimson liquid that splatters the walls and drenches me and my baby in a thick coating.
I scream.
The baby cries and I look down, but he’s no longer in my arms.
I dropped him.
He’s sinking into the pool of blood that continues to rise.
I lunge after him, diving beneath the surface and reaching for him, but he’s already gone. I can’t find him. I don’t know where he is. I rise to break the surface, to catch my breath, but my head hits something hard above me.
I open my eyes and immediately close them again.
I’m back in Vigo’s bathtub, drowning beneath clear water, my reflection splintered in the cracked mirror that keeps me locked in my own watery grave.