Blood.
Mirror shard.
Cuts on one of her thighs, dripping red droplets.
Color drained from my face. I was rocked to my core.
Her honey-gold irises flickered up, and she held the sharp end of the reflective glass poised over a recent gash.
Her tawny skin paled as she sat there in a top and panties with her blood streaming.
She cuts herself.
Blyad!
A burst of breath crashed out of me, and I skidded to her, sliding down to my knees on the slick red tile. Smacking the piece of mirror from her grip, I saw her flinch when it shattered in the shower right behind her.
I grabbed her wrists, twisting them uncompromisingly.
And I shouted in her face, “What the fuck are you doing?”
8
Arkady Part Two
I SHOOK LUCIA HARD. Hard enough to jar her from whatever twisted thoughts compelled her to mutilate herself.
“Blyad! What the fuck are you thinking?”
She wrenched free, her palm swinging up to crack across my face. “Leave me alone!”
“The fuck I will.” I leaped to my feet, yanking her upright with me.
Pure wrath and gut-deep worry seethed inside of me, and I pushed her against the bathroom wall.
She gnashed her teeth at me, her hair flying everywhere.
Her fists railed at me, but her blows didn’t affect me one little bit.
I dragged her hands up between us, biting words out between my teeth. “Keep goddamn still. You’re bleeding everywhere. Christ, Lucia!”
Pressing the backs of her wrists against the wall, I barged into her.
She twisted, writhed, shouted at me.
Blood oozed all over, smearing between us, slippery under her bare feet.
She’d destroyed the bathroom mirror—the least of my concerns.
Her pulse hammered beneath my hard fingers, and her eyes glowed hatefully up at me.
She struggled, fought.
She hissed, swearing.
She wouldn’t gain a single inch against me.
I pressed even harder into her, my heart thudding as fast as her pulse beat.
My harsh breaths flew out across the top of her head and, with her head crushed close to my throat, I expected her to bite me.
Her blood seeped into my pants.
She didn’t bite.
She stopped snarling.
I felt a new warm wetness and realized a second later those drops on my neck were her tears.
Fight fled from her as quickly as it had engulfed her, and she wilted right against me.
Hard fast sobs drove her body into mine, and I shouldered all the weight. Finally letting her wrists go, I ran my arms around her back and embraced her tightly.
She let me hold her fast, her entire frame cold against mine.
New concern surged through me.
What if she cut so far she hit the femoral artery in her leg?
Why was she even hurting herself in the first place?
With her still weeping but much more quietly, I maneuvered her from the bathroom, away from the bloody mess that made the usually spotless room look like a slaughterhouse.
I grabbed towels and the first aid kit on the way.
In the end, I just picked her up and carried her. Carried her to my bed. I lay down a pad of towels before setting her down with her back resting against the pillows.
She’d turned as white as a ghost, which did nothing for my state of mind.
Then her teeth began chattering.
I swore viciously, leaving her for just a moment to stalk to the small stocked bar.
While I poured out a healthy dose of vodka, she sat there motionlessly, hands clenched around blankets, tracking my every move.
I passed her the vodka, which she drank down before handing the glass back to me.
A glass streaked with bloody fingertips.
My jaw set hard as I sat beside her and prodded her legs wider.
Blood oozed from the fresh cuts, and something unforeseen clenched at my heart.
She began shivering as soon as I touched her.
With a rough curse, I stomped to the dresser and dug out a sweater.
On my return to her, I pulled her upper body forward. I rolled up her thin top and flung it away before wrestling my big cable knit sweater over her. I situated the warm, heavy knit at her hips and rolled the cuffs up over her hands.
Neither of us spoke, but she stopped shuddering.
Her teeth stopped clacking together.
Opening the med kit, I forewent the alcohol swabs altogether going straight for the bottle of antiseptic and strips of gauze.
Fuck me.
As I gently padded her inner thigh with the antiseptic, Lucia hissed in a breath.
I cleaned around and over the wounds carefully before making sure the lacerations weren’t deep enough to require stitches and, as I tended her, cold chills marched up and down my spine.
“Why?” I asked hoarsely.
She recoiled from me immediately, her posture defensive as she huddled in on herself.
Her words were just as defensive when she whispered in a spectral voice, “You wouldn’t understand.”
Fucking right about that.
I spun the top back on the bottle of alcohol, swallowing down an entire litany of recriminations.
When I glanced at her, she’d been watching me, but she quickly whipped her head aside.
I got off the bed and picked up her blood-stained top on my way to the bathroom. I dropped her shirt in the trashcan then wet a washcloth.
Back in the bedroom, I kneeled on the bed in front of her.
I grasped her ankles and pulled her legs straight again.
While I carefully swabbed away all the blood drying on her limbs, I was at a loss.
How could she willfully mar such beautiful perfection?
Unless that was all she thought she was?
I didn’t know.
“You have blood on your hands too,” she said in a very low voice.
I didn’t know if she referred to the kills I’d perpetrated during my lifetime or the very real stain on my hands from her.
Her blood.
Her tone grew even more quiet. “I can feel this, Arkady.”
I glanced at her face, and she ran her fingers over the new gashes without so much as a wince.
“Why? Why do this to yourself?” I asked again, more forcefully.
“I understand it and see it and control this pain!”
Fear still pumped through my system, crashing against an overwhelming urge to strangle some sense into her.
“I can control this.” She met my gaze with a fierce light to her eyes. “Not like everything else! That howling emptiness inside of me is worse than a few shallow scratches.”
Shallow scratches?
I growled low in my throat then realized I gripped her legs mercilessly hard.
Loosening my hold, I held a thick piece of gauze over the still oozing cuts.
“That void just goes on forever,” she whispered quietly.
“There has to be a better way, Lucia.”
“There is if you’d just let me go home.”
“Why? So you can go on harming yourself like it seems you’ve been doing for years?” And why do I care anyway?
“What damn difference does it make whether you’re the one hurting me or I am?” Her voice rose.
Her words kindled new rage in me, and I was about to tell her exactly what kind of difference I’d make when I heard the distinct squeal of tires outside.
Then Maksim bellowed up the stairs, “Arkady! Get your ass down here now!”