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The doctor’s body quickly morphs into the body of Chek, and the distant sound of gunfire has me crying out and slamming my hands over my ears.
Not again.
It’s not real, it’s not real.
Please don’t be real.
Has Kristof snapped? Did he kill his siblings, too? How could he stand there and not tell me they were dead each time I asked about them? Maybe it was the guilt of knowing they met their demise by his hand.
Like everyone else seems to.
How could he not tell me?
I run and run until, finally, I can run no more.
The pressure in my chest threatens to tear me apart at the seams, and my bare feet have grown so numb in the cold that I can’t even feel the stones I run across. The mountain looms before me, a distant statue that observes quietly as I finally collapse just before the garden at the base of a tree.
A twisted footpath stretches out before me, leading to the forest that surrounds the base of the property, and even in the afternoon light, an unnatural darkness stretches forth from the branches. Long, dark fingers offer safety and secrecy between the trees. No one would find me in there.
It’s all too much.
Drawing my knees up to my chest, I wrap my arms around my shins and clutch tightly at myself, sobbing with each ragged breath that scrapes past my lips.
Kristof is a dangerous man. I knew this long before he kidnapped me. I’ve always known this, and part of me was attracted to him for it. He killed people to keep the Family safe, and that was sexy when they were nameless people, faces I would never see and names I would never have to learn.
It’s never been in front of my face quite like this. I’ve never seen him kill a man, and I think, deep down, part of me didn’t believe he was capable.
That he was only this dangerous before he stole me away.
I’ve never known so many people to die, not when they’re people I know and love. Faces I can draw up in my mind with just a thought. Having them all die so quickly is overwhelming. Their faces swim in my thoughts, and bile churns in my gut every time Ivan or Nastja make an appearance.
Nastja, the one I so desired to be my sister. Someone I could share things with that I could share with no one else. Ivan and his calm demeanor and his cheeky smile. How can they just be gone?
How can they not be in the world anymore?
And now, with the impending pressure of my father here to drag me back to a hellish life, what are my options? Death awaits me with either choice. Am I to choose now between the lesser of evils?
Here I am, caught in the middle of what I desire and what others want for me.
And my baby.
Removing one hand from my shin, I curl one arm protectively around my stomach and cry harder. All my dreams and fantasies of raising this baby and giving her a life infinitely better than mine… what real hope is there of that with a man like Kristof?
Can I really raise a child with him when so much death surrounds him, when so much blood spills by his hands for the slightest reason? Do I have to walk on eggshells and hope that one day, I won’t be the one to set off his hair trigger?
I’ve never feared him before now, and it’s not fear that creeps up now but uncertainty.
The chances of us surviving my father’s onslaught and returning to the States are slim, but even if we do, what power will I have to protect my child?
Will I raise her and watch as she becomes a cold, dark killer like her father? Watch them bond over torture techniques and the dark art of killing, all under the guise of protection, while I become nothing but a painted statue like Mara on the sidelines?
Or will my desire for her to have a better life mean nothing with Kristof in charge? His respect for the old traditions has always been clear, even if he’s been determined to keep me out of the hands of the wrong people. What if he doesn’t keep that same desire for our daughter?
What will I do if she becomes another pawn in the hierarchy like me? Fighting for a better life for her might put me on the wrong side of Kristof’s gun, and what then?
Turmoil churns around inside me as all sorts of scenarios overlap one another. I can’t settle on one choice over the other because, amid the tears and shock, the trigger of the gunfire and the dead body have flashes of the attack on the manor bursting through my mind and tangling my thoughts in fear.
Every snap of a twig in nature becomes the crack of gunfire, and every time I blink, my thoughts flicker between the sea of dead bodies and the doctor.
