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Ariel hesitates. Then she slips her hand into mine. It fits. It fits. We run.
“You owe me this,” I say. “If those are my children—and I know in my bones they are—then it falls to me to keep them safe. Let me do that much. Choose us. Choose them.”
Ten weeks until I have to let them go. Ten weeks to remember why I should.
solemn. “Stop fighting with her. Start fighting for her.”
Chills.
His forehead pressed to my hospital bed rail as he prayed. Desperate mutters in Russian. A palm spanning my entire belly and the two worlds contained within it when he climbed in beside me, all restrained strength, like he could shield us from the world with just his ragged breath.
She’s a loaded gun in a lace-trimmed holster, safety off, and I’m done pretending I wasn’t born to pull the trigger.
The tap of Zoya’s cane against stone announces her arrival. She’s dressed for war in gardening clothes, her silver hair tied back with what looks suspiciously like one of Kosti’s old bandanas. Oh, fucking Christ. If she and him start shacking up, I’ll nuke the planet and tell God to start over.
She’s left a perfect handprint in the dirt—five fingers pressed into the soil. Without thinking, I stoop down to press my own hand beside hers. Her print is smaller, but somehow, it makes mine look less threatening. Less like the marks I usually leave behind.
“Marry me, Ariel.” She’s asleep, so she doesn’t hear me and doesn’t answer. That’s okay. She’ll answer soon enough.
I look up at Sasha, who’s just a smear of shadow and the orange ember of a cigarette beneath the awning of the villa. He nods and holds out his hand. I go toward him. My future is that way.
Sasha’s face is ice. Iron. Steel. Marble. Then— It cracks. It splits right down the middle into the biggest, goofiest smile I’ve ever seen on him, as he strides forward and grabs his best friend into a tight hug. They pound each other on the back and cackle like only boneheaded alpha males can do.
“Marry me, ptichka.”
