I didn’t open my eyes immediately but steadily regained consciousness. At this point, passing out was almost a routine.
All my life, I hadn’t lost consciousness before, but for the past few weeks, I’ve managed to lose count of how many times I was knocked out.
Trying to sense my environment without exposing that I was awake, I listened and tried to feel.
There were hands on me, wrapping and prodding and applying cool wet substances to places that made me want to suck my teeth. That old witch was here again.
I wasn’t back in that terrible cell. The place didn’t stink like I remembered, but it smelt faintly like medicine and spirit. There was a draft, my face was cold, but the rest of me was warm, except for the places the old woman was treating.
I couldn’t point out where I was, nothing about it struck me as familiar. Not in Maxim’s room or the cell. I was lying on a bed that felt a lot smaller than Maxim’s had been, maybe a different place then.
A working theory was that they kept switching the places they held me hostage so I wouldn’t try to escape, but there was something they had overlooked.
I wasn’t restrained this time. The body ache was a bitch, but there was nothing on my neck, nothing on my wrists, nothing holding down my ankles.
The old woman moved quietly, covering my leg back because she was done treating it and coming back up towards my face level.
I was going to escape this time, and when I came back, it would be with bullets that had Maxim Triev engraved on their sides. She moved, and I risked a peek at her.
Her back was turned to me, wearing white for the first time, that was the first and only thing I noticed before I sprang from the bed and on her.
She would have screamed, but I had her in a headlock, tugging at her throat, so all she managed was a squeak.
I had a strong hold and brought my other hand up to pull at her face hard enough to break her stupid neck. The wounds all over my body were screaming, but this was my chance, and I was determined to go all out.
Before I could snap the old woman’s neck, the door opened and—
“Ales?” It couldn’t have been him…no. Maybe the injuries, hunger, and maltreatment had gotten to my brain and was making me see things. This—
“Katya, let her go,” it was his voice, that rumbling voice that did things to me. “Trust me, ok? You need to calm down and let your nurse go.”
My…what?
Nothing was making any sense, but I trusted him, so I let the old woman go and stepped back.
Blinking, I realized that it wasn’t that batty old woman. This was a younger, frightened, blonde woman in white.
My…nurse.
“Ales?” I called, looking at him with wide eyes. He just stood there while the nurse scrambled out, clutching her neck. “What’s happening?”
“What’s happening is that I have my wife in the hospital, awake after being unconscious for a whole week,”
“A week?”
“After being rescued from being held hostage. When I found you, there was an empty syringe on the ground, and the tests showed you were drugged. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t come in time.”
He came to me, and enveloped me in a bear hug, hands wrapped around me in my hospital gown.
“What are you made of that you could even move like that with all those injuries? Broken ribs, yet the first thing you did after gaining consciousness was to attempt to choke your nurse.”
He drew back and stared down at me.
“If I wasn’t impressed, I’d be a terrible liar.”
It was definitely Ales; his warm body and the charming smile were all the evidence I needed.
“I’ve been here a week,” I said, my mind racing. “We need to go. Paulina and Samantha, they mi—”