Where the fuck is Cillian? He’d know what to do. He’d be able to help.
The dying man in my arms is well over six feet. I try again to slip my arm under his shoulders and tug, but all my might amounts to about three inches of progress. When his groans turn into agonized whimpers unlike any noise I’ve ever heard him make, I stop and collapse to the ground again.
I’m tired. I’m freezing. I’m pregnant.
And as strong as I think I am, I’m just not strong enough.
All of that means my husband is going to die out here. He’s going to bleed away, wither to a cold corpse, and I’m just going to have to sit here and watch that happen because I’m too fucking weak.
No.
No.
No.
Something lights up in my chest. Like a fire within. It’s not just desperation. Not just determination.
It’s anger.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m mad. Mad at him and at the guns that did this to him and the world that keeps doing this to me, again and again.
“Fuck you, Artem!” I half-cry, half-scream. “Fuck you for bringing me here and leaving me like this!”
I’m so angry I can barely form words. I pound my fists against the cold, hard-packed dirt of the forest floor.
“I didn’t ask for any of this, but you came out of nowhere and you gave me this baby! You gave me your name! You married me. So fuck you—get the fuck up!”
I’m mad at him.
I hate him.
I love him.
I can’t possibly lose him.
I start beating my hands against his chest over and over again like a woman possessed. The forest echoes with my cries.
And then by some miracle, my madness breaks through his catatonia.
His head lurches forward, but it falls back onto the forest just as quickly.
But his eyes remain open.
I grab his face with both my hands and meet his eyes. He looks through me at first, but I don’t care.
“Artem, listen,” I start to say. “Get up now. You’re not dying here. Not like this. I know it’s hard, but you need to get up. Now.”
I can’t bring myself to be gentle or patient. I can’t bring myself to be kind.
I just need to get him in the car and then I can concentrate on my bedside manner another time.
He just stares at me blankly.
My hands tighten around his face. “You are not fucking dying on me, you bastard,” I snarl at him. “I don’t care that you’re bleeding. I don’t care that you’re in pain. You get the fuck up and you get in that car.”
He looks at me again, not saying anything. His lips tremble.
Then he tries to get up. It’s painstaking and horrible to watch. Two steps forward, one step back, again and again as he tries to overcome the pain, loses, redoubles his effort, tries again.