Esme
I scream Cillian’s name again and again until my throat is hoarse and my voice is gone.
But I know that he’s not coming back to untie me.
I can’t hear a thing. The weight in my chest just keeps getting heavier and heavier until I feel that familiar shooting pain lancing through my stomach.
The last time I felt it was weeks ago.
Right after Stanislav’s funeral.
When I’d first discovered that Artem was responsible for Cesar’s death.
My baby kicks hard. I know that my rising heart beat and intense panic can’t be good for him.
“It’s okay, little bird,” I say, falling back to my brother’s old nickname for me. “It’s okay. We’re going to be all right.”
I’m on the verge of saying that his Papa is gonna be all right, too, but I stop short at the last moment.
I don’t know if that’s true.
For the moment, I don’t even know if I’ll ever see him again.
The thought races through me like poison. “Oh, God,” I gasp as claustrophobia grips my throat and tightens its cold fingers around my heart. “I can’t breathe… I can’t…”
But there is no one to help me.
Another shooting pain courses through me, worse than the first.
My stomach feels suddenly twice as large and twice as heavy and I try to breathe and I try to calm down, both for myself and for the child inside me, but my thoughts are chaotic and uncontrollable and they’re rising up in me like a dark swirling tide and I can’t get my heart to ease and the blood is pounding so hard in my temples and the night outside is so horrifyingly silent and why won’t anyone come to help me and where is Artem and where is Cillian and who is out there in the darkness and what do they want and where did they come from and oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, if something doesn’t happen soon then I feel like I’m going to—
“Breathe, Esme,” I whisper out loud.
* * *
MANY YEARS EARLIER
“Breathe, Esme.”
“Cesar?”
My eyes fly open to find my brother kneeling in front of me, his gaze fixed on me with concern.
I don’t know how he managed to get so close to me without me noticing.
But then again, my head had been buried in my hands while I cried.
“What’s wrong, little bird?” Cesar asks.
“Papa hit me.”
Cesar’s eyes flare with anger. “He did what?”
I nod as another tear slips down my cheek. “He asked me to play piano for his friends and I said I didn’t want to. I don’t like his friends. They look at me weird.”
“So he slapped you?”
“He said that he was my father and I was to do whatever he asked of me.”