3
CATERINA
Iwake the next morning to a soft rapping at the bedroom door, which wakes me up and not Viktor. He’s snoring next to me, still passed out as hard as he’d been last night not long after we’d slept together–which is in and of itself something that I’m still coming to terms with.
I’d been caught off guard in the garden, but I’m not sure what my excuse was for giving in to him last night. He’d needed me, but more than that–I’d wanted to be there for him. And I don’t know how to feel about that. I should hate him, but after what he shared with me, I can’t feel the same bitterness and suspicion that I did before. And after Anika–
The knocking at the door comes again, and I swing my legs out of bed, grabbing for my robe and wrapping it around me as I pad across the room. I crack the door open to see Sasha standing there, her face scrunched with worry, and I feel a flare of panic.
“Is it Anika?”
“No, ma’am.” She shakes her head. “It’s Yelena. She’s been having panic attacks all night. Olga said she’d cry it out, but she won’t stop, and now she’s asking for you. Can you come downstairs? We can’t get her to calm down, and I’m afraid she’s going to hurt herself at this point.”
“Of course. Give me just a second.” I shut the door, quickly grabbing a pair of leggings and a top and throwing them on. I know I probably look like a mess–my hair is in a complete tangle, but I don’t have time to look any more presentable than that. Sasha won’t care, and Yelena certainly won’t.
I can hear Yelena crying before we even get to her room. Sasha pushes open the door, her face a mask of worry as I step inside in front of her, only to see the small blonde seven-year-old in a ball on the rug. What I can see of her face is pink and swollen from crying.
“Yelena,” I murmur her name softly, sinking down onto the rug next to her. “Yelena, it’s Cat. Can you look at me?”
It takes her a minute to gather herself enough to do that. She peeks up from her arms, sniffling. She looks like a mess, her face tear-stained and strings of snot dripping from her nose, and I look around desperately for something to clean her up a bit with.
“Here.” Sasha hands me a box of tissues, and I reach for Yelena gently, touching her face as I wipe her nose with my other hand.
“You’ll feel better when I’m done,” I tell her gently as she tries to pull away. “It’s no fun crying, I know. I’ve been there plenty of times.”
Yelena peers at me, her expression dubious. “You have?” she manages through tears, and I nod, wiping away the last of the snot and taking another tissue to dab at her cheeks.
“I definitely have,” I tell her firmly. “Trust me, more often than I’d like to.”
“Why?” Yelena purses her lips at me, but her sobs have slowed, the distraction of the person she wanted to talk to enough to calm her down a little.
I debate how much to say to her. She’s only seven, and I don’t want to make things worse. But she’s also not an ordinary seven-year-old. She’s the daughter of the Bratvapakhan, and she’s in the middle of a panic attack because yesterday, while she was in an unfamiliar place, strangers came and started shooting.
Her life has never been, and will never be, ordinary, any more than mine was or ever will be. I certainly would never say anything to traumatize her. Still, I can’t see how my mother overly sheltered me, treating me with kid gloves helped either.
I reach for her, pulling her into the circle of my arms, and she lets me easily, nestling against me as I stroke the tangle of her hair. “I lost my parents a few months ago,” I tell her quietly, looking down at the little girl as I soothe her. “My mom, and then not too long after that, my dad.”
Yelena tenses in my arms. “Is something going to happen to my dad?” she asks in a small voice, tears threatening again, and I bite my lip, realizing I might not have said the right thing.Being a parent of any kind is really hard,I think ruefully, bending to gently kiss the top of her head.I’ve got to somehow keep these two girls from being totally fucked up, living this life. Not to mention the child I might have–if I even can anymore–
That last thought makes my chest constrict, and I push it away, focusing on Yelena. “Your dad is going to be just fine,” I tell her firmly, hoping that it’s true and I’m not lying to her. “He’s a tough man. It would be hard for anyone to hurt him. Lots of people respect him. He’s going to be fine.”
“And my sister?” Her face screws up tightly, her eyes squeezing shut as she starts to cry again, and I know that’s the root of all this. “I heard that she might die–she’s mean to me sometimes, but I don’t want her todie–”
I take a breath, trying to think of how to comfort her without lying. “Anika is really badly hurt,” I tell Yelena finally, holding her a little tighter. “There was a fight downstairs–some bad men got in, and they caused problems. Anika got in the middle of it by accident. But the doctor did all he could, and he’s optimistic–”
“I don’t know what op–opt–op–means,” Yelena says in a small voice.
“He has hope it’ll be okay,” I tell her gently. “And that’s his whole job, so if he’s hopeful, then your dad and I are too.”
Yelena nods, burrowing into my chest again. “Don’t leave me,” she whispers in her small voice, her other hand coming up to make a fist in my shirt. “I miss my mama. Papa said you were going to be our mama now–”
“And I am,” I promise her.
“But you left.”
I wince. Idefinitelyam not about to share the details of my kidnapping and everything that happened afterward with a seven-year-old. “Your dad and I had to go on a business trip, and it took longer than we thought it would. But we definitely didn’t want to leave you or your sister. We brought you here because we missed you so much–”
“You brought us here because there was danger. Papa said so, he said home was dangerous, there’s a bad man –”