I hadn’t been able to argue when they’d dismissed me from the priesthood, before I’d tracked the man down. I’d known the violence was in me even then. I’d known that deep down, I wasn’t fit.
Now, in the dream, the man and the alley morph into something else: Alexei on his makeshift stage, trussed up and awaiting Viktor’s justice and vengeance. I stand there, his hand gripped in mine, and my hands aredrippingblood, awash with it, soaking and staining the wood beneath me as above me, Alexei’s mocking voice reaches my ears.
Aren’t you afraid of your God, priest?
My answer in the dream is the same as ever.I would be, if I thought God was in this room.But the blood is different.
When I take his finger off, it becomes a gushing river of it. I hear a scream above me, not the tortured cry of a grown man, but the terrified shriek of a woman. As I spin to face the figure dangling behind me with growing horror, it’s no longer Alexei strung up for his torment.
It’s Sasha, naked and terrified, her butchered hand jerking from my grasp as the sea of blood rises around her, pouring from my hands, threatening to drown her.
Her blue eyes look at me in wide horror as the blood reaches her chin.Why did you come back, Max? I was safer without you.
They will never leave me alone, because of you.
Safer without you, without you–
Her voice cuts off, gurgling on blood as she drowns in it, and I jerk awake with a start in the silent darkness, sweating with my heart pounding in my chest.
Next to me, Sasha is asleep, turned on her side with her head pillowed next to where mine should be, the sheet tucked around her. She looks as peaceful as I’ve ever seen her, and I don’t want to leave her for even a moment.
I need fresh air.
Slowly, I get up, picking up my pants from where they’d been carelessly tossed on the floor and pulling them back on, careful not to disturb her. I don’t bother with a shirt–at this time of night, no one else will be up, unless there’s someone else in the house with a case of insomnia. Even then, my only goal is to slip out of the room as quickly and quietly as I can so that I don’t wake Sasha.
I know she hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in a real bed for far too long, and I don’t want to cheat her out of that.
The night has cooled down as I walk out onto the patio, breathing in deep gulps of the fresh salt air. It clears my head almost immediately, reminding me of the resolutions I’d made when Levin and I had left for Moscow.
I wasn’t wrong that a relationship with me would put Sasha in danger, keep her in this world of mobs and mafias, but beingwithoutme hadn’t changed that. She’d been abducted and nearly executed, and none of that had had anything to do with me.
Being apart hadn’t made things better. I’d told myself that if I’d found her, safe and alive, if she still wanted me after everything, that I wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past.
A nightmare isn’t going to change that.
“It was just that. A nightmare,” I murmur out into the cool darkness, hands clenching the railing as the curtains billow around me. “Just a nightmare.”
“What was?”
Sasha’s soft voice comes from behind me, her hand touching my bare back. “Did you have a nightmare?”
I nod wordlessly, pausing for a moment before I turn to look at her. “We were back at Alexei’s,” I tell her quietly. “I lost you. It was my fault. Because of the–things I’ve done.”
Sasha nods as if she understands what I saw, what I’m talking about, and something about the look on her face makes me think that she genuinely does. Her hand stays on me, sliding around to my side as I turn, and she reaches up so that both of her hands are on my chest, trailing through the soft dark hair there. “We’re not there anymore,” she says softly. “Alexei is in the past. All of that is. And you’re not going to lose me.”
“I’m not sure I could bear it if I did.” My hands rest on her waist, on the silky fabric of the wrap dress she’d thrown on again, and I pull her closer. “I don’t think I can live without you, Sasha.”
“We’ll survive this.” She tips her chin up, her blue eyes searching out mine. “Look what we’ve survived already. We both came so close to dying. A gun in your belly and one at my head, and we’re both still here, standing, in one of the most beautiful places in the world.”
She reaches up, her fingers trailing through my hair. “It’s a beautiful night, Max, and I love you. You love me. For tonight, that’s enough. Tomorrow we can think about how we’re going to fight through what comes next. But for tonight–”
“--tonight, it’s just us.” I finish her sentence, my hand cupping the back of her neck as I draw her in for a kiss. “We’ll figure out tomorrow when it comes.”
24
SASHA
To my delight, when the next morning comes, it’s not with Levin’s heavy knocking on the door and urgent orders to get moving to the next safe place. Instead, I wake up on my own, feeling relaxed and well-rested for the first time in recent memory. I wake to the scent of a salt breeze and sunshine streaming through the window, with Max’s naked body next to mine, the sheet pooled around his hips as he snores lightly.