Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
“What time is it?”
When I shield my eyes from the bus headlights, the stranger replies, “A l-little after two.”
“In the morning?”
Some of the fear she is experiencing trickles through my veins when she nods.
“I… ah… I…”
After drinking in the rock on my ring finger, then the emblem of Myasnikov Private Hospital on my scrubs, she scoots closer. My fear that I’m about to be jumped is unfounded when she whispers, “I-I can pay for your bus fare, but that’s all I can offer you. I don’t have any money. I just have a bus card.”
After again scanning the street and noticing the stranger’s eyes aren’t the only pair gawking at me, I say, “Okay. Thank you.”
It takes a mammoth effort to stand, so there’s no way I will make it onto the bus without the stranger’s help. Mercifully, she comprehends my struggles without me needing to speak. After banding her arms around my back, she hoists me to her side before she guides my ginger walk to the stationary bus.
“Mara, what did I tell you last time? No more druggies.”
The lady placing me onto a cracked vinyl seat pffts the driver before scanning a transport card on the electronic scanner by the door twice.
“She’s a paying customer,” she replies to him in Russian. “That’s all you need to worry about.”
She’s assuring him I am fine, but she still sits a couple of spots back from me.
Her trust is so low, when the driver peers at her in the mirror he uses to keep passengers in line several stops later, she pretends she can’t feel the curiosity bouncing off him.
She doesn’t move, speak, or acknowledge anyone until the Myasnikov Private Hospital stop has her reaching for the yank cord to tell the driver I want to get off at the next stop.
My head is still woozy, and my legs are unstable, but I make it to the front of the bus unaided.
“Thank you,” I whisper to the guardian angel still watching over me.
Mara dips her chin before she shifts her focus to the window like I never said anything.
I barely stumble down the street two steps before I cross someone I know.
Eva sighs like I’m far more presentable than I feel before she cranks her neck to someone behind her. “Get Maksim.”
In less than a nanosecond, an SUV pulls into the alleyway next to us, and Maksim races out. Sheer panic is scoured between his brows, and he looks exhausted.
I more collapse into his arms than throw myself into them, and then I bury my head into his pecs to drown out the frantic situation occurring around me.
I’m poked and prodded, all while still in Maksim’s arms, before I’m asked a range of questions.
None I know how to answer.
“I don’t remember anything. I’m not even sure what day it is.”
I realize we bypassed the ER at Myasnikov Private when I’m placed onto a cool surface and Maksim inches back so we can lock eyes. We’re in the security office of my apartment building, but it is far more fitted out than when I reported a suspected attempted burglary six months ago. The back laundry window had been shattered and opened, but nothing was missing, which led me to believe my return home from a late shift had scared the perps off.
“It’s Friday morning,” Maksim announces. “You collected donuts and coffees from Ano yesterday afternoon and ate them with Alla.” He twists a monitor around to face me. It shows me sitting in the makeshift break room Alla and I set up whenever we’re rostered on the same shift. “Do you remember that?”
He cusses under his breath when I shake my head. “I’m sorr—”
His growl cuts me off—and makes me hot, but I’ll keep that to myself. “Don’t apologize for something those fuckers did to you.” The pain in his words cuts me deep, but it has nothing on the torment in his eyes when he asks, “Did they hurt you? Are you hurting anywhere we haven’t checked?” The pure terror in his eyes asks the question he can’t speak. He wants to know if I was raped like my mother was when she was taken.
“No, Maksim. I’m not sore. I feel perfectly fine.” My quivering voice undoes the confidence I am trying to portray. “I feel like I just went to sleep and woke up.”
When my words offer Maksim little comfort, Eva reminds me we’re not the only two people in the room. “I can check.”
“No,” I shout a little too loud. “I’d know if I was hurt like that.” Tears gloss my cheeks when I murmur, “My mother’s injuries couldn’t be hidden. She was torn to shreds…” When a sob replaces my words, Maksim wipes away my tears before shaking his head at Eva’s offer, loosening the valve stopping my lungs from replenishing. “My memories will come back. They’re just buried beneath a heap of fog.”