Page 190 of Cashmere Ruin
“I LOVED YOU!”
It’s worse than a scream—it’s a howl. Like there’s nothing human left there. Just a broken beast with a bleeding heart.
“I loved you,” Petra exhales when the echoes of her wail die down. “And you betrayed me. You betrayedus.”
“I saved us,” Yuri whispers, his pain just as real.
“No, you killed us. Now go.”
“Petra—”
“GO!” she screams. “Or I swear I will kill myself with the first sharp thing I find.”
It’s as good a threat as Yuri used with me. With us. He took Matvey’s family hostage, and now…
Now, Petra holds hostage his.
With a silent nod, Yuri obeys. He turns around, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, and leaves the same way he came.
The second his steps fade, Petra slumps against the bars. She takes one deep breath, then another. “Okay.” She turns to me, eyes blazing. “Time to get the fuck out of here.”
For once, we are in perfect agreement.
57
MATVEY
At first, I think I’m dreaming.
There’s a hand combing through my hair. There aren’t many people I would give that privilege to, either in this world or the next, and right now, I’m unsure which one I’m in.
But then her scent reaches me. Not like snow and crackling firewood, but like flowers. Battered and bruised, but still stubbornly growing out of the cracks in the concrete.
April.
Her fingers skirt around the edges of my wound carefully, a nasty bump at the back of my head. I can’t have bled much, but I can still feel a matted clump of hair there, even as she does her best to avoid it. Her warmth surrounds me. When I move, my cheekbone grazes the exposed part of her knees.
If this is heaven, you can leave me right here.
“Dummy,” April snorts. “Heaven can wait. I still need you on planet Earth.”
It’s the one request I can’t deny.
I drag myself upright, already mourning the warmth of April’s lap, and scan my surroundings. It’s not very bright, but I’m used to the darkness by now. In a handful of seconds, my eyes have adjusted, and I can make out the place I’ve been tossed into.
A cold, damp cell.
“Rise and shine,solnyshko.”
Yep. Definitely not heaven.“I take it our fathers couldn’t splurge on separate cells?” I mutter, head pounding like crazy.
“Nope. Stingy motherfuckers.”
“How are you feeling?” April asks me, all concern. I finally take in her face: soot-stained, hair sticking to the sweat on her brow, her smudged makeup turning her into a raccoon.
She’s never been more beautiful to me.
“I should be asking that.” I take her hands in mine and squeeze. Her fingers are cold as ice, as if she’d been holding on to the iron bars for hours before I joined her. Guilt pierces me at the thought: once again, I’ve done too little, too late. “If they did something to you, I swear?—”