Page 78 of Depraved Royals

With a wet, strangled yelp, Idina’s voice cuts off.

I can’t see what’s happening. Then Vera claps her hand to her mouth.

“Oh dear God,” she says.

I drop to my knees beside Marta. She’s cradling Dani in her arms. Her clothes are thick with blood, her stomach and thighs soaked. I can’t see where it’s coming from.

I look around, trying to gauge how much blood she’s lost, and I realize that it’s mixing. Idina’s is different - it has that thick, dark arterial quality that is only seen in people who rapidly bleed to death.

She fell on her knife.

The blade sliced cleanly through her jugular, the blood pumping only for a few seconds before ebbing away. Her eyes are open but blank, her wrathful expression frozen on her face.

My mother died as she lived. Consumed by hatred and twisted by trauma. She could have chosen a different path, but even when she was given a second chance, she squandered it, preferring to hold onto her pain.

I’m not going to make the same mistake.

“Hold on, Dani,” I say, pressing my forehead to hers. She’s whimpering, and I kiss her between her eyes. “Just hold on.”

* * *

Fyodor and Marta are waiting outside.

The obstetrician sets up the ultrasound machine.

I’m wracked with worry.

Dani is lying on her bed. She’s so pale, the hollows of her eyes purple. She looks exhausted and so afraid.

I did this.

I brought my mother into her home in a last-ditch attempt to make amends, never suspecting she’d do something so utterly unhinged. I should have listened to my gut and not let Dani’s hope and faith in me blind me to the danger.

When Idina said ‘It’s all my fault,’ I fuckingknew. That’s what she used to say sarcastically before launching into one of her rants about how, in fact, nothing was her fault. How everyone conspired against her. How she was unappreciated, unloved, and unwanted.

The obstetrician powers up the doppler wand.

“The wound to your abdomen is superficial,” she says, “and the closure adhesive will hold it for a few days until it heals. But you fell hard, and the cramps you’ve been getting worry me.”

“They worry me, too,” Dani replies.

She’s trying so hard to stay calm, but her hand trembles in mine. I’m lost in admiration for her. Her world has fallen apart several times over in less than twenty-four hours, and here we are, waiting to see whether we get to keep our souls intact. But she’s keeping it together.

Me? I’m fucking losing it.

The obstetrician moves the doppler around, pressing it to Dani’s lower abdomen. She moves around a little, pushing a little harder.

“Sorry, Dani. I know it hurts where the wound is. Bear with me.”

A minute passes.

Nothing.

The obstetrician squeezes gel onto Dani’s stomach. No one says anything as she glides the transducer over her skin.

The image window is surrounded by lines of text that mean nothing to me, but I know that the picture needs to have more than what it shows right now. A featureless black, peppered with the occasional flurry of static.

Dani is crying now.