“That’s where you and I will always be different,” she said.
Stellan growled like a feral animal. I knew that was the last straw, and we had what we needed. I let go of him, and he took off up the stairs.
When I caught up, he was on a circular landing. This floor was different. Here, too, one side of the building was gone, but the other led to what looked like a bathhouse, with sinks along one side and small rooms to the other.
Stellan ran to the first door on the left hallway. When he turned the knob and found it locked, he yelled something in Russian and slammed his gun into the window that took up most of the door, shattering the frosted glass. Nothing. He ran to the next, and the next, smashing it. “Stop,” I called, running after him. “She’s not here.”
“There is no stop,” he roared, and smashed not his gun but a bare fist through the last door. He turned, blood dripping from his hand. “Lydia!”
Where was she? We were at the top of the building. Through the collapsed wall, I could see out over the ghost town below.
Stellan ran down the only place still left to go—the hallway—and I had no choice but to follow. I held my gun ready, praying Omar had made it here to back us up.
The hall dropped us in a small wooden room. A sauna. It smelled like rot and something sickly sweet. Stellan coughed. “Lydia—” he said, and coughed again. And then I coughed.
“Get out of here,” I said. “Mold. Or something—”
Suddenly, I felt the floor dip beneath me.
I stumbled.
She’s knocking down the building, I thought. That was her final play. She’d trap us—but the walls were moving, too. Not falling, just bowing inward, rolling.
I swayed. Stellan’s footsteps running across the floor, his face in mine. My legs collapsed, and he caught me.
“Avery,” he called, from far away. His blind rage had blinked off, just like that. He was terrified. For me. My head spun.
“Kuklachka.” His voice dragged my mind back. I tried to stand. I couldn’t stand.
Another jolt. Stellan shaking his head, blinking. The floor coming up to meet us as he collapsed, too.
She’s drugged us, said a small, confused voice in the back of my mind. The virus? No. Some other drug. That’s why she brought so few people with her, because she knew she had this. One step ahead— And then, She’ll only capture me. She’ll kill Stellan. Everything in me shattered into panic. In my head, he had a bullet through his heart. In my head, blood was streaming down his face, just like my mom’s. Get up, I shouted to him, but only inside my head. Run. Leave me here. If you’re not okay, I don’t know if I can—
And then Stellan and I were lying on the floor staring into each other’s eyes, but I didn’t know why. There was something I should do say think his eyes were so blue, blue with gold and that meant something, I knew it, but now I only wanted to touch his face. My hands wouldn’t move.
He blinked, trying to talk, but it was a wisp I couldn’t catch. Just his eyes, his eyes watching me fall, like his heart was being ripped out. Mine too. He’d always understood me so well, I felt like he had one hand inside my chest.
I looked down. He did.
We were standing in a bright room, bursts of candy pink and lime green and electric blue and orange. Vines growing on the walls, dust and sunlight, moss and the thick, rich scent of mint and honey.
Stellan had his fingers curled around my heart, still throbbing, dark blood dripping from his fingers to the floor, a gaping hole in my chest. He looked at it like it was something beautiful, precious. And I—
I had his. Cradled in my two palms, warm, raw, just pulled out of his chest. “No,” I whispered, to him, to me, to both. “Put it back.” I couldn’t be responsible for this. It was too much. And I couldn’t trust someone else to hold my heart in their hands either, not after everything. It had been broken and patched together too many times; it was too fragile now. But I’d let him, hadn’t I? I remembered now. I’d let him hold it. Given it to him, even. And he’d given me his. It pulsed in my hands, beat beat beat, all color and warmth and life.
“No,” I said again. He looked up at me, all blue eyes and dappled sunlight. I can’t lose you. You have part of me in your hands, and you will take it with you. The best thing is to put it back.
Please. Put it back.
I thought it was warm in here, but I was getting cold. “Put it back,” I whimpered again.
There was a sharp intake of breath, and a jolt. I was blinking up not at the warm filtered light of the room with the vines, but at the night sky, and Stellan’s face. “Put it back,” I murmured again, shivering.
“Kuklachka,” he said. I felt him set me down and lean over me. He was running his hands over my face, my hair. I reached up to cup his jaw, felt the scratch of stubble under my fingers. That warm room. Where were we? A name broke through the fog. “Anya,” I said, my voice cracking.
“Omar,” he answered, and I knew that was good.
And then I was awake, and I was sure of it because my head hurt, and my throat hurt. She’d drugged us. It had been a dream. Or a hallucination. My heart in his hands. I wanted to put it back in, sew us both up, pretend it hadn’t happened. It was written all over his face here in the real world that he thought I wasn’t okay and that his heart had been carved out just now. Mine had been, too, thinking Lydia could have caught him. He gathered me against him and pressed his forehead to mine, and we held each other, warm and alive, my lashes blinking against his cheekbones, while the stars spun overhead.
I can’t feel this way about you, said the voice inside my head, admitting it even to myself for the first time.
“I can’t not feel this way about you,” he answered. “I’ve tried so hard.”
Had I said that out loud?
A shout, and Stellan looked up. “I knew she’d follow us,” he said. “I sent Omar with Anya in the other direction.”