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)
I crank my head to the side when a familiar but not often-heard voice calls my name. “Nikita?” Boris’s confused gaze bounces between me and the delivery truck for several seconds before it eventually settles on me. “What are you doing here?”
I don’t know how catering operates at the hospital, but it seems weird that they’re taking food out instead of in—particularly when they’re using members of the pathology department to transport it.
Boris is carrying a box of bananas. It is leaking the same watered-down liquid that is dribbled across the floor, but he is heading in the direction of the truck instead of the service entrance.
“I could ask you the same thing.” I step closer to him, whitening his cheeks more. “I didn’t realize you had taken a position with food services.”
“I-I haven’t.”
Suspicion colors my tone. “Then why are you carting boxes of bananas across a loading dock?”
“Because I… ah…” His eyes snap up for barely a second, but the widening of his pupils is all I need to know that I won’t like what happens next.
They hold so much angst, and I learn why when a white cloth is placed over my mouth and nose a second after my feet are hoisted off the ground by the man pinning me to his chest and chloroforming me.
I thrash and kick, but within seconds, my limbs grow as heavy as my eyelids when I work a double shift. My throat feels like it is on fire, and my head is instantly woozy.
I am mere seconds from passing out.
When I no longer have the energy to fight, I’m lowered onto the cold concrete floor, where I drift in and out of consciousness.
I’m barely lucid when a teeming mad voice shouts, “What the fuck did you do?” Its owner’s race across the floor is as frantic as my pulse as I slowly lose consciousness. Fingers press against the vein thudding in my neck before I’m roughly rolled onto my side so I won’t choke on my thickening tongue. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? She’s Maksim Ivanov’s wife!”
“I know who she is but I don’t give a fuck. She isn’t meant to be down here,” says a second voice I’m certain I’ve heard before. “She saw shit she isn’t mea—”
His reply is cut off by a crack similar to a fist colliding with someone’s nose.
“She’s sanctioned. We can’t fucking touch her.”
“Those rules don’t apply to me!”
A scuffle breaks out, but I’m swallowed by the blackness engulfing me before a winner is announced.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Acold breeze blows through my scrubs, but for the first time since moving to Russia, I relish its coolness. My brain feels like it is on fire, as does every muscle I own. My symptoms mimic ones of severe dehydration. My mouth is dry, my breathing is erratic, and I have a fever. Drowsiness is also a sign of dehydration, but the wooziness in my head feels like more than a bit of confusion.
I feel similar to how I did the morning I woke up married.
The reminder has me opening my eyes too quickly for someone with no lubricant in their sockets. They burn from the width of their opening, not to mention my shock at the unknown location I am waking in.
I’m cold because I am outside, and the only thing protecting me from the elements is my surgical scrubs.
When I try to gather my bases, the lady seated a few spots up from me holds her purse close to her body while focusing on a bus approaching the horizon. She shakes like a leaf. She isn’t cold. My presence is scaring her.
I understand why when I catch sight of my reflection in the reflective material of the bus shelter. I look like a wreck. My hair is knotted, my face is covered with dirty stains, and my scrubs have seen better days.
“I… ah…” I clutch my head. It hurts to talk, but I push through the pain. “I need help.” When she tugs her purse in tighter, still scared, I plead, “Please. I don’t know where I am or how I got here…” I scan the unknown location. Even in the darkness of the night, its unkempt state can’t be concealed. Several homeless line the streets, along with a heap of trash and cardboard beds. “Am I still in Myasnikov?”
Her nod is brief, but it offers me immense relief.
“My husband…” I take a break to lube my throat with spit, hopeful some wetness will ease my words out through the burn scalding my veins. “He will be… looking for me. Do you have a phone I could borrow”—another painful breath separates my words—“to call him?”
“No. I don’t have anything. No phone. No money. No jewelry. I have nothing.”
As she returns her eyes to the bus, willing it to hurry up, the moon breaks through a stormy cloud. I squint when its bright rays add to the pounding of my skull.