The storm howls like a living thing. In front of me, lying prostrate in the dirt, Ariel screams like the exact opposite: like something unholy and wrong. Through the curtain of rain, I watch as her face—my wife’s face, my f*****g wife—contorts in pain. Every bolt of lightning illuminates it whiter and whiter, worse and worse.
Another contraction hits. Ariel’s fingers dig into the ground. Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth where she’s bitten through her cheek to keep from screaming.
My feet won’t move. I’m caught between the magnetic poles of duty and love, paralyzed by the choice before me.
Feliks’s phone buzzes. He answers, listens, then curses violently in Russian. “Blyat’. Boss—”
“Not now.” My voice sounds strange, distant.
“You need to hear this.” He grabs my shoulder, f
