I’ve never felt more powerless in my life. Not even when my father had barbed wire around my throat. At least then, I knew how to fight back.
But this? This is a different kind of helplessness entirely. All I can do is hold on and pray to a God I stopped believing in long ago that He’ll keep her safe through this night.
In the strobe of Feliks’s phone and the intermittent lightning, I count the seconds between Ariel’s pulses. They’re rabbit-quick under my palm. Too fast. The medical kit lies gutted at our feet: gauze, scissors, a half-roll of surgical tape. Useless tools for this wet, screaming dark.
Zoya’s hands disappear between Ariel’s legs. “Head’s crowning.”
Ariel’s breath hitches. “No—no, it’s too soon—”
“Breathe,” I order, thumbs digging into the base of Ariel’s spine. She’d m
