Page 90 of Unhinged

Bleeding through sheets. Crying from pain.

Holding onto the memory of a past I wish I could carve out of my brain forever.

I don’t want to see her right now.

Matvei is behind her, pacing on the phone.

She gentles her voice.

"I went to midwifery school," she says softly. "I know a little bit about these things. I’m not an expert, but I might be able to help. At the very least, I might know people who can."

And right in that moment, I look into the eyes of a woman I just met but have somehow knownforever.

And now, I’m crying for an entirely different reason.

I swipe at my eyes and nod.

"He needs to leave," I whisper.

She looks over her shoulder and holds her head high like the queen that she is, then jerks her chin toward the door.

"Leave us alone."

"I’m not?—"

"Go," she snaps at him.

Even from here, in my daze of confusion, I see the way his eyes narrow, his shoulders snap straight, and then he turns and walks away.

She’s the wife of thepakhan.

He can’t disobey her.

"There," she says with a smile that somehow makes the pain seem a little more bearable.

And then she says something else, but I don’t hear her.

The roaring in my ears drowns out everything as another spasm of pain hits.

I rock. I cry out. I grip the sheets so hard my knuckles turn white.

And it doesn’t stop.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t think.

"Is it endometriosis?" she asks, running through a few other conditions I’ve heard mentioned before, but I don’t know for sure.

Because then, I don’t hear her voice anymore.

The wave of pain assaults me like the lash of a whip on flesh.

Raw.

Brutal.

Unforgiving.

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