Page 125 of Scarlet Thorns
I think I might love this woman.
The admission steals breath from lungs that already burn with panic. Love. The word I’ve forbidden myself my entire life now comes to me without warning. Without permission.
Ilona, with her gentle strength and beautiful eyes. Ilona, who carries my child like she’s already claimed both of us as her own.
Ilona, whose father I put in the ground with my own hands.
Hours pass. Or maybe minutes— time becomes meaningless when you’re suspended between hope and hell. Hospital staff move past like I don’t exist, their faces carefully neutral in the way medical professionals perfect when dealing with families who might shatter at the wrong expression.
“Mr. Sidorov?”
Dr. Varga’s voice cuts through the fog of my spiraling thoughts. I look up to find him standing in surgical scrubs that are somehow too clean— no blood, no obvious signs of crisis. But his face…
Khrenov, his face tells me everything before he speaks.
“We had to save Ilona’s life, Osip.” He sits beside me, voice gentle but clinical. “And she’s still not out of the woods. We had to perform an emergency procedure to stop the hemorrhaging.”
The words hit like bullets, sharp and merciless, dropping me to my knees before I even realize I’m bleeding.
Save her life.
Still not out of the woods.
Emergency procedure.
“And I’m afraid…” He pauses, the silence stretching until I want to wring the words from him. “She lost the baby.”
The world goes dark around me.
The baby.
Lost.
Another child gone. Gone before I could hold them, protect them, prove I could be better.
My vision narrows to a pinpoint of light surrounded by crushing darkness. The hospital chair beneath me might as well be a cliff’s edge.
“Let me see her.” The words scrape out in a voice I barely recognize.
“I’m sorry, you can’t right now. Maybe in a few days.” Dr. Varga’s voice seems to be distorted by the roaring in my ears.
“Why the fuck not?” I snarl, my hands curling into fists to stop myself from grabbing him by the throat.
It’s not his fault.
This isn’t his fault.
Still, I can’t help wanting to kill him.
The bearer of bad news.
That’s all he is.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
Old habits die hard.
“We’re still doing checkups,” he’s saying, his voice seeming to come from a distance, “and she’s heavily sedated. She has a severe infection— we need to keep her in a sterile environment. Go home and get some rest.”
