Page 136 of Sexting the Pakhan

I swallow. “I won’t.”

She studies my face like she’s checking the promise for cracks. Then she lets go.

I leave the bedroom door slightly open. For a moment, I stand in the hallway and listen to them settle. Mila whispers something. Nadia answers in a low voice. Then the room slowly goes quiet.

I turn back toward the kitchen.

Ruslan is still sitting at my table. He has one leg stretched out, the bandage around his thigh dark with blood. His shirt is open at the collar. His face is pale, but his eyes are alert.

He looks completely wrong in my kitchen.

“Are they asleep?” he asks.

“For now.”

He nods once.

I wait for him to say something else.

He does not.

Good.

Bad.

I don’t know.

Karina comes in from the balcony with her phone in her hand. She has been speaking quietly out there for the last few minutes. Her hair is loose around her face, and she looks almost as tired as I feel.

“Dr. Mehra is coming,” she says.

I look at her. “Now?”

“She said twenty minutes.”

“So late?” I ask. “What did you tell her?”

Karina puts the phone down on the counter. “That it was urgent.”

“Karina.”

“I didn’t say bullet wound,” she says quickly. “I said you needed help and couldn’t go to a clinic.”

I stare at her. “She’s going to walk in and see a bullet wound.”

“I know.”

“She’s the girls’ pediatrician.”

“I know that too.”

“So what exactly is the plan?”

Karina glances at Ruslan, then back at me. “The plan is that she gets here, sees what it is, gets angry, and helps anyway.”

“That’s not a plan.”

“It’s the closest thing we have.”