Page 179 of Sexting the Pakhan

They got through.

I don’t look back. I keep going.

By the time I reach Little Birch, my leg is half useless. I make it there on stubbornness more than anything else. The walk from the main road isn’t long, but today it feels endless. Every step pulls at the wound, and by the time I reach the corner near the school gate, sweat is running down my back under my shirt.

I stop by the low wall beside the footpath and force myself to breathe normally.

The school day is ending. Children spill out through the front gate in clusters, some dragging bags, some running ahead, some already crying because they don’t want to leave. Teachers stand near the entrance smiling too hard, trying to keep order. Parents wait at the curb, half-distracted by phones and half-distracted by their own children.

I stay near the low wall beside the footpath and scan the crowd.

Then I see them.

Mila first, because Mila is impossible not to see. She comes out half skipping, talking before she’s even fully through the gate.

Nadia is beside her, neater, calmer, carrying her own things properly and already looking annoyed by whatever Mila is saying.

Zoya is behind them. She has both lunch boxes in one hand, her keys in the other, and that same tired, focused look she getswhen she’s already thinking about the next three things she has to do before dinner.

For one second, just seeing them all alive and normal is enough.

Then I remember the apartment.

I push away from the wall and start toward them. My bad leg folds under me halfway across the pickup lane. I catch myself, but the stumble throws me farther out than I mean to go, right into the path of Zoya’s car as she starts to pull away from the curb.

The brakes scream. The car jerks to a stop so close I feel the heat from the hood.

For one second, nobody moves.

Then the driver’s door flies open. Zoya gets out, white with shock. She slams the door behind her and comes straight at me. “Are you trying to kill yourself in front of my car?” she snaps.

I brace one hand on the hood because my leg is now shaking badly enough that I need the support. “I was trying to stop you.”

“That’s not how normal people do it.”

“I’m not a normal person.”

“I’ve noticed.”

In the back seat, Mila appears at the window. “Mama, is he hobbling around?”

Nadia leans across beside her. “That seems obvious.”

Zoya doesn’t even turn around. “Stay in the car.”

Then she looks back at me properly and sees the blood on my trouser leg.

Her face changes.

“There were men in the apartment.”

She stares at me. For a second, the whole street feels too loud around us. Children laughing nearby. A teacher calling goodbye. A car door shutting somewhere behind me.

Then she says, very quietly, “What do you mean, there were men in the apartment?”

“They came in after you left.”

Her face goes pale, then hard. “Why didn’t you call me?”