Page 213 of Sexting the Pakhan

Then I hear it too.

A scrape. A low, broken sound from below the side of the ledge, not from the deep bottom of the quarry but closer, somewhere hidden beneath the uneven lip of stone.

I crawl toward it with one arm stretched back to keep both girls behind me.

“Stay there,” I tell them. “Don’t come closer.”

Mila makes a small, terrified noise. “Mama?—”

“Stay there.”

I lean over just enough to see the side of the drop.

A hand appears over the rock.

Bloodied. Muddy. Alive.

For one impossible second, I stare at it without understanding.

Then Ruslan’s face comes into view below the ledge, pale from pain and rainwater, his hair plastered to his forehead, one arm hooked around a thick root jutting out from the quarry wall. His other hand is gripping the stone so hard his fingers look bloodless.

His eyes find mine. “Zoya,” he says, and his voice is rough enough to barely sound like him.

I throw myself forward and grab his wrist with both hands. “Hold on,” I say, because panic has stripped every useful word out of me. “Ruslan, hold on.”

His mouth tightens, and he pushes with whatever strength he has left. The effort tears a sound out of him that makes my stomach twist, but I don’t let go. I dig my knees into the mud and pull until my arms burn, until my back screams, until the rain makes his skin slippery under my hands.

For one horrible second, he slips.

“No,” I gasp. “No, no, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare do this to me.”

Mila screams behind me, and I feel her little hands clutch the back of my sweater as if she can anchor both of us by sheer will. Nadia is crying and shouting something about a branch, about help, about not falling, but her words blur into the rain.

Ruslan’s shoulder clears the ledge. Then one arm.

Then, with one final brutal push, he gets enough of his weight over the edge for me to drag him onto the wet grass.

He rolls onto his back and lies there panting, soaked through, covered in mud and blood, his face turned toward the rain like even breathing is a fight.

I fall over him, both hands on his face, because I need to feel him warm under my palms.

“You absolute bastard,” I sob. “You absolute impossible bastard.”

His eyes open slowly. Even like this, half-conscious and bleeding into the grass, he looks at me with that same unbearable focus, like if the whole world burns down, he will still find me in the smoke.

“Morning,” he rasps.

A broken laugh escapes me before I can stop it, and I press my forehead to his chest because I can’t bear to look at him and can’t bear to look away.

Then my eyes shift past him, down the side of the quarry. Below the ledge, far enough down that I don’t understand how Ruslan survived the fall at all, a body lies twisted on the rocks.

Lenkov? I don’t know the man. Maybe it’s the same one that took info from Karina, maybe it’s not. Ruslan has too many enemies.

Ruslan follows my gaze and closes his eyes for a second. “He’s dead,” he says.

I look back at him, at his chest rising and falling, at the blood soaking through his clothes, at his hand lifting with painful effort until it rests against the back of my head.

Behind me, Mila sobs, “Papa came back.”