Page 75 of Savage Hearts

Also in Russian, the answer comes from my right.

It’s a man’s voice. He sounds nervous. I sense there are others nearby, watching silently, just as nervous as him.

When Malek responds, I understand it, so it must be in English. But my brain is as fuzzy as a cotton ball. Whatever’s getting pumped into my arm is dragging me quickly toward unconsciousness.

“Do it,” he growls. “If she dies, so do all of you.”

The words slip-slide out of my grasp even as they’re spoken, rising up on lazy drafts of air to echo against the ceiling until they fade away.

A wave of darkness crashes down and swallows me whole.

Like a tide, the darkness slowly recedes.

Dappled light filters through my closed eyelids. I smell him somewhere close by, that heady scent of a dense nighttime woods. My pulse surges. A steady mechanical beeping accelerates to match it. I must be hooked up to a monitor.

“Live, little bird,” Mal says, close to my ear, his voice low and urgent. “Fly back to me.”

I drag my eyelids open long enough to glimpse him there, hovering over me like the angel of death, beautiful and otherworldly, his pale eyes burning bright.

I understand that he believes I’m going to die.

He takes my cold hand and squeezes it. Hard. He commands gruffly,“Live.”

The tide of darkness rolls in to claim me once again.

I’m lifted in strong arms. The pain is excruciating, but I can’t cry out. I have no power over any part of my body, including my vocal cords. I’m limp, my limbs dangling lifelessly like a doll’s. I don’t have enough energy to even open my eyes.

I’m also cold. Freezing cold.

I’ve been entombed inside an iceberg.

Then there’s movement. Disorienting movement. I can’t tell what direction is up or down. The arms that were carrying me have disappeared. I’m stretched out on a comfortable surface.

I must have been placed flat, but can’t remember it. I also still can’t open my eyes.

Something soft and heavy covers my body. A low hum of noise soothes my screaming nerves. A rocking motion lulls me into a trance. I’m cradled in warmth and security, and though the pain in my body is intense, I feel strangely calm. Calm and detached from myself, as if I’m floating weightlessly in the air several feet away, observing.

Maybe I’m dead already.

I thought the afterlife would be less painful than this.

The rocking slows, then stops. I inhale a breath that smells like snow.

“Good evening, sir. May I see your passport, please?” The voice is male, friendly, and unfamiliar.

After a pause, the friendly man speaks again. “How long do you plan to stay in Canada, sir?”

“A few days.”

“Are you here for business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure. I’ve always wanted to see Niagara Falls from the other side.”

“Do you have anything to declare?”

“No.”

There’s another pause, then the friendly man wishes Mal a safe journey.