The Ice Swan полностью

Wynn grabbed her and pushed her against the side of a building, covering her with his body. Svetlana didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see the horrible image before her, but Wynn’s weight immobilized her against the wet stone with her unblinking eyes pinned on the shot man.

Scrambling backward on his hand, the man pulled a gun from his jacket and fired down the alleyway. The shot ricocheted off the walls.

“Cowards! Shooting me in back!” he shouted in Russian. Feet scuffled, growing farther away. “That is right. Run!” He collapsed, clutching his bleeding shoulder.

“Stay here,” Wynn hissed in her ear. His weight lifted from her, leaving a terrible chill in his absence as he rushed to the fallen man.

The blood rushed from Svetlana’s extremities until they shook from deprivation. She watched as if standing in a water bubble that deafened all sound, thought, and movement. She blinked heavily, yet her eyes could not belie what her brain tried to deceive her with. Reds. Guns. A man bleeding. Wynn bending over him, fingers prodding the wound.

He turned to her. Eyes urgent as his mouth moved. What was he saying? She couldn’t hear anything beyond the thudding of her heart.

“Svetlana!” The vacuous bubble burst. Sound and understanding flooded in, shocking her with its force. “Here.”

She shook her head to clear the vestiges of fog and hurried to his side on wobbly legs.

“Do you have a handkerchief?” Wynn’s question rolled in her ear, but the ability to discern its meaning eluded her as she stared at the hurt man’s face. Sickly pale and dotted with rain, he clenched his crooked teeth behind thin lips. Wynn’s voice prodded her once more. “Svetlana. Look at me.”

Slowly Svetlana turned her attention to him as the vacantness threatened its hold once more. Wynn’s gaze was calm, steadying her against the trembling moving through her body.

“Do you have a handkerchief?”

She felt her head shake no.

“Your shawl. Take it off and wrap it around his shoulder while I hold him up. Do you understand?” The man moaned and convulsed. Red seeped between Wynn’s fingers as he pressed against the shoulder. “Svetlana. Look at me. Do you understand?”

She felt herself nodding. So much blood.

“Do it now.” His sharpness cut through the haze, severing her from the stupor it trapped her in.

Whipping off the shawl, she carefully wrapped it under the man’s thick arm and over his shoulder as Wynn propped him up. She tried to focus on her task. Up, over, under. Red splattered the sidewalk. Up, over, under. It feathered out between cracks in the pavement, turning blotchy as raindrops collided with the red rivulets. A life washing into the gutter. She wrapped faster, water squeezing between her fingers.

“The material is too wet to soak up the”—she swallowed against the roil of sickness—“the blood.”

“Better than nothing.” Wynn steadied the man’s head as it lolled to the side. “No you don’t, mate. I need you awake.”

Svetlana didn’t blame the man. If she’d been shot, she’d rather remain unconscious throughout the ordeal as well.

“What shall I do with the ends?”

“Tie them. We don’t need the dressing slipping off before we get to hospital.”

“Nyet!” The man wrestled awake as he cried out in Russian. “No hospital! Do no take me there. Nyet.”

Fresh blood seeped out from the shawl as he flailed in an effort to throw them off. Svetlana had gone to too much trouble wrapping the wound. This fool wasn’t going to undo it all now.

She slapped his pudgy cheek.

“Calm yourself. Do you not see this doctor is trying to help you?”

The man froze and stared at her in disbelief. “Russkaya?”

“Da.” She knotted the ends of the shawl and looked at Wynn, who didn’t seem the least bit distressed by the terrifying situation in which they found themselves. “He says he doesn’t want to go to the hospital.”

“He’s been shot. He doesn’t get much of a choice.”

“There choice, da,” the man said in broken English, bobbing his head and sending rain from his hair streaking into his eyes.

Wynn’s brow lifted. “Oh, speak English, do you? Good. Makes things easier.” He glanced at Svetlana. “Not that I don’t appreciate hearing your lovely interpretations. Grab the umbrella and try to keep it over his wound. Hospital is three blocks over. Can you make it, mate?” Swiping his hands against his trouser leg and leaving a swath of red on the dark gray material, Wynn stood and hooked an arm around the man’s thick waist and hauled him to his feet.

Staggering, the man grimaced in pain. “There choice. Apartment street over. Mine.” He jabbed his finger in the intended direction.