Chapter 259: Not what you think

For a moment, there was only the sound of Helena’s breathing.

Then she crossed the room and sat down beside Sienna. She took her hand in both of hers. Her fingers were still cold.

"Are you really okay, princess?" she asked. Her voice was low and careful. "Could you be..."

She stopped. Her mouth stayed open for half a breath, as if the end of the sentence was too heavy to lift.

"I’m fine, Mother," Sienna said quickly. She said it too fast. She knew it, and she hoped her mother did not.

"I’m just tired. I know my own body."

"Do you?" Helena said it gently. There was no blame in it, only a deep and tired kind of love. She put two fingers under Sienna’s chin and lifted her face, and her eyes searched it slowly, the way a mother looks at a child with a fever.

"Oh, baby."

She was sad. Sienna could see it. She was trying to smile and trying to hold everything together, and the smile kept shaking at the corners.

"We could see a doctor," Helena said. "I can arrange it. Quietly. Today, if you want." Sienna’s hand went stiff.

A doctor. She thought of the lab downstairs with its humming machines. She thought of the wall of papers and her name at the top in careful pen. She thought of white coats in a bedroom doorway.

"So he gets another chance to examine me?" The words came out hard and flat. "So he can use me as the science rat he made me into?"

"Princess, I would never.."

"No, Mother. Thank you. I’ll be fine."

Her hands were shaking in her lap. She pressed them together and hid them in the folds of her clothes. She was afraid that if her mother looked closely, she would see what Sienna was suspecting, and she could not let that happen.

Not now.

Not in this house, with these walls. If it was what she feared, and if anyone found out, they would all be in danger. Every one of them. Her mother, Viktor. She swallowed it down and kept her face still.

Helena looked at her for a long moment.

Then she reached into her pocket and took out a small white bottle. She pressed it into Sienna’s palm.

"Take this. They are vitamins. I take them myself." She closed Sienna’s fingers around the bottle. "They will keep the nausea down."

Sienna looked at it. A plain bottle with a plain label. It rattled softly in her hand. She did not ask how her mother had known she felt sick. "Thank you," she said. "And I’m fine. And I’m not..."

She stopped.

Her shoulders rose, just a little, and then they fell. The rest of the sentence would not come. She could not say okay, because it was a lie, and she could not say anything else, because she did not know what was true.

She was not even sure herself. Helena did not push. She only nodded, slowly, as if the unfinished sentence was an answer too. "Okay, princess."

She wrapped her arms around her in a short, tight hug. She smelled of rain and old perfume.

"I want you to breathe. Tonight, I want you to try and be glad. As much as you can." She pulled back and held Sienna’s shoulders. "Leave the rest to me. If it gets too much, just give me a sign. Any sign. I will come and get you."

Sienna looked past her.

The rack of white gowns stood in the middle of the room, row after row, glittering under the lamp. She stared at them. Her jaw set.

Then she looked back at her mother.

"I’m sorry, Mother," she said. "Those kinds of dinners are not my thing. I’m not a fine princess." Her voice was quiet, but there was iron in it. "Don’t expect things to go quietly tonight. Because they won’t."

It was an honest warning.

Helena did not argue. A small, sad smile touched her mouth, and something else too, something that was almost pride. "I know," she said softly.

She leaned in and kissed Sienna’s forehead, a long kiss, the kind that said more than words. "Get some rest."

She stood and smoothed her suit. At the door, she looked back once. Then she was gone. The door had barely closed when it opened again.

Viktor came straight in. His eyes went to Sienna’s face first, then to the table, then to her hands. He had been standing right outside. Sienna was certain he had not moved.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "Do you need anything else?"

"No."

"Water? Another blanket? I can.."

"Viktor." She held out her hand. "Come sit with me." He stopped. He looked at her hand for a moment. "And eat something too," she added.

He frowned. "I am not hungry." "You haven’t eaten since the plane."

"Sienna."

"You haven’t slept either." She lifted an eyebrow. It was a small, tired expression, but it was all her. "Don’t argue with me. Please."

He stared at her. He was not angry, not exactly. He was worried, so worried that it had curdled into something stiff and stubborn, and he did not know where to put it.

But he saw the look in her eyes. She was asking him to take care of himself because it was the only thing she could do for him.

He let out a slow breath. The fight went out of his shoulders.

"Fine."

He sat down across from her. She pushed the plate with the rice and chicken across the table, and he took a piece of bread and began to eat. He ate slowly, without tasting it. She watched him until he had finished two slices.

Only then did she let herself nod. Later, the plates were pushed aside and the lamp was turned low.

The windows had begun to turn gold, then orange, then a deep soft purple. The white curtains glowed in the fading light.

Sienna lay back against the pillows. Viktor lay beside her, and she tucked herself against his chest. His arm came around her at once, as if it had been waiting. Under her ear, she could hear his heart. It was strong and slow, and it was the steadiest thing in the whole house.

Neither of them talked.

There was nothing left to plan and nothing left to say. They had both counted the doors, the guards, and the weak wall in the garden. They knew the Don’s face, and the red room, and the sound of the gun.

All they could do now was wait. Across the room, the white gowns hung in a long, quiet row. The bottle of vitamins sat on the table, small and plain.

Outside, the sky grew darker, and the house began to light itself, one window at a time. Sienna closed her eyes. Whatever comes tonight, she thought, I will not go down alone.

Viktor’s arm tightened around her. And together, in the quiet, they waited for the night to fall and the worst to begin.