Chapter 16 #2
I say run, but he might as well be flying, just without wings and across the ground instead of in the air.
We move at incredible speeds, but I don’t dare open my eyes.
I can’t help the scream that comes out of my throat, and he holds me tighter against him.
The wind is freezing at my back where his arms aren’t warm bands around me.
All around us, the storm howls louder and louder. Does he even know where he’s going? Where is he going?
Is he trying to outrun the storm? Is that possible? Considering how fast we’re moving, maybe it is. I just want it to stop. I have a terrible feeling that the only way out is through, even if I have no idea where we’re going through to.
Kharon moves with certainty, and I just have to trust him.
Trust is unnatural to me. But it’s not like I can stop and ask him if he knows what he’s doing. We’re barreling forwards at incredible speeds, and there’s no getting off this rollercoaster now that I’m on it.
Finally, he slows down, even though the winds around us are still roaring. It feels like we’ve traveled an incredible distance, but we still haven’t outrun the storm. How big is it? Or did he get lost in all the white, and we’re just running in circles?
“I need to set you down for a moment,” he shouts.
I nod, not trusting my voice. He sets me on my feet, but they’re rubbery with shock and the sweeping winds. I’m immediately knocked over into the soft, powdery snow. I decide staying down is my best move and watch from the ground as Kharon starts digging in the snow.
What on earth is he doing now? Did he decide he couldn’t outrun the storm, so he’ll just dig us a ditch and wait it out?
Then my eyes widen on my next blink, and amid the gusting snowfall. . . wait, there’s a stone building there! I just couldn’t see it at first because there’s so much snow around it. Does this mean we’re closer to civilization than I thought?
Except when I whip my head around to try to see any more buildings, it’s still all just white. There aren’t any lights. Maybe they were knocked out by the storm? I shield my eyes with my hands and try to look around more, but with the whiteout conditions, it’s useless.
I can barely see Kharon, and he’s only feet away from me. He’s digging with all his arms in a whir of motion so fast I can barely see his arms windmilling.
He quickly unearths what might be a window? Or what was once a window is now just a hole. Which makes my heart sink a little. Whatever this place is, it’s been abandoned for who knows how long.
As I come closer, I can make out walls and a roof, but the whole thing looks old and encrusted with ice and snow. Not a place where anyone has lived for a long time.
Kharon reaches for me, and I get to my feet and scurry forwards, still being knocked around by the whipping winds as I try to cover the short distance.
He pauses to unzip his pack. I look through the window and immediately scramble backward, falling in the snow again, heart in my throat. What the hell?
I can’t see much inside because it’s pitch dark, and all the other windows are covered with snow, but by the steep drop, it’s clear he dug out an upper window. I can’t see the ground. Just open, empty space before the gray from the window he’s unearthed becomes the deepest darkness.
The wind whips at the pack so much that Kharon has to hold it still with four hands while he digs through it with his other two. My eyes widen when I see him pull out a belay rope. He closes the pack and turns towards me.
He pulls me out of the snow with a strong grip around my waist and, with another pair of hands, begins looping the rope around my waist and legs. I’m padded from the rope because of my coat and snow pants.
I want to say no way are you lowering me down into that freaky chasm, but the storm, which seems to be getting louder and angrier around us, stops me from protesting.
My heart leaps into my throat when he lifts me, one pair of hands on my waist and another underneath my armpits, and hefts me through the open window. My feet hit open air and start bicycling, and the rope around my legs and waist pulls taut.
He’s still holding me, but I know he’ll let go any moment, and it’ll just be the thin rope keeping me aloft.
It’s fine. No problem at all. Just like the Sevastopol job.
There was no way into my target’s room, so I had to belay in from the roof through his window.
I spent a lot of time at the climbing gym preparing and getting comfortable in the gear.
It always seemed foolish that I should be afraid of something silly like heights after all I’d been through in my life.
I think Kharon tries to shout something, but the roaring wind makes it impossible to hear. I reach for him, but too late, his hands let go, and I scream, reaching above my head as I drop a few inches before the bouncy rope catches me.
I’m completely suspended in the air for a second, clinging to it with my gloved hands above my head.
Then he slowly lets me down into the pitch-black space.
My heart beats loudly in my ears. I twist on the rope, which just makes me spin around and around.
I’m furious at my lack of control. At my fear.
But it’s so dark on all sides, and I have no idea when I’ll hit the floor or even how far down it is.
It feels like he’s lowering me down forever into darkness. And it’s creepily quiet after the howling wind. When my kicking feet finally hit stone, I screech again.
Kharon calls down from above. “Ksenia!”
“I’m fine,” I shout back, climbing out of the rope and sitting on the floor, shuddering from the experience.
I hate being out of control like that. I’m very ready to be back in my world, where I can make meticulous plans, study all the variables, and like chess, prepare many moves ahead for different contingencies.
Instead, all I can do now is wait uselessly, assuming that Kharon will find something to anchor the rope to so he can lower himself down the three-story drop.
I keep my eyes glued to the rectangle of light above, eyebrows lifting in shock when I see him crawl through, holding onto the sides of the opening with one pair of arms and jerking the large pack through with another pair.
Then he just leaps.
I shriek in alarm, covering my mouth with my hand and stumbling back further into darkness—
And lands smoothly in a crouch.
“Why did you do that?” I yell at him. “You could have gotten hurt.”
He just stands up and shrugs, slinging the pack off his back. “I am hard to kill,” is all he says, calmly digging through the pack and pulling items out.
I huff out a breath and hug my arms around myself. Even though it’s cold down here, it’s far milder than the breath-stealing freezing air outside.
“What is this place?” I look around. We’re in an obviously and ridiculously tall and large room; that much is clear, but not much more. My eyes are adjusting to the dark, but everything’s still just the dimmest outline. “Is there a flashlight in there?”
Kharon doesn’t answer. He just keeps rifling through the bag and pulls out a flashlight, holding it out to me.
“Stay close,” he growls. I snatch up the flashlight. It takes a moment considering my thick gloves, but I finally click it on.
I gasp as soon as I turn the light beam around, backing into him when I see how large the space is.
We’re in an old church. Behind the altar, gold-painted icons of saints stretch to the ceiling, dusty but in miraculously good condition considering the obvious age of the church and that we’re in the middle of nowhere.
“How did you know this was here?” I ask, turning back to him.
He doesn’t answer, his face grim and closed off. “I’ll get the fire going,” is all he gives me, pointing to the big masonry stone stove at the back of the church.
I’m familiar with the heating that older village houses still use.
Dad hid out everywhere, and we spent one winter in an off-the-beaten-path Romanian village with a similar if much smaller, stove.
The house had smooth-packed dirt floors and an outhouse out back.
I was nine, and it was one of the best years of my life because Dad and I were actually together.
The two years prior, he’d sent me to live with his mother, a grouchy, ancient-looking woman (or so I thought at the time) who didn’t seem to like children much.
“It might take me a while to clear out the flue,” Kharon says, then lopes off towards the stove without another word, reaching for a long metal cleaning brush and climbing into the brick stove.
It effectively cuts off all conversation, and I’m left to my curiosity about him and this place as I sit and watch him clean for about half an hour. He finally emerges from the stove, his blue skin covered in soot.
I burst out laughing, which feels strange and sacrosanct, not because we’re in a church, but because of the day we’ve had. That only makes me laugh harder.
“Can we heat up some extra water?” I ask. “You’re all dirty.”
He smiles at me lopsidedly, and it suddenly strikes me that he’s actually very attractive once you get used to his exaggerated features. Even with soot streaked across his face. I’m a little taken aback by my wildly swinging emotions as he responds, “Water, we have plenty of.”
He bounds off on all fours again, startling me with his burst of activity.
I can only watch, astonished, as he leaps up the entire three-story drop, arms outstretched as he easily catches hold of the window ledge we descended through.
My mouth drops open as I watch him collect armfuls of snow before jumping back down. Again, he makes a smooth landing.
He smiles at me with a boyish grin. I shake my head at him, a little giddy now that we’re safe in this strange sanctuary. “That’s frozen water.”
“Not for long.” He lopes back to the stove and reaches underneath, where there’s actually still wood.
I’m beyond surprised, but he looks like he expected it.
The wood is extremely dry, and when he lights it with a match from the backpack, it catches immediately and starts to burn well.
The stove is huge, and Kharon is obviously used to this type of setup because he expertly grabs a cauldron pot hanging over the open flame and fills it with snow.
It’s melting within moments.
I dig through the pack and find a small cloth. Once the water is a little warmer, I take off my glove and dip it in.
“Turn around,” I tell him. “I’ll help wash off the soot.”
“Oh.” He blinks, and his fast, sure movements slow for the first time. Then the big man pauses and sits down with his back to me.
Even though cleaning him felt like the obvious thing to do moments ago, my hand suddenly trembles as I reach towards his skin with the steaming cloth. It feels silly to pull back now when I’m the one who suggested it.
So I tell myself to be brave. I took out the Mikhailov Bratva’s number two captain, after all. I can certainly handle. . . my breathing gets a little shorter. . . whatever this is. Just helping an associate out. That’s all.
So why does my breathing stay uneven as I rub the cloth down his large, muscled back?
There’s a slight hump on the top of his back where the cluster of his arms come together in multiple shoulders.
It shouldn’t work, but somehow, it all fits.
He doesn’t seem monstrous. He’s actually. . . quite majestic up close like this.
I bite my bottom lip. It’s so satisfying to bring back his blue skin, a clean streak showing through the soot.
The big man in front of me shivers. I didn’t think he would be bothered by the cold. “Is this. . . okay?” I ask, and my quiet voice sounds loud in the echoey room.
“Yes,” he barks out, his voice a little strangled sounding. “Please continue.”
I blink a few times, then reach out again.
Tentatively and very aware of every motion and the drip of the cloth, I start at the top of his large, muscled shoulders. Again, he shivers as soon as I make contact.
I can feel his strong, warm skin beneath the wet fabric as I rub down his shoulder. Once, and then again.
I have to dip the cloth often. I like how the warm water feels on my hands. I like watching the soot get cleaned off and his blue skin reappear with every stroke of the fabric.
And I really, really like the feel of his muscled, hot body beneath my hands as I wash every inch of his back, caressing the dimple and sinew of each thick bicep, arm by arm, until I reach his forearms.
He removed the large cauldron from directly over the fire once it started getting too hot, so I wring the cloth out one last time.
I want to continue, but even I have to admit, there’s no more soot.
“I guess you can get your front half,” I say, feeling silly that I washed as much of his arms as I did when he could probably reach a lot of that himself.
So I’m surprised when he says, “If you wanted to continue, I. . . wouldn’t mind. That is to say. . . would you?”
I swallow hard and realize that maybe he’s been enjoying this as much as I have. I look as near to his eyes as I’ve ever dared, directly below them at his cheeks.
I feel my own cheeks flush hot and nod. “Yes, I’d like that.”
I avert my gaze to the ground as he shifts in front of me, turning to face me, still seated. It makes my belly flop to be so close to him without his shirt on. Which makes me blink in shock.
Because it’s not just my belly that’s. . . tingling.
I suck in a breath as I dip the fabric in the steaming pot and step between his legs to bring the cloth to the front of his shoulders and then drag it down his chest. . .