Chapter Thirty Four
Alexei
You have to eat, koshechka.” The words come out rougher than I intend them, rife with frustration.
It has been a week since I pulled her from the pit.
Her stitches have been removed. Her lacerations have scabbed over; a combination of attentive care and the antibiotics the doctor prescribed. Her body is healing.
The rest of her is not, even if she is not catatonic any longer. It took another two days to snap her out of it, but it is clear that she is still not well. Worse still, she has yet to speak a word—to me, or to anyone. She ignores anyone who approaches her. Except for me.
From me, she flinches. Katya fears me now.
Every ounce of affection I won from her has faded in the wake of that fear.
She will not meet my eyes. She indulges in none of the things she once enjoyed.
The Katya who delighted in her many bottles of nail polish, in burying herself in books and watching her documentaries and crime dramas—that Katya is gone.
She will not return to our room willingly.
Every night, when the sedatives that help her sleep through it begin to take effect, she disappears.
I have to track her movements on the security feed, find her in whatever deserted corner of the house she has hidden herself away in to sleep, and carry her back to our bed.
She figured out early that a locked door would not keep me from her.
Every morning when she wakes, she jerks herself away from the safety of my arms and flees.
She is back to the escape attempts. Three days ago I was forced to remove her fingerprint from the security system when I caught her looking at the razor wire that wreaths the fences with true consideration, and again she is confined solely to the house.
Now every day she searches once more for vulnerabilities in my security.
I know she will not find them, but the thought of losing her chills me.
She suffered once because I only thought she ran from me.
She must believe she risks it again on the possibility of escape. But she would rather suffer than stay.
Staying is worse than suffering.
I can see her retreating as I approach, curling into herself.
Her bare feet curl beneath the hem of the oversized sweater she wears, one of several I bought for her because she will not wear her own things any longer.
She makes herself as small as possible, and a sliver of pain slices through my heart.
This is the same thing she did in the video Anatoli delivered to me, the one he recovered from her family’s security system.
When her father, her uncles, crowded around her as she lay on the floor chained to a steel pole, raining blows with their feet anywhere left unprotected.
The dull thud of boots into flesh sickens me still.
And Katya could only curl herself into a tight little ball, protecting herself as best she could.
She protects herself from me as she did from them.
They bruised three of her ribs and gave her a severe concussion. They cut her beautiful skin with a box cutter, gave her scars she will bear forever. And then they threw her back to me, hoping I would kill her for them. Just lately, I have wondered if it might have been kinder if I had.
I kneel beside her chair, watching, waiting—striving for a patience that is against my nature.
Her breakfast, gone cold well over two hours ago, sits untouched on the table before her.
She is wasting away before my eyes. Malnourished, as the doctor said.
Starving, because she will not eat enough even to keep a bird alive.
“Look at me, koshechka,” I urge, but her eyes are squeezed tightly shut.
Expecting a blow. This is what I have taught her to anticipate from me.
Pain. Terror. Abuse. My fingers find her hair, stroking through the silky strands like I used to.
Like she used to enjoy. Now, she trembles like a leaf in a high wind. She expects only pain from me.
“No? Listen, then.” My fingertip strokes the shell of her ear.
“You are never going back there, no matter what you do. I will never again let anyone take you from me. I will never send you down into the dark, and I will never let you be hurt, no matter the provocation.” She cringes from my fingers, and my stomach curdles.
My words are worthless to her, my apologies and promises meaningless, of no substance.
My touch is an insult; an abomination she only endures because she must. I force down the sympathy that makes me want to coddle her, to cosset her.
“Katya, I am running out of patience. If you will not care for yourself, you force me to do this instead.”
She buries her face in her folded arms, as if she can will me away if she only refuses to look. She is fearful even now, bracing herself for a blow that will not come.
“Your breakfast has grown cold,” I say. “I will have a fresh plate sent up—but you will eat it.” I let the weight of a threat seep into the words, and I know by the shiver that runs through her that she will take them to heart.
I hate that I must use her fear against her; it only reinforces her lack of trust in me.
But her health is more important than my feelings, more important than her dread. And she is wasting. Fading.
Soon enough she will slip through my fingers, insubstantial as a shadow.
She makes a sound of palpable relief when I let my fingers fall away from her face.
And I go to give the order for a fresh breakfast—and to take my unspent rage out upon Piotr.
∞∞∞
It is an hour later that I watch her race out of the library in a panic over the security feed, just moments after her fresh breakfast was delivered to her there.
I feel like a voyeur lately. The bulk of my time is spent watching her like this.
My presence upsets her; this is the only way I can watch her without inciting fear.
I track her through the house in her frantic flight.
She tries windows, doors, skirts members of my staff.
They have been instructed to let her pass, only to intervene if she runs any risk of actually succeeding in her little escape attempts.
But my home is secure. There is no way for her to make it outside.
She is not worried about being discovered today. She is only desperate. There is usually a bit more finesse to her attempts, more subterfuge. Today looks only for an opportunity—any opportunity.
I watch as she crashes at last into a receiving room on the ground floor, overlooking the street.
There is a fireplace against the far wall.
I know her plan even before she does. She grabs the poker, wields it like a weapon, and smashes it against the window.
The shock of the strike ricochets back, and she nearly topples over the coffee table behind her.
My windows are bulletproof. Every man in my position would have the same.
They can withstand far more than the few puny blows she manages to inflict.
Perhaps she might have succeeded in inflicting a few scratches, but nothing serious.
She knows this already; she has already tried this tactic with a bronze bust.
But she tries again anyway. A few more blows, and her chest is heaving with the effort, her whole body shaking.
She is weak enough already; she cannot withstand much more of this.
I see the moment the realization hits her.
If this room, this tiny room in a disused corner of the house, is so well-protected—she stands no chance. There is no escape.
A sob tears out of her throat; the poker clatters to the floor. She drifts slowly back to the library, exhausted, dejected. The fresh plate rests there upon the table like a taunt. Her shoulders shake with the force of her sobs. At last she drops to her knees and begins to eat.
No, not eat—Christ. She is shoveling the food into her mouth with both hands, choking it down as fast as she can. She gags around a mouthful of blueberry muffin.
Fuck. I am already out of my seat. The library is close, and I run.
I hear the barely-contained sounds of retching even before I enter the room. She is trying to eat past the impulse to vomit, scooping up a handful of eggs with her fingers. “Koshechka, stop,” I command.
It is too much food, but her escape attempt proved fruitless, and she cannot trust me not to put her back in the pit. She cannot trust me not to hurt her. She would rather choke herself trying to fulfill my order than test my promise.
She does not stop eating. Not until I pry the plate from her hands, casting it into the corner where it splinters into pieces, scattering the remains of her breakfast against the wall, the floor.
Her stomach heaves; her face is a pale, sallow color.
Tears course down her cheeks. Her fingers are greasy with the remnants of buttery eggs.
The smell of fear is acrid in the room, tainting every breath I take.
Another choking heave. Her whole body shakes with exertion. As if her strength has deserted her, she pitches forward onto her hands, and her stomach empties itself. In between heaves, she sobs—deep, wracking sounds dredged up from her soul.
I scrape her hair away from her face, gather it in one hand.
Rub her back while she retches. The trembling becomes deep shudders, the sobs become whimpers of pain and humiliation and fear.
She is left pale and weak, so drained and empty she cannot even pull herself away from me.
She reeks of sweat and bile and vomit, and her skin is cold and clammy.
She is stiff with fright, only waiting to know the fate I have selected for her. For trying; for failing.
I curl my hand around the nape of her neck, forcing her head against my chest. “I’m sorry,” I murmur against the top of her head.
“In future, you should eat as much as you are able. I should have said this.” She skitters away the instant I release her, her damp palms sliding across the tile floor. “Go to bed,” I tell her.
And then, as she scrambles for the door, her relief to have been spared a tangible thing, I add, “Koshechka. Go to our bed.”
Just so we are clear.
∞∞∞
She has followed my instructions to the letter, while exercising as much defiance as she feels is safe. She is curled up in a tiny ball at the very foot of the bed, swathed beneath a mound of blankets. The furthest she can get from my intention while still complying with my words.
I much preferred her outright defiance. But that was for a time when she knew I would never hurt her. Now, that fragile illusion has shattered. She is shattered.
I balance a tray across my thighs as I sit at the edge of the bed and stretch my arm across the vast expanse of bed that separates us, finding her hip with my palm.
Even through the thick padding of the blanket, she feels thinner.
I know just how much weight she has lost lately, how her collar bones jut, the delicate framework of her ribs.
I know how much less substantial she feels in my arms every night I retrieve her from one of her hiding places.
Last night I found her in the laundry room, sound asleep where she had tucked herself back beneath the folding table. The door closed; the light off. Even the darkness which she hated is now more friend to her than I am, if she thinks it will hide her from me.
“Koshechka,” I say, and my voice is raw, guttural. “Come and eat.”
She is not asleep, but she is feigning it. Still, her body is stiff beneath my hand—a reaction she cannot control. An instinctive rejection.
“If you will not eat, you will have to have a feeding tube.” My fingers curl into the plush batting of the blanket. “I do not want that for you, koshechka. But you have to eat.”
There is a faint sigh, tired and resigned.
Gradually, she shoves herself up on arms that tremble and shake with her new fragility.
She drags herself to her knees, wrapped in a protective layer of blankets.
Her arms emerge, stretched out for the tray.
Her face is averted; her disheveled hair obscuring most of it.
Her lashes are lowered, hiding her eyes from me.
I set the tray aside, perching it upon the table at the side of the bed and pat my thigh. “Come here, koshechka.”
Her chin jerks; a soft denial.
“This is not a request.” I hate that I have to capitalize upon her fear to force her capitulation.
I hate that she no longer trusts the hand I extend to her, that it is only her dread that sends her scrabbling across the surface of the bed toward me.
I hate that her shirt sticks to her spine with a sheen of sweat, that there is no ease in her stiff posture.
I hate that she takes no comfort from the slide of my palm down her back.
I reach for the tray, settling it beside me once more, stirring the spoon in the bowl of soup.
Vegetables dance in the thin broth, floating alongside chunks of chicken and thick egg noodles.
Probably I made a mistake in trying to get her to eat such heavy fare for breakfast. Too dense, too rich for a stomach so long deprived.
She never had a chance of success. The soup is simple, but nutritionally sound.
I lift the spoon to her lips, and slowly, resentfully, she eats. One bite at a time, never relaxing the stiff board of her spine. Only enduring. Silent. Reproachful.
And for long moments, I pretend. I pretend I am not feeding a woman whose broken body is slowly healing.
I pretend I am not responsible for the yellowing bruises I see upon her thin wrists.
I pretend I am not responsible for her wasting form.
I pretend she is not constantly seeking new avenues of escape.
I pretend she does not hide from me in this house that should be home and haven to her, that I do not know she spends hours each day sitting beneath the hot spray of a shower in some deserted guest room.
I pretend I believe that I can win her back. That I can earn her trust again.
I pretend I can fix what I have broken between us.
Eventually she turns her face away from the spoon with a small sound of protest. I turn my attention to the bowl—she has consumed less than a quarter.
Not nearly enough to sustain her, but it is still more than she has eaten lately.
So I don’t fight her. I will let this be a battle she wins—for now.
“Okay, koshechka. You can—”
She is already gone. Her bare feet pound upon the floor as she flees. I might as well be talking to myself.
But there is nowhere to run that I cannot find her. Nowhere to hide where I will not discover her. She is safe here, no matter where she goes. But she will not find the one thing she truly desires: safety from me.