Chapter 3 Willow
WILLOW
My chest heaves, and my nose is filled with the sickly sweet stench of rotting wood, mildew, and dust.
I’m lying face down on the floor now, where Ilya dumped me in a heap once he dragged me back to the spot where he had me tied up to the now broken chair. My heart races, both from the exertion of my escape attempt and from the fear of what will happen to me now.
I was so close, but not close enough.
Ilya has me again, and he’s pissed off.
I twist and writhe in place, trying to get my wrists free of the ropes that still hold them tight behind my back. There’s a little more give in them than there was before, now that the angle of my arms has changed since I’m not tied to the chair anymore.
Before I can try to make use of that bit of extra room, Ilya grabs me, rolling me onto my back roughly. I wince when my arms get pinned awkwardly behind my back, my weight resting on them.
Ilya’s face is twisted into a mask of anger and disdain, and he cuts away the ropes wrapped around my torso. Then he slides his hands over me, his blunt fingers dipping into the spaces where his knife cut my shirt, touching my skin.
Revulsion rushes up inside me, making me feel sick, and I try to squirm away, but there’s nowhere to go.
He cups my breasts, squeezing them painfully, dragging his palms over my nipples.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” he says, spitting the words out around his thick Russian accent. “You’re making my job harder, but I will see it done.”
“Fuck you!” I hiss, all of my fear coming out as helpless anger.
“Ha.” Ilya’s dark eyes scan over my body, but there’s no heat in them. Just disgust and rage. “Maybe I should fuck you. You’re an ugly little thing, but I’m sure your pussy is tight enough.”
He pinches one of my nipples hard, giving it a twist, and I bite down on my bottom lip to keep from crying out in pain. His other hand comes down between my legs, cupping me through my pants.
“No!” I gasp out, struggling even harder as I try to squirm out of his grasp. “No, don’t—”
He chuckles, the sound rough and deep. “Believe me, you aren’t my type,” he assures me. “A scrawny, scarred little thing like you. But maybe splitting you open on my cock will make you learn your place.”
I was already almost lightheaded with fear, but the terror that grows in me as I hear him speak those words makes me feel dizzy and sick. Memories of his brother rush back all over again, that awful night all those weeks ago blending with this one until it’s hard to distinguish between them.
For a second, I’m back in that room at the brothel, sprawled out on the bed, trying to grapple with the panic that grips me.
Nikolai’s hands are everywhere, ripping my clothes, touching my skin.
The panic and the remnants of the drugs still in my system make it hard to keep a hold on what’s real and what’s not, and Ilya’s face keeps blurring and morphing above me—his one second, and Nikolai’s the next.
Ilya’s hand slides up my body, dragging over my chest up to my neck and then to the side of my face.
“Look at me,” he demands, gripping my chin roughly as he turns my head so I have to stare up at him.
My entire body is buzzing with adrenaline, and his fingers are close enough to my mouth that I lash out on instinct.
I twist my chin out of his grip and then bite down hard on one thick, calloused finger. The iron-tinged tang of blood on my tongue lets me know I broke the skin, flooding my senses and making me gag.
“Fucking bitch!” Ilya snarls, rearing back and snatching his hand away from my mouth.
Without his weight on me, I can struggle more, and I try to get away, but he’s too fast. He surges to his feet and hauls me up with him, wrapping one hand around my throat.
His hand is so big that he gets enough of a hold that he can lift me up by my neck with ease. My legs dangle uselessly, and I struggle against the ropes around my wrists, trying to suck in breaths of air while he tightens his grip on my neck even more.
Fuck. Oh god, no.
Whatever his plans were for me before, now he definitely seems like he just wants to kill me.
Between the panic and the fact that I can’t breathe, my vision starts to go blurry around the edges. I fight his hold as best as I can, but he’s too strong. Without the use of my hands, I can’t even clutch at his forearms or scratch at his skin to try to make him let go.
I’m choking, gasping for air that won’t come, and the darkness around us starts to grow heavier, blanking out my vision as my head swims.
Then something bright flashes in the darkness behind Ilya, catching my attention.
Fire.
A small flame has sprung up behind him, probably started by the sparks that flew up when I tripped over those wires. All this old wood is the perfect fuel for a fire, and as my body shudders from the lack of oxygen, the light begins to glow brighter as the flame spreads.
All the old, rotten wood is going up, smoldering as soon as the sparks hit it, and the old, broken furniture piled in the corners isn’t doing anything to slow it down.
The scent of ash and smoke is growing, making my eyes water—or maybe that’s from Ilya’s hand around my neck.
Ilya’s attention is focused on me, his eyes narrowed as he holds me up by the throat, but the flickering light finally catches his attention too. He turns his head to look, and I see his eyes go wide for a second before he drops me to the ground in a heap.
I land hard, gasping for breath. My neck is a ring of pain, and it hurts to swallow. It hurts to breathe, but I make myself drag in gulps of air, trying to stop my head from spinning.
Before I can get my bearings and get my feet under myself to try to run, Ilya’s got his hands on me again. He grabs me hard, yanking me to my feet, and jerking me in the direction of the fire.
“You savage little bitch,” he growls out. “This will teach you a lesson.”
It’s like I don’t weigh anything to him. He’s so much bigger than me that he can drag me like a rag doll. No matter how hard I dig in my heels, I can’t stop him from pulling me closer and closer to the flickering flames.
I never thought a fire could go up this quickly, but it’s already starting to spread.
The heat is incredible, feeling like it’s searing my skin even from this distance away. I choke on a lungful of smoke, and something rises up in me, a kind of terror that I’ve never felt before.
I was already afraid, already panicking, just being in Ilya’s grip, but something about being hauled toward the fire makes it so much worse. My brain feels like it’s shorting out, and the only thing that’s playing on a loop in my head is no, no, no.
The sight of the shifting orange light dredges up barely there memories of fire from when I was little—the ones I’ve never been sure of.
Maybe they’re real, or maybe it’s just something I’ve made up in my head.
But either way, it’s like my body remembers this heat, remembers the fear of burning, and it all rises up inside me now, making me flail wildly as Ilya drags me toward the flame.
“No!” I scream, jerking in his hold and against the ropes that still bind my wrists. “No, let me go! No!”
“Shut the fuck up,” he snarls. “Maybe after I burn that pretty little face of yours to match the rest of you, you’ll tell me what I want to know.”
I shake my head violently, my heart going a mile a minute. The flames lick up around the wooden frame of a piece of furniture, and embers pop up into the air not too far from us.
I jerk back, trying to keep my distance, but Ilya keeps hauling me forward.
The flames fill my eyes, and all I can think about is burning. My lungs are thick with the smoke, and every breath I drag in hurts. My head spins, but the cold terror keeps my mind focused. I have to get free from him. I have to get away. I can’t let him do this.
I don’t want to die like this.
Chest heaving, I wrench at the ropes that bind my hands together.
There’s more slack in them now, and I manage to find enough room to slip one of my wrists free from the loops.
It burns where the rope has rubbed my skin raw, but I barely notice it.
The thick cord drops away, and I flail against Ilya’s hold on me.
He curses, pulling me closer and pinning me against his body. I whimper, bucking against him—but then I feel something smooth against my hand.
There’s a switchblade sticking out of his pocket. It’s probably the same knife he used to cut me and my clothes, and I can only imagine what else he was planning to do with it. But I don’t let myself think about that. I just close my fingers around the handle, yanking it free.
The blade slides out silently, and I don’t hesitate.
I lash out, desperate to make him let go of me. The tip of the knife sinks into his side, and Ilya jerks to a stop. He looks down at the wound and then back to my face, surprise and anger mixing in his eyes.
For a split second, I’m stunned as well.
I wasn’t aiming for anywhere in particular, and I almost can’t believe I managed to stab him. Blood blooms around the wound, spreading across his shirt.
“Fuck!” he roars.
He lets me go suddenly, reaching down to yank the blade out of his side. As soon as I’m free of his hold, I take off running in the opposite direction, fleeing both him and the fire.
My heart is pumping so fast it feels like it’s going to beat its way out of my chest, and every desperate breath I take just makes my chest hurt worse. My body feels energized and weighed down by terror all at the same time, but I know I can’t stop. I have to keep running.
My head is fuzzy, and my vision blurs as I run. Whether it’s from the panic or the smoke, I can’t tell. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe, and I don’t know what to blame for that either.
All I know is that I have to get away.
Ilya shouts behind me, his deep voice joining the crackle and hiss of burning wood. The fire is spreading, the old wooden building going up quickly as the flames gain strength, and the heat is overwhelming.
I make it back to the door I was almost at the first time I ran from Ilya and wrench it open to see a hallway with a set of stairs leading down at the end.
There are other doors along the hall, but I don’t even bother to try any of them as I run toward the stairs, trying to get down before the fire consumes the floor I’m on.
This must be an abandoned house or something. Very old and stuffed full of things that are primed to burn.
Behind me, I can hear the crash of Ilya’s footfalls as he runs after me. I choke back a sob and realize that there are tears in my eyes, spilling down my cheeks as my eyes sting from the smoke in the air.
I wipe my face clumsily, careening down the steps so fast that I’m barely in control. One of the steps toward the bottom gives out under my weight, and I stumble hard, tripping and tumbling down the last four or five stairs in a heap.
On the way down, I hit my head on the banister, and I hear the wood creak and groan from the force. There’s a second where my head spins and everything dances with stars as I look around, but the panic that rides me won’t let me stop for long.
Keep going, Willow. Get out. Get out!
I haul myself up, panting hard, trying to get my balance back.
As I wrap a hand around the banister to steady myself, the sound of a crash comes from upstairs, loud and startling.
I jump, my heart lurching into my throat. Another crash comes, and this time, part of the ceiling nearby me gives way, sending burning beams hurtling toward the floor.
Shit!
I take off running again, the flames licking at the walls around me.
Dim streetlight filters into the dusty front room, and I almost sob with relief when I find a door. It’s half off the hinges, crooked in the frame, and I wrench it open, stumbling outside onto an overgrown lawn.
The air is cool and clean out here, and I suck in grateful gulps, trying to get my bearings. My vision blurs again, going dark around the edges.
My head throbs from where I hit it when I fell down the stairs, but I don’t stop. I stumble toward the road, desperate to get away. Ilya must be coming. He’s probably right behind me.
I take another step, but as I do, the ground seems to tilt, rushing toward me.
I land heavily, the prickly grass rough against my palms as I sink down to my hands and knees.
When I look up, everything is spinning around me.
I can’t tell if Ilya is coming out of the house after me. I can’t focus on anything.
I blink hard, trying to stay conscious, to drag myself away from the dark abyss that’s calling to me.
But all the strength is bleeding out of my limbs. Everything feels so heavy. My eyelids. My arms. My legs. The darkness bleeds over everything, filling me up.
Then my eyes roll back as my head hits the ground.