Chapter 4 Willow
WILLOW
The breeze tickles my skin, and I feel someone grabbing my wrist. That snaps me back to consciousness, and I burst awake with a sharp gasp, trying to sit upright.
More hands join the first pair, pushing me back down, and I can make out a muted voice saying something.
A burst of panic erupts in my chest, because all I can think is that it’s Ilya. He caught me and he’s trying to hurt me again. I thrash in their hold, choking back a sob of pure fear.
“No…” I manage to rasp out. “No, get off me.”
“Hey,” the voice says, and as the sounds start to clarify in my mind, I realize it’s not the harsh, accented grunt that Ilya has. It’s a woman’s voice, and she sounds gentle. “You’re alright. You’re safe.”
I blink slowly, and it takes a few seconds for my vision to settle. My eyes feel gritty, still burning from all the smoke. But I can see well enough to recognize that it’s not Ilya leaning over me. Instead, it’s a woman with dark hair and a soft smile, dressed like an EMT.
Just a short distance away, I can make out the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle, and there are firefighters and more EMTs clustered in the area.
Relief hits me like a physical blow, and I sag back down, letting out a ragged exhale.
“What happened?” I ask, breaking off to cough up a glob of dark colored phlegm.
“Someone in the area saw the flames and called 911,” the woman says. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I nod. “There was a man. A big man. He kidnapped me and brought me here. I was inside—while it was burning. But I managed to run.”
“Hold on just a second,” she says. “Don’t move.”
Honestly, now that it seems like I’m safe, I don’t think I could move if I tried.
My body feels wrung out, and everything hurts.
I have no idea how long I was unconscious, but the panic that was urging me on before has run its course, leaving me exhausted and sore in the aftermath.
Breathing burns my throat, and every time I cough it’s like a stabbing pain in my chest from the smoke inhalation.
I stare up at the sky, trying not to think about how close I came to dying.
The EMT walks over to the cluster of firefighters, and they’re close enough that I can make out snatches of their conversation.
“—says there was a big man … kidnapped.”
“—a body, yeah. Upstairs. Big guy.”
“… dead?”
“Yeah. —burned up pretty bad. … trapped… make it out.”
I suck in a sharp breath and then release it on a shaky exhale as I piece together what I’m hearing.
They’re talking about Ilya. It has to be.
No one else was in the building with us, I don’t think. And there was that crash I heard when I was running. The ceiling started coming down, so maybe something fell on him.
And that one firefighter said “dead.”
He’s dead.
I play the words over and over again in my head, trying to make them make sense.
I understand what it means, that the burly Russian is gone and he can’t hurt me now, but there’s some part of me that doesn’t quite believe it.
As if maybe it’s another trick, and he’s going to come charging out of the remains of the building any second and come after me again.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to breathe normally, but I can feel myself shaking. The panic that had receded is starting to claw at me again.
“You’re okay,” I whisper to myself. “It’s okay, he’s gone. You’re safe.”
But there’s some kind of disconnect in my brain, and it’s like the words don’t penetrate. The wall of fear is too thick, and each breath I take gets shakier. I can tell I’m on the verge of a panic attack, emotions whirling in my chest like a hurricane.
“Hey, now.” It’s the EMT again. Her hand is soft and warm on my arm, but I still flinch away from her touch. “It’s alright. We’ve got you. We’re going to take you to the hospital so you can get checked out. You inhaled a lot of smoke, and you look like you’re in shock.”
Wrapping my arms around myself, I give a jerky nod. My teeth are chattering slightly, and I focus on keeping myself from being dragged down by panic as I let her and the others do what they need to do.
The cot I’ve been lying on is lifted into the back of the ambulance, and I dip in and out of consciousness as the ambulance screeches down the highway to the hospital.
“You’re lucky you got out when you did,” another EMT says. A young man with bright eyes. “From what the firefighters told us, that house went up fast.”
“It was old,” the woman replies. “It was only a matter of time.”
Even though I’m safe, I can’t shake the remembered feeling of the fire’s heat on my skin.
And knowing how close I came to being trapped in the collapsing building and burned to death just like Ilya was makes my stomach twist itself into a tight knot.
Panic is still threatening to overtake me, and I close my eyes again, welcoming the wave of dizziness that makes it hard to think.
Luckily, we get to the hospital before long, and everything from there is a flurry of motion. The EMTs hop out and wheel the cot out of the ambulance. I’m rushed into the hospital and wheeled down a sterile white hallway.
Voices call over each other as the EMTs hand me off to the hospital staff, and I’m hooked up to an IV drip and a few different machines.
A nurse takes my vitals, frowning when he sees the state of my neck and the cuts and bruises on my body. He slips out of the room and is replaced by a tall female doctor in a white coat a few minutes later.
She checks me over and then has two aides wheel my bed down the hall for an X-ray.
It’s hard to keep track of everything that’s said, and my head is still spinning. The doctor produces a small flashlight and asks me to follow it with my eyes, which I do to the best of my ability.
“Do you know what year it is?” she asks, and I nod, giving the answer.
She looks satisfied, and they take me back to the little hospital room.
“No broken bones,” she tells me, standing near my bed. “Your neck is badly bruised, and you’ve got a few lacerations that are all cleaned up now. When did you hit your head?”
“I fell down the stairs when I was trying to get out,” I explain. My voice doesn’t even sound like me, rough and raspy from the smoke and almost being strangled to death.
The doctor nods. “Well, luckily you don’t have a concussion, just a bump on the head. You were very lucky to get out of that with so few injuries. All things considered, you’re fine.”
Funny. I don’t feel fine.
It’s a relief that I won’t need to be in the hospital for a long time and that nothing is broken from the ordeal, but when I close my eyes, I can still see the flames flickering, and I can still feel Ilya’s hands on me, his knife dragging over my skin.
“The police are here,” the doctor continues, and I blink at her, trying to focus. “If you consent to them doing a DNA analysis, they can hopefully confirm the identity of your attacker.”
“Okay.” I swallow and clear my throat. “I consent.”
She smiles and nods, heading out to go tell the cops my answer.
Of course, I already know who it was. Ilya Petrov, brother of Nikolai Petrov. He was only after me because the Voronin brothers killed his brother and I was unlucky enough to be there when it happened.
I’m swabbed for DNA, and once they leave to go run it, exhaustion hits me hard. I drift in and out of sleep, nodding off only to wake up with a start every so often. I’m so tired, and every part of me feels worn down, but at the same time, there’s still a spark of adrenaline driving me.
Everything that’s happened in the last twelve hours is almost too much for me. I feel like I have whiplash from jumping from one emotion to the next. Before running into Ilya, the brothers’ betrayal was the biggest thing on my mind, and I couldn’t imagine anything being worse than that.
After being drugged and nearly raped by Ilya, that video I saw in Vic’s room feels very far away. But I can still feel the hurt there, working its way into my heart like a dagger. It’s all just been so much.
I let myself rest as much as I can, and even though the hospital bed is far from comfortable, it’s better than being tied to a chair in a crumbling building.
Someone brings me some water, leaving it on the table by the bed, and once they’re gone, I gulp it down gratefully.
My throat still hurts, and the cool water feels good against it.
Sometime later, a couple of cops walk into the room. One of them has the grace to knock on the doorframe as they enter, and I blink, startled out of my light doze.
“Ms. Hayes?” he says. “Sorry to disturb you. We won’t take up too much of your time.”
“Okay,” I murmur, glancing between the two of them.
“Can you give us a rundown of what happened?” the first cop asks.
“I was out for a… a walk,” I say, my words a bit halting. “And a big guy grabbed me. He knocked me out with some kind of drug, and when I woke up, I was in that house.”
“Had you ever seen or met him before tonight?”
I shake my head. Technically, it’s not even a lie. Before he abducted me, I’d only seen Ilya in a picture on Vic’s computer, and I’d never met him before. “No. Never. I didn’t know him.”
The cop nods, writing something down. “Do you have any idea why he took you?”
I shake my head again. “No. He didn’t really say much. Just that I couldn’t get away from him and he had plans for me.”
“Was there anyone else in the building with you?”
“No,” I tell them. “At least not that I could tell. I never left the room he kept me in until I was trying to escape.”
“How did you escape?” the second cop questions.
“A fire broke out because of some torn wires. The fire started getting bigger, and he was trying to—” My voice breaks off, and I cough a little. It’s hard to talk about it, even now that I know I’m safe.
“It’s okay,” the first cop says softly. “Take your time.”
I swallow hard and take another drink of water. “He was trying to drag me to the fire,” I tell them. “And I freaked out and managed to get away. I ran for the door and then slipped down the stairs, but I managed to get out.”
“You were lucky,” the second cop murmurs.
I nod, looking down at the hospital bed.
The door cracks open a bit, and another cop sticks his head in. He murmurs something in the ear of the one who’s been asking the most questions, and he looks over at me.
“We ran the DNA we were able to get,” he explains. “Your attacker was a man named Ilya Petrov.”
He looks at me like he’s waiting to see any kind of recognition on my face, but I just nod, gazing right back at him. Of course it’s not a surprise, but I don’t tell them I already knew that.
“He’s dead now, killed in the fire. He didn’t manage to make it out.” The cop pauses, still looking at me. Then he adds, “Ms. Hayes, your DNA was also flagged in our system.”
A frown tugs at my lips. “What do you mean?”
Is it something linking me to Ilya? Or the Voronin brothers? There shouldn’t be anything, but…
“It was a match for a cold case. A little girl that went missing a long time ago. We had the DNA provided from one of her parents to try to use as a match if she was ever found, but she never turned up anywhere.” He takes a step farther into the room, lifting his brows slightly. “Until now.”
For a second, all I can do is stare at him. Of all the things he could have said, that’s the last thing I was expecting.
One of my parents was still alive all that time ago? One of them wanted to find me?
The cop is still talking, and I wrench myself out of my thoughts to listen to him because I desperately want to know what he’s saying about this.
“Your parents are dead, according to our files, but you have a grandmother who’s still alive.”
A blood relative. Not my parents, but… a grandmother? Someone who knew them and maybe knew me before the fire happened?
Thoughts bounce around in my head, trying to solidify into something real. On top of everything else that’s happened tonight, this new revelation is enough to make me wonder if I’m dreaming or hallucinating or something.
Is this really possible?
“Do you want us to contact her?” the cop asks me.
I nod immediately, my head moving before I even really consciously think about the answer.
I have a grandmother. A family.
A real one.