9. Octavia
It doesn’t seem to matter how hard I press my fingers into my ears. Nothing blocks out the horrifying squelches that rip into the air. They keep coming, rhythmic and random, sharp and long. The bite of copper seeps into my nostrils.
I’ve never been a squeamish person. I’ve bled through my pointe shoes more times than I can count, and I’ve had pretty much every injury in the book.
During my first year at the studio, my roommate slipped shards of glass into my pointe shoes as part of some moronic hazing ritual.
I stitched up the gashes myself beneath the soft light of my desk lamp, using the same thread I used for my ribbons. I was even able to hold in the tears.
This is nothing like any of those times.
Slice.
Vomit rises in my throat as I hear that lunatic drag his knife over Vasiliy’s flesh.
The only sound that follows is the wet splatter of liquid as it sprays across the floor.
I keep waiting for Vasiliy to react. A gasp.
A cry. Anything to let me know he’s still out there, fighting. That he hasn’t succumbed.
Metal slices once more, followed by a quiet drip, drip, drip.
I blink.
I wish our captor would reach up and flick off the overhead lamp.
Instead, I’m forced to see reality in 4K.
Vasiliy’s metal chair is splattered with so much blood that it takes on a copper hue.
Our captor bounces his weight between his feet, his back to me.
When he’s not actively cutting, the knife swings down by his hip in a casual grip.
He doesn’t wipe the metal clean every time, so the entire floor is marked with crimson drips, bearing a remarkable resemblance to the sidewalk when the rain trickles in.
“Why were you sent to the Solokov Bratva?” he asks again, knife braced under his last cut on Vasiliy’s chest.
“I’ve told you this already.”
I perk up at his voice. Finally.
“I fucked up one of my uncle’s deals. He didn’t think I was worth the trouble anymore.”
That answer wasn’t satisfactory, because my stomach flexes through another squelching sound, and the air sharpens with sour iron.
They’ve been at it for hours, and somehow, I’m even more confused now than I was when I first woke. They’ve mentioned so many different Bratvas and so many different men that I’ve begun to question whether the interrogation was going in nonsensical circles.
I only started catching on to Vasiliy’s lies about an hour ago.
When asked about his connection to me, he said he was watching over me, as ordered by my father.
It took everything in me not to scream that I’ve never had a parent a day in my life.
I was probably conceived by some poor addict who wasn’t able to scrounge up the two bucks for a rubber and subsequently left on the orphanage steps nine months later.
Nonetheless, his last piece of advice for me was to stay silent and hide my reactions, and since this is only my first time being kidnapped and apparently his hundredth, I’m intent on listening.
I don’t want to die. I put on a good show of apathy in the studio, but nothing scares me quite so much as that long, dark nothing. I know I’d be forgotten in a day. I’m not the type of person who’s missed and remembered.
“When did Mikhail Solokov and Sasha Siderov establish an alliance?” the man asks, his voice growing impatient.
I’ve figured out that Mikhail Solokov is Vasiliy’s employer, but I have no fucking clue who Sasha Siderov is. It took me a while to realize he was saying different names. Siderov. Morozov. Solokov. Couldn’t these damn Russians find something other than “ov” to end their names with?
“A few months ago,” Vasiliy hisses out, but it doesn’t matter that he answers the mundane question right away, because another fist flies at his face. The impact sears through my ears. I curl up tighter, a pathetic little ball in the corner of the dark cell.
Don’t react.
“Fine.” A sharp sigh. “I’ll be checking your information against my inside contacts.” The man stands and strolls to the door, but then stops mid-step, tilting his head to one of the others standing guard at the entrance. “Feel free to rough him up a bit on his way back in.”
The grin they share is unsettling. The three guards move as one, stepping over to where Vasiliy’s hands are locked to the arms of the chair. His chains are wrenched off with sharp, careless movements before clattering to the floor.
Don’t react.
I replay Vasiliy’s words in my head over and over, carefully staring at the patched-up crack on the cement floor in front of me. I don’t dare to take my gaze off that crack—not when the sound of fists and boots smacking against flesh reverberates through the small room.
It goes against everything I thought I was.
I’ve never bothered to think before responding to the circumstances.
But I’ve also never pleaded with a man not to leave me before.
When I saw Vasiliy step toward the cage door, something in my mind cracked open.
Call it survival, or desperation, or whatever the hell you want.
That single step away sent me into a blind panic.
The next hit thunders, summoning a fresh perfume of hot iron. The scent is so overwhelming, it’s a fight to keep my cough trapped in my throat. I only release my held breath when my head grows light and the sturdy ground sways. The last thing I need is to pass out in here.
I can’t look up, no matter how cowardly it is. I don’t want to see that bird with the broken wing again. The image of navy and cream feathers keeps fighting for dominance in my mind, and it only seems to get louder and clearer when I look up at Vasiliy’s abused body.
It’s strange how a memory can lie dormant for so many years, and then come raging out in the worst possible moment.
I wish I had gone my entire life without remembering that sight.
It was an act of mercy, I try to reason, but I don’t believe the excuse.
Sometimes, broken things are best dealt with swiftly.
The ground vibrates under the dragging force of the metal cage door, the only warning I receive before a body collapses to the floor. I don’t move an inch. Not until the footsteps trail out the door. Not until I hear the iron slam shut.
Once silence settles back over the room, I can’t bear waiting any longer. I launch over to the splayed body.
“Vasiliy,” I gasp, hands hovering. I don’t know what to touch. Blood coats everything from his head to his hips, and his face is puffy and swollen.
“I’m…fine,” he eventually says, spitting against the floor.
“You are not fine.” I rip a strip of my dress and press it to the wound oozing on his brow.
The costume mistress is gonna flay my ass. The nonsensical thought would force a chuckle to my chest if not for the coating of red slipping on my fingers.
“I’ve lived through much worse,” he says, forcing himself upright with a groan. “I can handle it.”
I try to help him scoot back against the wall. Blood drips off his form and puddles below, smearing across the pavement as he drags himself backward. I’m so distracted by the carnage that I’m caught completely off guard when my back suddenly smacks against the floor.
Air knocks from my lungs.
“The real question,” he grinds out, voice cold and violent. I push onto my elbows, only to be shoved back down. “is what you’ve lived through. Or should I say, lied through.”
I go to kick him off, only to have my legs completely disarmed beneath his massive thighs. It’s like a switch flipped in his temperament, snipping off those last few strings of humanity. My heart nearly explodes in panic.
“I don’t have a clue what he was talking about,” I gasp. “The Siderov thing, the stalking—I don’t have any parents! I was dropped off at the home before I could so much as say a word. You have to believe…”
He raises a bloody brow, and I trail off. Because he doesn’t.
He doesn’t believe me.
His weight crushes my lower body, and something in me knows the second I move my palms, he’ll disarm them too.
I wish, not for the first time, that I had actually managed to kill him when I woke hours ago.
That was my chance at survival. My one gift from fate, bestowed on a girl who’s been fighting for every minute of her miserable life.
Fate is a fickle bitch.
I raise my chin, trying to hide the fear blooming through my body. Those bright blue eyes haven’t dimmed, still focused on mine like they’re trying to dissect something beneath. How did I ever think they were pretty? Nothing alive takes on that shade of blue.
“If you think I’m lying, why bother protecting me?
” I ask carefully, glancing down his form for a way to throw him off.
Before I even make my move, he lunges like a cobra, snatching my wrists in a brutal hold and slamming them to the ground above my head.
The bones in my hand rattle from the impact.
“Did I?” His head tilts, just a fraction of an inch, but the expression is enough to delay my next breath.
Suddenly, anger overwhelms the chattering fear lancing through my gut. It’s not enough that he’s crushing me into the nasty floor, but now he’s trying to gaslight me, too? One of my nails finds a shallow cut on his palm and presses in. Fresh blood oozes down his wrist, coating my fingers.
The fucker doesn’t even flinch.
When I look back up, his teeth are bared in a brutal smile. “Such a vindictive little thing, aren’t you?”
“Don’t play games with me.”
He leans down until our noses nearly brush. My breathing doubles, blowing against the immovable presence of his cheekbone. I haven’t been this frightened in a long time, but my body recognizes the feeling like an old friend, providing a warm welcome as it rushes through my system.
“Seems like you’re the one playing games.” Hot breath coats my cheek. “You see, normally, when I’m taken, it’s always the same types of questions. When do the weapons shipments go out, Vasiliy, or who signs off on the bodies that don’t make it back to Moscow, Vasiliy?”
My skin burns as I try to twist free from his hold.
No success.
“Sometimes they even throw in a how much does a Morozov soldier bleed before he breaks, Vasiliy?” He laughs, causing a drop of blood to fly free from his lips. It trickles down my cheek. “But this time, all they wanted to know was you.”
“I. Have. Nothing,” I say between gritted teeth, trying to shove him off again.
“So you say,” he whispers pensively. “A poor little orphan, all alone in the world.”
I roll my eyes at his mocking tone, content to stare at the line of red trailing down his shoulder as he continues.
“But I’m not alone in the world. I have someone depending on me, and instead of supporting them, I’m stuck in a cage with a girl who’s dead set on convincing me this is all one big fucking coincidence.”
“You’re the one who’s all tied up with this criminal organization. Don’t you think it might be your fault they think I’m this Annika girl?”
His brows rise, as if he knows I don’t believe my own words.
“I don’t know if you were paying attention back there, but he couldn’t care less about what I had to offer.
Which is a lot, by the way. I’m practically a treasure trove in this world.
” He laughs, a cold, shallow sound. “Apparently, they’ve been trailing you for years, spitfire. ”
Our captor’s questions replay in my mind, warping with my memory alongside those squelching slices. Trailing me for years. Me. A lump forms in my throat.
“What am I supposed to do with that?” The words are out of my mouth before I allow it. I don’t like how soft they sound.
Vasiliy blinks. For a moment, I think he’ll give me some genuine advice. But then a shadow falls over his features, soaked in dismay. “I couldn’t care less what you do. When I find an opening, I’m getting the fuck out of this mess. None of those soppy pleas will stop me this time.”
He finally pulls back, his grip disappearing with those hot breaths and steady drips of blood.
My lungs heave to refill.
He said when.
When I find an opening. Because he’s gotten out of these situations plenty of times before, and he has no intention of taking me with him.
I wipe his blood from my cheek. The substance smears, darkening my palm.
I’m not sure why his line in the sand stings so much.
I have plenty of practice with abandonment.
Of course, he’d throw me to the wolves to free himself.
We’re strangers.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about your own extensive suffering,” he says, drawing me away from my thoughts. “I seriously doubt you’ll last a day in that chair.”
“You don’t know me,” I defend half-heartedly. “I’m made of harder stuff than that.” Pulling myself up from the ground, I crawl over to the other side of the cage, set on creating as much space between the psycho and me as possible. I wish they had separated us.
“Are you, little ballerina?” he asks with a condescending chuckle, settling against the wall opposite me. “Because, for a second there, I thought I’d have to chew your hand free from its clutch on my chest.”
“You’re such a dick,” I mutter, folding my knees to meet my breasts.
He raises his arm, gesturing to the cut I reopened on his wrist. “Sure you don’t want to tend to my injuries? Lick em’ clean? Maybe I’ll take pity and kill you myself if you ask nicely.”
“I hope you get sepsis and die.”
“You wouldn’t have survived the day without me, zlaya.”
It’s hard to believe that only ten minutes earlier, I was huddled into a miserable ball, feeling sorry for this asshole.
“Why are you calling me that? What does it mean?”
“Zlaya?”
I nod, shivering against the cold air. My eyelids grow heavy, so at odds with the live wire of fear crackling through my veins.
It’s a strange type of exhaustion, one I never felt after an extensive performance or a twelve-hour rehearsal day.
A long time passes before he bothers to respond, but I suppose time is the one luxury we have.
“I’ll tell you if we get out of here,” he mutters.
I’m not sure if some protective part of my brain takes the reins, but for the softest second, I almost believe we have a chance of making it out alive.