Chapter 19
Victor
Time stretches without mercy in the darkness of my hideout.
I guess Seva’s paranoia has rubbed off on me, because I’m not sure anymore if I’m safe or trapped.
The space isn’t sound-insulated, so I got to hear several screams and gunshots, but all of them came from afar.
There were no more explosions, yet all I can think of is that I don’t know if Seva’s safe.
My hands are sweaty, and at times it feels like I’m running out of air, but the hiding space is no coffin. The tiny door behind which Seva locked me has narrow gaps at the top and bottom.
I trust that Seva knows what he’s doing, that the house is prepared to deal with situations exactly like this one, but I can’t bear the thought of Seva getting hurt in any way.
I’ve fallen for him so hard and fast I question my sanity.
I no longer care if he trusts me or not. I just need to know he’s going to come for me when this ordeal ends.
Seconds of agony pass, but I don’t dare make a sound, because Seva was right. I could be a liability. I could be taken hostage and used against him. That’s the last thing he needs when dealing with a deadly attack.
When I smell the faint whiff of smoke, I wonder if my panicked mind is playing tricks on me, but it’s definitely there.
I’m sure I took the pot of goulash off the stove, so what could be causing this?
Darker thoughts arrive in an instant when I remember I’m locked in a box with nowhere to escape if there is a fire.
Seva would come back for me though, wouldn’t he?
Unless he’s in another part of the house and doesn’t even know I’m in peril.
I paw at the walls around me. They’re wooden. Which will either make a nice pyre for me or allow me to escape the danger. I have no axe on me though, and the wood is solid —real planks, rather than plywood. What am I supposed to do? Kick the door in hopes that I can break the lock?
I have to remind myself to breathe and settle for a moment, listening to the sounds outside. There’s silence, then a thud as if something fell, then nothing again… and then something clicks right next to my leg.
My heart accelerates because that was the lock of my tiny door opening, but Seva isn’t there to welcome me back in the kitchen.
Is it possible that the attackers managed to dismantle the elaborate system Seva has in place, and everything opened, which would include this door?
I back away from the gap in terror, even though it would make sense for me to seek other shelter.
After all, I don’t hear any footsteps or voices.
Just… a strange scratching at the door, and a familiar squeak.
Is Ratimir looking for a place to hide? Against my better judgement, I push open the door, and the rat crawls onto my hand. He’s seeking a treat I don’t have, and I can’t even apologize, because I’m too afraid to speak .
He nips my finger and pulls on it like when we trained him.
When the three of us played together, Ratimir would get his treat once he brought me to Seva for a kiss.
So maybe… it’s over? Maybe it’s safe for me to leave the hideout?
The smell of smoke tells me we’re not yet out of the woods, and if Ratimir was sent here by Seva, maybe he needs my help? As fit and skilled as he might be, he is still human. He could have locked himself in somewhere, or… broken his leg, and—
I try to be quiet as a cat when I crawl out of the kitchen island. I smell smoke, but it doesn’t billow into the room, and nothing seems to be on fire. So it could just be the aftermath of the explosives.
I grab the biggest kitchen knife and follow Ratimir with my heart in my throat.
I’m someone who would fight for their own life to the last tooth and nail, but as I walk down the dark corridor with a weapon, I realize I’d kill for Sevastyan too.
Call me crazy, but if I saw one of those assassins standing over him, I would stab the bastard and keep jabbing at them until my man was no longer in danger.
If Seva is out there in need of my help, I’ll protect him.
A pained groan calls out to me from somewhere ahead, and I speed up.
Dread settles deep in my stomach when there’s no follow-up noise, because I fear what this could mean. Seva could already be gone. Just like that.
A vision of the future crystalizes in my mind.
If we survive this, we need to leave. Seva is wrong about staying in this boobytrapped house.
He said it himself: he doesn’t know how many people are after him, which means that we will never know peace.
I’m sure that after years as an assassin he’s aware of more ways to track someone down and kill them than I can imagine, but what kind of life is this?
Even the most impenetrable safe can eventually be breached.
What happens when we’re old and grey? When he needs to see a doctor?
If he stays here, the odds will be stacked against him no matter how deadly his house is.
The proof of how fucking deadly it is rests on the floor before me. One of the men lies sprawled, bled out from a single wound, the other’s flesh is reminiscent of tenderized raw meat, pierced by so many bullets I feel too nauseated to keep looking.
Ratimir glances my way, but as I’m about to follow him, a wail cuts through the air, and I break into a run. It must be Seva. Surely, out of all the people fighting here, he must be the survivor!
My muscles burn as I dash up the stairs, then down the corridor, toward the gurgling noise, because if Seva needs help, I will do anything to provide it.
After seeing two corpses downstairs, the next mangled body shouldn’t come as such a shock, but the juice I’ve had earlier comes up my throat at the sight of the bloodied spikes piercing the flesh of a stranger stuck in a pit that has apparently been under the floor all along.
It’s not Seva.
This stranger wears a balaclava and has blood foaming up at his mouth. I don't see him surviving this ‘accident’, but he’s twitching his hand toward a phone left on the nearby floor, and that sets me in motion.
The dying intruder only has one eye open, but when I kneel at the edge of the hole, he glances up at me despite clearly not being all there.
I shouldn’t feel sympathy for a man who came here to hurt Seva, but my heart still beats faster as I adjust my sweaty fingers around the handle of the knife.
This is still a person and might even have loved ones .
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, briefly averting my gaze from the graying features to look at the stairs that would lead me to the main door, where I first entered the villa so many days ago.
I am free to leave this madness behind. No one would stop me if I dropped everything and walked away.
But I can’t.
My life before Seva was gray and full of resentment. He’s painted it in lush greens, reds, and golds, and I want to stay on the canvas of his making, letting him mold me with every stroke of the brush.
I want him to be my muse too.
So I lower myself into the hole and aim the tip of my knife at the assassin’s widening pupil. Maybe I’m a bad person, but anyone who comes for my man belongs in the corpse chute.
Ratimir squeaks impatiently and climbs my leg as the assassin mumbles incoherently.
Is he begging for his life? I don’t know, and I don’t care.
I press the knife straight through his eye, into his brain.
There's resistance as the knife sinks too far, meeting something that shouldn't be touched by a blade.
The man makes a gurgle dragged out of deep inside him, but then his jaw slackens.
I gag.
The smell of blood hits me even harder when I pull the knife out. Hot, coppery, it makes bile rise in my throat.
I struggle to look at him again, but I have to make sure he’s dead.
His eye is ruined, blood seeping down his temple. The hand that was reaching for the phone has fallen limp.
Ratimir clings to my foot when I back away from the hole. He’s squeaking softly as if to remind me I need to follow him .
I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’ve just killed a man. Sure, he was on the verge of death already, but I did that. If cops arrived here now, I’d be going to prison. I’m an accomplice. But that’s a thought for me to deal with later. I need to find Seva.
My chest feels too tight, my breaths are shallow and fast. I wipe the knife on my pants with trembling fingers, and as the world sways around me I brace myself against the wall before once more following Ratimir.
We’re going back down, and the burning scent intensifies.
Is it possible that one of Seva’s traps was a flamethrower?
Wouldn’t that be reckless, even in a house that’s mostly rock and concrete?
The rat is impatient, but it must appreciate me carrying him back downstairs.
Still, once he’s back on the floor, his tiny pink paws move faster, and I press my hand to the wall in the hallway, supporting my emotionally-drained body back to the kitchen.
Once again, that scent, and soon after, I spot a pool of water on the floor by the stairs leading into the studio.
My heart stops, only to rush when I dash past Ratimir and up the steps.
The closer I get to the studio, the worse the smell becomes.
The air changes first. It’s heavier, damp and soaked through with the sour sting of burned paint and scorched wood. The corridor walls are wet from the sprinklers, blackened streaks running down like tears for all the lost artwork.
For a moment, I can’t make myself step inside, because my mind offers up images of Seva crushed, burned, unrecognizable beneath the devastation.
Then Ratimir squeaks and darts ahead.
I walk in, taking in this absolute calamity. Water pours from broken pipes, pooling on the floor, small canvases float face down like corpses, others lie burned and blackened, frames broken, paint cracked.
Even now, the heat in here hits me in waves, but as I hold back tears, I look around in panic.
“Seva?” I call out, stepping around the spilled pigments creating rainbows in the puddles of water.
The deathly silence that follows has me choking on a sob, but then, a pile of planks resting on the floor in the back stirs, and I hurry that way.
I keep calling his name, but when I throw aside the canvas underneath the rubble, my voice breaks, because he is there—still alive but swollen, with discolored skin.
His fingers are curled against the floor as if he’s tried to claw his way free and simply…
ran out of strength. Water beads on his red arm, sliding over burns that make my stomach turn.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, the words feeling meaningless in the face of his pain. I kneel next to him, head blank. “Seva? Seva, I’m here.”
His eye cracks open, just as blue as I remember, and he reaches out the reddened hand toward me. “You stayed.”
The words hit me harder than the sight of him like this. Tears well up in my eyes, even though he’s the one suffering. “Of course I did. I’ve got you. Come on, let’s get you out of here and to a hospital.”
“No!” He stirs, opening his eyes wide, and his breath comes out in erratic huffs. “Here. Stay home!”
I sob out my helplessness even though I’m already getting up. His burns need to be under water. I can’t even imagine the pain he must be in. I know enough to realize that what I’m seeing now might not be the whole scope of the damage. “A doctor needs to see you!”
And yet there’s method to his madness. The assassins are most definitely real, and he will be vulnerable at a hospital. My hands shake as I push away the rest of the massive canvas under which he’s trapped .
Ratimir scampers onto Seva’s chest, squeaking anxiously, little paws pattering over damp fabric. Seva makes a weak sound that might be a laugh or a sob.
“Good boy. Knew I could count on you to find our favorite person,” he mumbles, stroking his pet with one trembling finger the size of a sausage. This is bad. Bad .
I take a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts. I see no open wounds, just a lot of redness. Maybe if I put him into a cold tub, and then use some kind of salve, it would be enough? There is lots of medicine in the panic room, and instructions on how to use it all too.
“We need to get you under cold water.” I state when I notice his eyes closing. “Please, let me know if it hurts too much.”
I scoot next to him and slide my arm under his back to lift him. It’s like trying to hold up a collapsing building. I can do it though. I must.
A broken moan leaves his mouth, but he tightens his hand on the fabric of my top, aware enough that he’d feel even worse if we collapsed. “No hospital. Dangerous. I just... need to stay home.”
Has he inhaled too much smoke? Or is he simply in so much pain he’s struggling to keep up with reality?
I guess it’s up to me now. I’m both terrified and determined not to fail him. Tears might be streaking down my face, but I’m stronger than most people would give me credit for.
“Okay. I get it. Let’s get you to the bath—”
“In… panic room,” he utters, because of course he wants to go where he can lock the door and hide in case of more assassins.
“I don’t know where it is!” I choke out in frustration, my arms shaking with the effort of holding up his form.
He peeks at me, the skin on his cheekbone ever more swollen, as if something was growing underneath.
He opens his mouth, uttering a series of syllables, then hisses, as if it angers him that communicating is so difficult.
My thoughts once again return to the possibility of risking a hospital visit after all, but then he gestures toward the back of the studio and the cupboard with toxic vintage pigments.
“Glove container. Pull to right.”
I follow his instructions, and under the unassuming box hides a screen. Only when Seva leans forward to get his eye scanned do I realize just how swollen his face is getting. He’s struggling to keep his eye open for long enough.
The wall obscuring a door as thick as my thigh slides aside, and then we’re in.
I’m holding him up, he’s stumbling like it’s an unfair three-legged race.
The space inside is so well known to me by now, I welcome it in relief.
Once the door locks behind us, we will be safe.
I glance at the screens, but there is no movement. We’re alone.
Now, I can focus on Seva.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper as I lead him toward the bathroom. “I love you. I’ve got you.”