Chapter 11 #2
Katya Vasilieva was following the same case from the other end.
Not for me, because I doubt she knows who I am, but for her own reasons.
I consider what those might be for a long time in the dark, with the laptop open and the footage paused on Katya’s face in three-quarter profile.
She and I have never been in the same room and never spoken.
To my knowledge, she never met Mara either, so why did she care?
I don’t know where she is or if she’s still alive, and Valentin’s people have stopped guessing out loud in front of me.
Nathan comes to my room at ten the next morning with a thin case that he sets on my desk. “Valentin wants you to know this. I’m saying you need to know this in a way that doesn’t make you feel like inventory.”
I eye the case. “What’s in there?”
“Education.” He keeps his expression neutral as he opens the case.
He spreads three blades on the desk in descending order of size.
He doesn’t make it dramatic. He picks up the smallest, a folding blade that’s roughly two inches, thin enough to sit flush against a thigh in a garter sheath, and shows me the grip patiently, like he’s showing me how to change a tire.
“This buys you two seconds.” He turns the blade so the edge catches the desk lamp. “That’s it. Two seconds of surprise, and you use them to run.”
“What if I can’t run?”
He turns the blade again before setting it down to pick up the next-largest blade. “Then you make them regret coming close enough.” He holds it out, handle first. “Here. Your grip is wrong.”
We spend forty minutes on grip, deployment, and an angle meant to create distance rather than invite engagement.
Nathan doesn’t narrate my mistakes. He corrects them and moves on.
I mess up the deployment twice and cut myself once.
It’s nothing deep, just a scratch across my index finger that stings more than it should, but it’s a pointed reminder that these are weapons.
Nathan hands me a cloth without comment and waits for me to wrap it and try again.
By the end, I can pull the blade and present it in under a second and my hands don’t shake.
“Good.” Nathan folds the larger blade and returns it to the case. He leaves the smallest one on the desk beside me. “Keep practicing.”
“What about the biggest one?”
He shakes his head. “That’s for visible carry—intimidation and fighting.
You don’t need that one. The middle blade is for primary defense when concealment isn’t a concern.
You need the smallest because it buys you an escape and can stay hidden.
” He nods toward the blade on the desk. “Start wearing it.”
I look at the blade and think about Grant’s hands around Mara’s throat, Kirill’s name in every surveillance thread I’ve read, and that I’ve been in this residence for six weeks but am just starting to understand the danger that exists inside these walls too.
The blade changes how I walk through corridors.
I’m not armed in any meaningful way. Nathan made that clear.
A woman with a concealed blade against four trained men is a woman with a sharp object and bad odds.
He didn’t teach me to fight with it. He taught me to create distance with it, to target the moment between grip and reaction, and buy time measured in seconds rather than victories.
I’ve carried weapons before. The box cutter in my go-bag was a weapon in the same way a kitchen knife is a weapon when you sleep with it under your pillow because you have no other options.
The blade Nathan gave me is different. It’s designed for a specific purpose, and the purpose is survival, not defense.
The distinction matters because defense implies you stay and fight. Survival implies you cut and run.
I keep the blade.
Valentin is in the hallway outside my door at eleven that night, holding a paper bag that smells like the diner’s chicken and mashed potatoes. It’s either a coincidence or a very deliberate cruelty. He leans one shoulder against the doorframe. “I thought you might want something familiar.”
The smell is incredible, so I open the door wider. I don’t invite him in, but I don’t take the bag and close it either. “Fried chicken and mashed potatoes?”
He nods. “A woman named Drea said it was your usual.”
“It is, but why did you…?” I clear my throat. “Why are you doing this?”
He holds out the bag. His expression is unreadable, and his answer is somewhat cryptic. “Drea told Renni, the guard I sent to order this, that you like the mashed potatoes when you’re having a bad week.”
“I’m not having a great week.” I concede that much.
“It shows.” He rattles the bag lightly to tempt me.
I take the bag. Our fingers overlap on the handles for half a second. The awareness hits, the raw, cornered kind that comes from standing at an edge long enough to stop pretending you don’t see it.
I step back with the bag. “This doesn’t erase anything. The coercion or the way this started. Takeout from the diner doesn’t balance that.”
He doesn’t look away or pretend contrition. “I know.”
I’m trying to figure out what to do with this gesture when Nadia’s voice cuts through the hall from the direction of the tech room, sharp and clipped. “Valentin?”
He turns.
“Kirill moved the exchange again.” She’s at the far end of the hall with her tablet angled toward him. “The in-person meeting.”
His eyes narrow. “When?”
“After postponing it twice, he now wants to meet in five days instead of nine.” Nadia glances at me for a moment before looking back at him. “He moved it up and didn’t give a reason.”
I’m still holding the takeout bag but nearly drop it.
“It was supposed to be nine days.” Five days doesn’t sound much different from nine, but it could be the difference between being ready and failing.
I think about Katya in that courtroom, two fingers against the gallery railing with one tap, signaling a warning.
She wouldn’t fail this, but she lives in this world. I’m just here reluctantly.
Five days isn’t enough time, but it’s what I have left. I can’t fail if I want to help find Katya and finally get justice for Mara.