Chapter 32 #2
I send Konstantin my location. The message fails.
Mikhail's movement channel opens when I press the second control, but the dispatcher's voice answers again. "Passenger alert is already active."
"Put Mikhail on."
"Command personnel are managing the structural collapse. Your route remains approved."
I pull the interior door handle.
Nothing releases.
"Unlock this door."
The driver's eyes lift to mine in the mirror. "Child locks."
There are no children in this car.
I strike the emergency button under the console. Red light fills the compartment. The radio announces a passenger distress signal, followed at once by the dispatcher's acknowledgment. "Vehicle nine, continue to the verified medical transfer point. Security will meet you there."
The driver increases speed.
I brace one foot against the back of his seat and then kick the partition. Thick glass shudders inside its frame without breaking. Pain travels through my heel. The driver swerves, throwing me against the side door.
My shoulder hits first. The seat belt catches hard across my chest, forcing the breath from me.
"Stop the car."
He doesn't answer.
I try the emergency release beneath the seat. A metal plate covers it, fixed with new screws. When I reach for the radio again, the display goes black.
Signal bars vanish from my phone.
I take in what remains. A metal water bottle rests in the door pocket. The rear headrests are fixed, leaving no post to pull free. My belt buckle releases, but speed turns the locked cabin into a hard box that could kill the baby before it stops the driver.
The bottle dents the partition when I strike it. The sound is enormous inside the compartment. I hit the glass again, aiming for the same lower corner until numbness spreads through my fingers.
No crack appears.
The road ahead is blocked by an orange maintenance barrier and a truck angled across both lanes. No emergency lights flash around it. One portable lamp burns beside the snowbank, throwing a narrow yellow circle across a man in a dark coat.
The sedan stops.
For several seconds, nobody moves.
I recognize the man outside from the dating profile and the photograph the proposed bride showed me over lunch. The same pleasant features look thinner now, sharpened by the cold. Snow rests in his hair as he walks toward the rear door.
My blind date has finally arrived dressed for the occasion.
A dark wool coat lies smooth over a pale sweater, with polished shoes sinking into road salt at each step.
The profile photographs made his smile appear uncertain.
In person, it is expectant, the expression of a man approaching a table he believes has remained reserved for him through a wedding, a pregnancy, and every refusal since.
Nothing in his face acknowledges that I had the right to choose someone else.
I search his hands for a weapon. He carries only Grandma's phone where I can see it, which means the gun is hidden or another person watches from the dark vehicle.
I hit the glass with both hands, searching the empty road beyond him. The escort gets out first, circles the car, and unlocks my side from the exterior. The driver leaves his door open and joins him near the truck.
"You were paid to take me to the hospital," I say.
Neither man meets my eyes. The driver and false escort cross to the waiting truck, climb inside, and disappear when it reverses through the barrier.
The man from the profile opens my door.
Cold air rushes inside, carrying snow and diesel fumes.
He holds Grandma's phone in one bare hand.
The screen shows a photograph of her tied to a kitchen chair in a room I don't recognize, wrists bound in front of her.
She is alive. A dark shape lies beyond her near the door, wearing the uniform of one of Konstantin's guards.
"Where is she?"
"Safe while you cooperate."
I reach for my own phone, but he catches it before I can trigger the emergency screen. His fingers close over mine. Revulsion races up my arm, so violent that my stomach turns.
I pull back. He takes the device, then offers his other hand as though helping me from a restaurant car. "You could have answered me," he says. "None of this had to become difficult."
"You threatened an old woman because I ignored you."
His expression tightens at the word ignored. "I gave you time to understand."
The cold reaches my damp clothes, making my teeth strike together. I keep my gaze on his face while listening for an engine, a radio, or tires beyond the falling snow. Nothing approaches.
Behind him, another vehicle waits with its rear door open. The interior is dark.
Fighting him beside an empty road may leave Grandma bound with no one searching the right place. The distress alert, failed message, route request, and driver credential remain behind in systems Konstantin controls. I've given them a trail. Now I need to remain alive at its end.
I step out without taking the stalker's hand, keeping that one small refusal for myself.
His smile appears slowly, pleased by a courtesy I never gave him.
"We're finally going on the date your husband stole."