Chapter 19 #2
The observation was so accurate, it felt like he’d thought about it before. I opened my mouth to respond when a voice cut through the cold air.
“Adrianne!”
My head snapped up. Nikolai stood about two hundred feet away, at the edge of the tree line, before he frantically started running towards us, yelling at the top of his lungs.
“ADRIANNE, GET AWAY FROM THE LAKE. NOW.”
His voice was desperate. Panicked. Nothing like the controlled, cold tone I’d grown used to.
“Nikolai, she’s fine,” Alexei started to say, rising to his feet. “We’re just–”
“GET HER AWAY FROM THERE!” Nikolai’s shout echoed across the grounds, raw and terrified. “NOW, ALEXEI! GET HER OFF THE ICE!”
I stood slowly, confused by the sheer terror in his voice. “Nikolai, what–”
“Please.” The word broke on his lips as he reached the edge of the lake, his voice lowering to almost a whisper. “Please get away from there.”
He took a step forward, then another, without ever stepping onto the ice, his eyes locked on the lake like it was a living thing that might reach out and grab me. His hands were shaking. His face had gone completely white.
Then, between one breath and the next, he just… stopped.
Froze completely, like someone had pressed pause on him. His eyes were still open, still seeing, but he wasn’t there anymore. He’d gone somewhere else entirely, somewhere dark and terrible that I couldn’t follow.
“Nikolai?” I started toward him, but Alexei grabbed my arm.
“Don’t. Not yet. Just… give him a minute.”
But I couldn’t. Not when he looked like that. Not when I could practically see him drowning in whatever memory had swallowed him whole.
I jerked away from Alexei and walked toward Nikolai, slowly, like I was approaching a wounded animal. “Nik. Look at me.”
Nothing. His chest was barely moving. His eyes stared past me. Through me. At something only he could see.
“Nikolai, please.” I reached up, touching his face with my cold fingers. “Come back. I’m okay. I’m right here.”
Still nothing.
My heart was hammering now, fear replacing confusion. What the hell was happening to him?
“Anya.” The name fell from his lips involuntarily. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I’d heard his father mention that name. His sister?
“Nikolai.” I cupped his face in both hands, forcing him to look at me even though his eyes saw right through me. “I’m not Anya. I’m Adrianne. I’m okay. I’m safe. You’re safe.”
His breathing was becoming more erratic now, shallow gasps that couldn’t be getting enough oxygen to his lungs. He was having a panic attack. Maybe something worse.
“Someone help!” I yelled in despair, not taking my eyes off him. “Alexei, get help!”
But Adrik was already there, materializing from the tree line as if he’d been with Nikolai before he sprinted towards us. In a couple of seconds, he was standing next to me. He took one look at Nikolai and cursed in Russian.
“How long?” He demanded.
“Just now. Maybe a minute. He saw me by the lake, and he just… he’s not here.”
“Blyat.” Fuck. Adrik moved to Nikolai’s other side, gripping his shoulder firmly. “Nikolai. Brat. You need to come back now. She’s safe. Adrianne is safe. This isn’t then. This is now.” Brother.
Nikolai’s eyes flickered, some awareness creeping back in at Adrik’s familiar voice. His gaze found mine, and in that moment, I saw such raw, devastating pain that it physically hurt to witness.
“Babochka?” His voice was small, broken. Nothing like the commanding tone I was used to.
“I’m here. I’m okay.”
“The ice. You were on the ice.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I ‘m here now.”
Adrik’s grip tightened on Nikolai’s shoulder. “We need to get him inside. Now. Before he spirals further.”
“Can he walk?”
“He will.” Adrik’s tone left no room for argument. He turned to Nikolai, his voice firm but kind. “Nikolai. We’re going inside. You’re going to walk with me. Adrianne will come, too. She’s safe. Everyone is safe. But we need to move now.”
It took several long seconds, but slowly, Nikolai’s body began to respond. Adrik guided him away from the lake, and I followed, my heart still racing frantically.
We made it to the house, through hallways that had seemed beautiful before but now felt suffocating and all too damn long. Staff scattered as we passed, their eyes wide with concern or fear.
Adrik led us to Nikolai’s room. I’d expected something cold, austere. Instead, it was surprisingly warm. Dark wood, deep colors, books everywhere. Like he was actually human.
“Bathroom. Now.” Adrik practically pushed Nikolai through the doorway. “Hot shower. As hot as you can stand.”
Nikolai nodded mutely, the fight completely gone out of him.
Adrik turned to me, gripping my shoulders, his expression serious. “This is not your fault. Do you understand me? This has nothing to do with you.”
“His sister died in that lake…” My voice faded.
“Yes. A long time ago. And he’s never dealt with it properly.” Adrik ran a hand through his hair. “Stay with him. Make sure he actually gets in the shower. Make sure he doesn’t…” He trailed off, but I understood the words he didn’t want to say.
Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.
“I will.”
“I’ll be back soon with meds.”
Adrik nodded once, then left, closing the door behind him.
I stood there for a moment, listening to the sound of water running in the bathroom. Then, slowly, I walked to the door and knocked gently.
“Nikolai? Are you okay?”
No answer. Just the sound of water.
I opened the door a crack. Steam had already taken over the space, warm and thick. Through the glass shower door, I could see his silhouette, standing under the spray, fully clothed, his head bowed while bracing himself against the wall.
“Nikolai.” I stepped inside, closing the bathroom door behind me. “You need to take your clothes off.”
He didn’t move or respond.
I took a deep breath, then walked to the shower and opened the door. The heat hit me immediately, along with the sight of him, soaked through, shaking.
“Come on.” I stepped between him and the wall and reached for the buttons of his shirt, not minding the water that drenched me, too. “Let me help.”
Nikolai didn’t stop me. He just stood there, eyes still and unblinking. I worked the buttons free one by one, the wet fabric clinging to his skin. When I peeled the shirt back off his shoulders, rounding him for better access, my breath caught.
His back was a canvas of ink and scars.
A massive monarch butterfly stretched across his shoulder blades, intricate and beautiful.
But it was the white parts of the design that made my stomach drop.
The pattern wasn’t random. They were placed precisely on top of a web of scars.
Deep, jagged lines that had been incorporated into the tattoo, transformed into part of the butterfly’s wings.
My throat tightened as I tried to picture the pain he’d gone through when he got them. I wanted to trace them, to understand the story written in his skin, but now wasn’t the time.
“Nikolai,” I said softly, moving to stand in front of him again. “Please. Look at me. Come back.”
His eyes were still distant, seeing something I couldn’t. They moved from side to side at a frantic speed.
When my voice couldn’t get through to him, I did the only thing I could think of.
I kissed him.
Not the heated, desperate kiss from the basement. This was so much more gentle, grounding. A rope to pull him back from whatever abyss had swallowed him.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then his lips moved against mine, hesitant first. Soon, his hand came up to cup my face, water running between us as he kissed me back with just as much care.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there was devotion in the way his lips consumed mine.
When I pulled back, his eyes were finally clearer, like he’d been pulled back to the present.
“Addy,” he breathed, his voice rough.
“I’m here. You’re here.”
His hand dropped from my face, and he looked down at himself, at his bare chest, at me, soaked through and standing in his shower.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you, standing in a shower fully clothed.” I met his gaze steadily. “Can you manage the rest?”
He nodded slowly, so I stepped back, giving him privacy while staying close enough to help if he needed it. I heard the sound of a belt buckle, followed by fabric hitting the floor.
I turned around to give him space, my own clothes clinging uncomfortably to my skin. The image of that butterfly was seared into my mind.
The scars transformed into art.
Pain made beautiful.
“Okay,” he said quietly after a moment.
I didn’t turn around, keeping my eyes on the steam-covered mirror. “I’m going to wait outside. Don’t take too long.”
“Adrianne.” I paused, glancing at his reflection in the foggy mirror. “Thank you.”
The words were so quiet I almost missed them over the sound of the water.
I nodded, not trusting my voice not to break, and stepped out of the bathroom, taking a towel with me, leaving the door slightly ajar. I quickly pulled my soaked clothes off before rummaging through Nikolai’s closet and stealing a hoodie. I sank onto the edge of his bed, my heart still pounding.
What the hell had just happened?
The water shut off eventually, and after a few minutes, he emerged wearing nothing but sleep pants, his hair still damp, water droplets trailing down his naked chest.
He looked at me, his expression unreadable. “You’re still here.”
“Where else would I be?”
“In the basement. Where I put you,” He replied, but there was no malice in his tone.
“I don’t think I could leave if I wanted to,” I said honestly. “Not after... What happened out there, Nikolai?”
He sat on the bed beside me, far enough that we weren’t touching, but close enough that I could feel his warmth. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything, and I let him guard that needed silence.
Then, finally, he spoke. “My sister. She drowned in that lake. Over twenty years ago.”
The pieces started falling into place. The terror in his eyes. The panic. The way he’d frozen.
“I’m sorry.”
“It was my fault.” His voice was hollow.
“I knew better than to play on the lake. I went through the ice first, and she... she came after me. She saved me. But I couldn’t get her out.
I tried.” His hand unconsciously reached back, as if feeling for the scars I’d seen.
“I clawed through that ice until I couldn’t feel my hands anymore.
But I couldn’t reach her. I watched her sink.
Her eyes wide as her lungs filled with ice-cold water. ”
My throat burned with tears. “That’s why you have the tattoo. The butterfly. With the scars incorporated into the white. It’s beautiful, Nikolai.”
“My mother loved butterflies,” he said after a moment. “She used to call Anya her little butterfly. Babochka.”
The word hit me like a punch to the chest. “That’s what you’ve been calling me.”
“Yes.” Nikolai’s eyes met mine then, and I was too scared to read into the emotion that swam in those pale eyes of his.
“Why?”
“First, it was because of your tattoo. The chrysalis. Something waiting to become what it’s meant to be.
And after a while, because you remind me of her.
My mother. The way she saw hope in broken things.
The way she believed in transformation. Like the way you look at me.
As if my broken chaos has a mend.” His voice dropped.
I didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know how to process the fact that this monster, this captor, this man who’d locked me in a basement, saw me as something beautiful. Something worthy of his mother’s memory.
“You should sleep,” I said softly, because I didn’t know what else to say. “You’re exhausted.”
“So are you,” He replied, pulling a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
I looked down at my hands. He was right. Whether from cold or adrenaline or something else entirely, I couldn’t stop trembling, even as I tried.
“Come here.” He pulled back the covers, lying down and making space for me. “Just until you warm up. Then you can go.”
I should have said no. Should have gone back to the basement, to my place as his prisoner, to the clear boundaries that kept us both safe.
Instead, I rounded the bed and slid under the covers beside him.
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, and I curled on my side, watching him intently.
Slowly, his breathing evened out, and the tension left his shoulders. His eyes finally closed.
I should leave. Go back downstairs before this becomes something I can’t take back.
But his warmth was seeping into me, chasing away the cold and the fear. And he looked peaceful for the first time since I’d met him. Like whatever demons usually haunted his sleep had decided to give him a break for tonight.
“Just a few more minutes,” I told myself. “Just until I’m sure he’s okay.”
My eyes grew heavy. The exhaustion of the last few days, the adrenaline crash, the emotional whiplash, all of it pulled me under.
The last thing I remembered was Nikolai’s hand finding mine under the covers, his fingers threading through mine like an anchor.
Then nothing but darkness, warmth, and the steady rhythm of his breathing. Nothing but peace.