Chapter Thirty Five
Alexei
It is past midnight before I go through our nightly ritual once more, sinking into the chair at the security terminal and winding back the tapes until I locate Catalina wandering through the house.
I spot her leaving the library, and follow her through the corridors, sneaking through the kitchen until she comes to the butler’s pantry.
It is a small room, used more like an office than a pantry, where my staff manages the household accounts.
She enters, but I do not see her leave. And as the timestamp winds down to the present time, I know she must be there still.
It is a long, silent walk toward that end of the house.
The kitchen staff has largely been dismissed for the night with the exception of one cook, who is preparing stock for the nourishing soups Katya has been eating—as much as she is able—this past week.
He glances up only briefly as I pass through the kitchen.
The door to the butler’s pantry is closed, the light turned off. I flick it on again, sliding my gaze across the small room. There are not too many places to hide, but the small desk at the back of the room—that seems a likely spot. I crouch down, peering beneath it.
She is tucked into the very back, pressed against the wall beneath the desk, her head resting upon her folded arms. Almost asleep, but not quite. Probably I roused her from a restless, uncomfortable sleep when I entered the room.
“Come out of there, koshechka.” I keep my voice gentle, unthreatening.
She is fighting the sedative. Her movements are slow, clumsy. But she shakes her head, curling up tighter.
“You cannot sleep here,” I tell her, hoping to prevail upon her better reason.
“It’s cold and dusty.” I have to be careful about how I extract her; her bruises pain her still, and her ribs are tender.
I curl my hand up into a fistful of her shirt and tug—and naturally she comes with it, with a cry of discontent.
Her arms flail as she scrabbles to free herself.
“Koshechka—”
“I hate you!”
The slurry hiss takes me aback. So does the sharp sting of metal puncturing my shoulder. She has found a letter opener somewhere on the desk, used it to fend me off. I can feel the blood beginning to seep from the wound, wetting my shirt.
The first words she has spoken to me in two weeks, and they are words of hatred.
Her whole body shudders with the enormity of what she has done, the realization that she attacked me with a weapon. The shudder turns into trembling. An abbreviated sob curdles in her throat. I feel her fury fade into a surge of fear. I know what she thinks I will do to her.
“S-sorry,” she mumbles through the sobs that choke her. “Sorry—”
“Stop, koshechka. You do not apologize for this.” It is the least of what I am due from her.
A rough, pained sound forces its way out of my lungs as I sit beside her.
She doesn’t protest as I pull her into my lap, but still she flinches from me.
“I will never send you back there. You could stab me a thousand times, and still I will not do this to you. Never again, koshechka.” My fingers curl into the tangle of her hair, and she cringes.
“Maybe you just have to see it for yourself, hmm? Maybe you have to trespass to trust.” It is a gift; a peace offering.
I am inventing excuses for her actions for her.
So that she does not have to choke herself upon undeserved apologies.
The coppery tang of blood is thick in the air. I already know I will need stitches.
It is impossible to tell if the sobs she smothers in the palm of her hand are fear or relief. But I adjust her in my arms and lift myself to my feet.
The cook stills as I pass through the kitchen, his eyes flitting to the blood staining my shirt, the letter opener protruding from my shoulder. I jerk my head; a silent instruction to avert his gaze. I do not want him seeing Katya like this.
“Call for the doctor,” I snap. “See that we are not disturbed otherwise.”
∞∞∞
My shirt cannot come off until the letter opener is removed, and that cannot be done until the doctor arrives. It is difficult to tell how much damage has truly been done, but I suspect not much. A flesh wound; largely a puncturing of meat and muscle. Still, it hurts like a bitch.
Katya should be sleeping, but her nerves keep her fighting the sedative I know is coursing through her veins. Still she does not believe I don’t intend to hurt her. To punish her. My heart breaks for the frightened woman she has become.
She vaults off of the bed the moment I set her down, fleeing to the farthest corner of the room, swaying on her feet. Her pallor is unmistakable, like a little ghost.
“Come, koshechka.” I pat the edge of the bed with my good hand.
“Sit.” I don’t make this a fight. I don’t make it a difficult choice to obey.
I turn and head for the bathroom, retrieving a hand towel to soak up the blood before it can drip elsewhere.
Not everything must be a battle. She is smart.
She knows I will only find her if she flees again.
I glance into the mirror as I wash my hands.
Katya stands there, weighing her options.
There is just one, and she knows it. She sits at the edge of the bed, lightly, prepared to run at the slightest provocation. Still she will not look me in the eye, but her gaze follows my feet, watchful and wary. I have made myself into the danger she must always be prepared to flee from.
Her nervousness manifests itself in shaky little movements; a persistent tremor. “It is forgiven, koshechka,” I tell her. “Already forgotten.”
Her gaze drifts as far as my shoulder, the letter opener protruding from my flesh. Doubt is a severe mask upon her face.
A knock at the door. Katya startles—but it is only the doctor, coming in with his bag. Probably he has been briefed in what might be relevant already, if I were to judge from the way he has already set down his bag, assembling equipment. Sutures, gauze, antiseptics. The trappings of his trade.
“It’s deep,” he says. “It’ll want numbing before I remove it.”
“No.” I take a seat upon the bed, and Katya jumps up, ready to run. I seize the back of her shirt in a tight pinch between two fingers. “Sit, koshechka.” I want her to see. Not for cruelty, or for punishment. I want her to know I can be hurt. I want her to know her own power.
It is not the first time I have had a blade removed from my flesh.
I know what to expect. The pain is still excruciating, but it is also familiar.
Things happen very quickly as the blade emerges.
I shed my shirt; the doctor shoves a wad of gauze against the wound to stanch the bleeding.
He threads the curved needle that will stitch my skin back together, and I am given four neat stitches.
He tapes a gauze pad over the wound, and hands to me a bottle of antibiotics to fend off any hint of infection.
The doctor leaves quickly, quietly. He will return in a day or two to check on the worst of Katya’s wounds, but he knows better than raise questions that were not invited this evening. He knows better than to make comments which could prove unwise.
I clutch the ruins of my shirt in one hand, the letter opener concealed within it.
“In bed, koshechka. It’s past time.” And then I give her a few moments of privacy while I clean up in the bathroom, tossing my shirt in the waste basket, cleaning the blood off of the letter opener, and wiping up the last traces of it on my chest.
I know she will be using the scant time I have given her to drown herself in the thickest, most oversized clothes she can.
She thinks she can make herself undesirable to me in this way.
She does not understand that it is not only her body I covet.
I want her heart again. Her mind. Her soul.
She hides these with far more efficacy than she hides her body.
When I return to the bedroom, she is already tucked into bed, as far away as she can get.
There is a sharp edge to the pain in my chest; perhaps half of it is the fault of the letter opener.
Her blonde hair is a tangled wave over the pillow, gilded by the light of the lamps, which I extinguish one by one, leaving the last on for her comfort, as always.
I slide into bed at last, crawling across the empty space between us until I can mold myself around her.
She has always been asleep when I find her in whatever corner of the house she has hidden herself in, sedated into a deep unconsciousness.
She knows nothing but waking in bed within the circle of my arms in the morning—a circumstance she is quick to remedy.
Tonight, she cannot avoid it. But she tenses, tightens. It is as if I can hear the creak of strained muscle and sinew beneath the surface of her skin. Her breath catches as my arm extends, reaches over her.
I tuck the letter opener into her hand and press her fingers closed around it. “This is yours, koshechka. Your trophy.”
Her hand withdraws, disappearing beneath her pillow with her prize as if she fears I might snatch it back from her.
She does not have the stomach for violence or bloodshed, so I do not fear that she will gouge my eyes out while I sleep.
But from the slight easing of her tension, I think it must make her feel just a little better. Perhaps even a little safer.
“Ask anything of me, koshechka, and it is yours.” I give the words to the silky tangles lying across the pillow. So desperate for just a shred of the voice she denies me that I would promise the moon.
A minute stretches out in taut silence. And at last— “Let me go. Let me leave.” Her voice is hoarse, choked. Little more than a thin whisper.
My eyes close on a wave of despair. “Ask anything but that.”
Only silence follows. There is nothing else she wants of me.
∞∞∞