Chapter 25
LYRA
They shove me from one surface to another until I lose the map of my own body.
Rough hands clamp my elbows and grip my hair when I stumble.
Boot soles scrape, drag across concrete, then metal.
A hollow thud announces the van’s step under my feet again, the engine vibrating through the floor.
Russian wraps around me the entire time, a river of hard syllables and clipped orders that runs together until it stops being words.
I keep my breathing measured under the gag, four counts in and four counts out, because anything faster brings black spots to the edges of my vision.
The blindfold sticks to my skin where sweat gathers.
I try to keep track of the details. We turned right, then left, and the tires hummed like they were on a highway for a while.
After that, the pitch changed, and the van floated over or under a bridge before the turns got tighter again.
I keep my hands low, curving them over my stomach even with my wrists bound. The small space of my palms becomes a barrier between us and the rest of the world.
When they finally stop, everything goes quiet for a beat. A door slides open. Heat rolls in as hands seize my arms again and pull. My knees scrape against the metal lip as they haul me out. Gravel grinds under my shoes.
A key box clatters and a chain clinks through its track. A heavy door groans under its own weight, and they push me forward into a space that swallows the outside in one gulp.
The blindfold comes off so fast the light pricks my eyes like needles.
I blink hard and my vision snaps open. I’m in a warehouse that looks long abandoned.
Stacks of pallets lean against one wall in teetering towers.
A forklift sits with its forks lowered in a corner.
Far above, a catwalk crosses under a row of rattling fans, their belts whining as they drag hot air in useless circles.
Sodium lights hang from chains and bathe everything in a dirty orange that makes even the shadows look sickly.
I register people next. Men spread through the room in loose arcs, some with tools looped from belts, some with guns held low, all of them wearing sickening grins.
Two men keep their eyes on the catwalk rather than on me.
Their heads turn at the same time at the sound of footsteps above.
Apparently, the guest of honor isn’t here yet.
I count the men in the room because I need something useful to do. Nine on the floor, two above, probably more outside. I can’t see the woman yet, though I heard her voice by the door.
Even the most logical part of my brain knows I likely won’t get out of here alive. I know that Damien will stop at nothing to get me back, but these men make me think it won’t matter. And if they don’t kill me, I’ll almost certainly wish I was dead by the end of this.
Something to my left catches my eye. The woman I heard steps out from behind a stack of crate lids and comes straight toward me.
She is older than the others by at least twenty years.
She smells like stale cigarettes and lemon cleaner.
She holds a pair of latex gloves and slips them on without looking away from my face.
She pats me down with brisk efficiency. She checks the collar of my dress and the line of my bra, slides her hands down my sides, presses along my hips, checks my ankles and calves, then goes back and lifts the hem of my dress to mid-thigh.
When she gets to my stomach, she pauses, though not long enough to read as kindness.
Her eyes flick up to mine and I hold her gaze until she breaks it.
She lowers the fabric and turns to the men with a string of Russian.
I catch two words because I’ve heard them before in my audio recording.
Beremenna. Zhok. Pregnant. Stomach. She repeats beremenna, sharper, and adds a phrase that I cannot make out.
Another man mutters something that makes laughter ripple, and the woman barks back one syllable that makes the sound shut off mid-breath.
She peels off her gloves and tucks them into her pocket. Then she speaks to me for the first time. “You sit,” she says, pointing at a metal chair nearby that is bolted to the floor. “No trouble.”
A man with a shaved head catches my elbow and steers, but I go where the woman pointed before he can yank.
The chair is heavy, cold leaching up through the thin cotton of my dress.
Straps are strewn across the chair arms, and the shaved-head man threads one over my forearm and cinches until the leather bites.
I keep my face still. He does the other side.
He steps back and the woman checks the buckles.
She tightens each one another notch and nods once.
I think of Damien and suddenly feel breathless. I focus carefully on breathing and on the last time I saw him. He was surrounded by a group of men with a wire garrot around his throat, barely holding on. I don’t know if he’s alive. I try very hard not to panic at the thought.
Of course he’s alive. He has to be.
The gruff woman returns with a plastic bottle of water. She holds it where I can see it. She says something to the shaved-head man, and he frowns and gestures at my mouth. She lifts the bottle a fraction and speaks again, and this time it is not a request.
He shrugs as if the extra work pains him personally, then lifts my chin with a hand that smells like motor oil and cheap cologne.
The woman slides two fingers along the knot at the back of my head and the gag loosens.
She pulls it free and I breathe through my mouth, raw skin stinging where the cloth dragged.
She tips the bottle to my lips, and I drink greedily, careful not to choke.
The sound of expensive shoes hits the catwalk, and everyone seems to straighten up.
Whoever they’re waiting for has arrived.
He takes his time coming down the stairs to the main warehouse, talking happily with his men as he descends.
At least, I think he’s talking happily. It’s hard to tell in their language.
When he reaches me, he’s definitely smiling. He glances at my belly first and then at my face. I feel fear in a cold straight line down my back.
The woman steps forward before he can speak. She says two short sentences in Russian, both with the word beremenna sitting like a rock in the middle. He holds her gaze for a second too long then nods once. He answers with a phrase I don’t catch.
“You sit nicely,” he says in English, the accent smoothing the edges. “Good. We will have conversation, and you will not make it unpleasant.”
I let a breath slide out slowly. My heart is thudding like it wants out of my body but I breathe as steadily as I can.
The woman steps aside but does not retreat.
This matters. She is not a decoration. She watches him as closely as she watches me, and I file that away with the other parts of the map I’m building in my head.
The man stops two steps away, close enough for me to catch the quiet, expensive cologne, something that wants to suggest cedar and soap and wealth.
Up close, he is older than I thought he would be.
Lines press between his brows, a paler version of a frown that used to be permanent. His eyes are deadly and calm.
“You know who I am,” he says.
I decide the best course of action is to say nothing at all. I don’t want to give him anything he can use against Damien or me.
“Ah, I understand. You think this is story,” he says. “You think he is hero and I am villain. It is simpler for you that way.”
So he is Rurik, then.
“Tell me everything you know about him,” he says, voice still mild. “Then I maybe I let you live.”
I still say nothing, but he only looks amused.
“Are you scared of me?” he taunts. “I am very powerful man. Your Damien has been big problem for me.”
“I’m not telling you anything,” I finally growl, hoping I at least sound a little strong.
He laughs again, smirking. “You think you are his woman, but he has many women. He does not keep any of them.”
“You don’t know shit,” I say as calmly as I can.
But he only laughs back at me. He reads me too well. He must decide I still have too much fight in me, because he says something to the woman and leaves me alone. In fact, he leaves the warehouse altogether.
The woman leaves soon after, and it seems they intend to keep me here. The men left behind, go on about their business, most acting like I’m not even here.
I start counting to myself to occupy my brain.
A minute goes by, then five. The warehouse clears out until it’s just me and two men sulking by the door.
They’re clearly meant to guard me and make sure I don’t try to escape and from their relaxed body language and bored demeanor, they do not see me as a threat.
My head still aches from being slammed into the floor of the van, but otherwise I feel unharmed. I’m still hungry and tired, but nothing I haven’t survived before. And that’s exactly what I have to do. I have to survive. My baby has to survive.
Even if Damien is gone, and I pray he isn’t, I have to make sure that our child gets the chance to live. And to do that, I have to figure out how to get out of here.
“Hey,” I call to the men guarding me.
They look over, bored, then say something in Russian and start laughing.
“Hey,” I yell again. “I see they left the kids to watch the hostage while the men go do real work.”
One of them gets up and starts to storm toward me, but the other puts his hand on the man’s chest and says something else in Russian. The first man glares at me, then goes back to the door and sits on a crate, pointedly avoiding me.
“Don’t tease, little girl,” the second man taunts. “Rurik told us to keep you from running away. He didn’t say what state you have to be kept in.”
“I doubt that,” I goad. “Otherwise, you’d be taking full advantage.”
He rolls his eyes and sucks his teeth, but we both know I’m right. He makes no move to come near me.
“So, where exactly are we?”
“Like we would tell you that,” the first man scoffs.
“Why not?” I ask earnestly. “I don’t have a wire on me. That scary lady already searched me. So what’s the harm in telling me?”
The two men share a look, and they seem to decide there’s no harm in it.
“After all,” the second man says. “It’s not like Damien can rescue her anyway.”