Chapter 23 Svetlana
SVETLANA
After Kazimir gets up, at my request, and goes back to his own room, I lie there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, my body still humming with the aftershocks of what he did to me.
Three times. He made me come three times, and he never once touched himself.
Not until the end, when he couldn't help it anymore, when just the taste of me was enough to make him lose control. And even then, he didn’t touch himself.
He just lost control. I would never have thought that could be so erotic, but the thought that Kazimir came in his pants just from going down on me sends a thrum of arousal through me all over again.
I press my hands to my face, feeling the heat in my cheeks. My thighs are still trembling, my core still pulsing with the memory of his mouth, his tongue.
I sit up slowly, pulling my robe around myself, tying it with shaking fingers. The room feels too quiet now, too empty without him in it. I can still smell him on my skin, and I want to lie there and bask in it, in the pleasure of what he just did for me.
My gaze drifts to the dresser, and I see the box he brought home. He must have brought it in before he went to bed, and I stare at it, wanting to go and look again, and feeling inexplicably scared all at the same time.
I stand on unsteady legs and walk over, reaching into the box.
The yellow fabric is impossibly soft, light, and fragile, and I feel tears well up in my eyes again, my throat tightening as my hand tightens around it.
It's so small. So impossibly small. I can't imagine a human being needing something this tiny, can't imagine holding something so fragile, so dependent.
I can't imagine it being mine.
I press the fabric to my chest, closing my eyes, and for the first time since I found out I was pregnant, I let myself really think about it. Not as an abstract concept, not as a problem to be solved or a burden to be endured, but as a real thing. A real person.
A baby. My baby. The thought terrifies me.
I've spent so long telling myself I don't want this, that I can't want this. That bringing a child into this world—into my world—would be the cruelest thing I could do. I've convinced myself that the only merciful choice is to let it go, to not let it exist in the first place.
But sitting here, holding the tiny blanket, feeling the softness of the fabric against my skin, I feel something shift inside me. I hear myself think a question I've been too afraid to ask.
Would I want this baby if I felt loved? If I felt safe? If I felt protected?
The answer should be simple. It should be no.
This baby might not be Kazimir’s. It might be the product of the most horrific thing that could happen to a person, to a woman.
And I’ve never known if I even wanted children, outside of the expectation that the kind of man my father wanted to marry me off to would want them.
But the answer isn't simple. Because sitting here with the memory of Kazimir's hands on my body and his words in my ears, I feel like maybe, just maybe, I could want it too.
I set the blanket down carefully, my hands shaking, and press my palms to my face. I can't do this. I can't let myself hope. Hope is dangerous. Hope gets you killed.
Stop it, I tell myself again. He's lying. He has to be lying. Men like him don't fall for women like you. They use you and throw you away.
But what if he's not lying? What if he means it? What if he really does want me, wants this baby, wants to build something real?
I walk to the mirror and look at my reflection. My face is flushed, my hair tangled, my eyes bright. I look like someone who's been thoroughly ravaged, claimed.
I look like someone who's wanted.
Tears blur my vision, and I blink them back angrily. I can't do this. I can't let him break down my walls like this. It's too dangerous.
But he's already close. He's already inside my walls, inside my body, inside my head. If I let myself believe him, believe everything he’s said to me, if I let myself let go of the past… he could be inside my heart, too.
I go and lie back down, unwilling to shower and lose the scent of him on my skin, the languorous feeling of his hands and mouth on me. I close my eyes, and before I realize it, I’ve drifted off to sleep.
—
I'm back in the room with the stained mattress and the barred windows and the smell of sweat and fear and desperation.
I'm lying on my back, and there are hands on me—too many hands, rough and grabbing and cruel.
I try to scream, but no sound comes out.
I try to fight, but my body won't move. I'm frozen, paralyzed, helpless.
A face looms over me—Iosef's face, but wrong, distorted, his smile too wide, his eyes too dark.
He's saying something, but I can't hear the words.
All I can hear is the sound of my own heartbeat, too fast, too loud, drowning out everything else.
The hands tighten on me, bruising, hurting, and I try to scream again, try to beg, try to do anything, but I can't. I'm trapped. I'm always trapped. I'll never be free.
The room shifts, changes. Now I'm in a different place—a basement, cold and dark and damp. There are other girls here, huddled in corners, their faces blank and empty. I recognize some of them. Girls I knew. Girls who didn't make it out.
One of them turns to look at me, and her eyes are hollow and dead. "You're one of us," she says. "You'll always be one of us."
"No," I try to say, but the word won't come.
The walls start closing in, the ceiling lowering, and I can't breathe, can't move, can't—
I wake up gasping, my body jerking upright, my heart hammering so hard I think it might burst out of my chest. I'm drenched in sweat, my nightgown clinging to my skin, and I can't catch my breath, can't—
"Svetlana."
Strong arms wrap around me, pulling me close, and I fight instinctively, my hands pushing, my body thrashing.
"It's okay, it's me, you're safe, you're safe—"
Kazimir's voice, low and soothing, cuts through the panic. His arms tighten around me, not restraining but anchoring, and slowly the terror starts to recede.
I'm not in that room. I'm not in the basement. I'm here, in his bed, in his arms.
I'm safe.
The thought is startling. I’ve never thought that—safe—with him before. But it’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I realize who is holding me.
I stop fighting and collapse against him, my face pressed to his chest, my hands fisting in his shirt. I'm shaking so hard my teeth are chattering, and I can't seem to stop, to do anything but hold on to him like he's the only solid thing in the world.
"I've got you," he murmurs, one hand stroking my hair, the other rubbing slow circles on my back. "You're safe. I've got you."
For a moment—just a moment—I let myself believe it. I let myself sink into his warmth, his strength. I let myself be held.
And then reality crashes back in.
This is Kazimir. The man who abandoned me once. Who rescued me, but then kidnapped me instead of letting me go my own way. The man who fucked me in a safe house, who might be the father of my child, who gave me more pleasure today than I’ve ever had before…
I pull away sharply, scrambling back on the bed, putting distance between us. My breath is still coming too fast, my heart still racing, but I force myself to meet his eyes.
"I'm fine," I say, and my voice is shaking. "I'm fine. You can go."
He doesn't move. He just looks at me, his expression unreadable in the dim light filtering through the curtains. "You're not fine," he says quietly.
"I said I'm fine." My voice is sharper now, defensive. "I don't need you to—I don't need—"
"Svetlana." He says my name softly, and it makes my chest ache. "Let me help you."
"You can't help me." The words come out even more bitterly than I meant for them to. "No one can help me. This is who I am now. This is what they made me."
"No." His voice is firm, almost angry. "This is what they did to you. It's not who you are."
I laugh, a harsh, grating sound. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know more than you think."
"You know what I told you. You know the facts.
But you don't know—" My voice breaks, and I have to stop and try to breathe.
"You don't know what it's like to be so broken that you can't even trust yourself anymore.
You don't know what it's like to be so afraid all the time that you can't remember what it feels like to be safe. "
"You're right," he says, and his voice is softer now. "I don't know what that's like. But I know what it's like to lose someone to that world. I know what it's like to be too late."
Something in his tone makes me stop and look at him. There's pain in his eyes, raw and old and deeper than I’ve ever seen it before.
"What do you mean?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
He's quiet for a long moment, and I think he's not going to answer. Then he takes a breath, and when he speaks, his voice is rough with emotion.
"I had a sister," he says. "Anya. She was a little younger than me. When I was twelve and she was ten, we were still living in Russia. My father was—" He pauses, his jaw tightening. "He was a drunk. A gambler. He owed money to the wrong people."
I feel my stomach drop at the sadness in his words, the hopelessness that already tells me this story doesn’t have a good ending.
"They took her," he continues, his voice flat now, emotionless as if he's feeling too much rather than nothing at all. "As payment. Collateral against the debts, maybe. I don't know. I was twelve. I didn't understand. All I knew was that one day she was there, and the next day she was gone."
"Kazimir—"
“When my father still didn’t pay, they came to our house and killed him, in front of me and my mother. Broke his legs and shot him in front of us. Then they dumped Anya on the carpet in our living room.” He stops, and the silence stretches out, heavy and terrible.