16. Octavia
My unlucky day.
The wall scrapes at my back as I slowly rise to my feet.
Vasiliy’s entire posture shifts in front of me. I may not be able to see his face, but I can practically see his muscles ripple with anger. He seems to expand in the space, causing the shadows to shrink back into the cage walls.
My heart pumps something fierce as I fly through all the interpretations those words could mean. None look good.
“You won’t touch her,” Vasiliy starts. “She’s useless to you. I’m the one with all the information—”
“Don’t be greedy. You’ve already had your turn, Morozov.” As soon as he says the words, his knuckles rap against the door he came in from. It flies open, familiar guards filing into the room. My eyes lock with one in particular, a bandage wrapped around his tan neck.
My stomach cramps.
“Do what you must to retrieve her.”
Definitely not good.
I shake so hard, my arms start rattling at my sides. I stretch out my muscles like I always see Vasiliy do when he’s preparing for the chair. The chair. That’s where they’re taking me, isn’t it?
“Vas, it’s okay,” I whisper. “Don’t get in the way—”
“No!” he shouts, pushing me further back. But more men flood into the room, and I start to get the eerie suspicion that he’d do anything to prevent them from getting to me.
Even if he gets killed in the process.
One guy opens the cage door, and I flinch back, watching Vas throw his first punch.
It connects with a punishing thwack, clipping his target’s ear.
Unfortunately, more men start slipping through the cage door in an overwhelming attack.
Vas takes hits from both directions as he fights, somehow staying on his feet.
A breath catches in my throat.
These assholes may be really fucking scary, but nothing is quite as terrifying as losing Vasiliy. That singular thought plays through my head in a loop as the group trades punches and kicks, just a few feet away.
“Oh, would you hurry up and bring her out already?” The leader calls out from the other side of the bars. One guard swings forward, catching Vas’s jaw. The guard’s fist is yanked forward, sending him pummeling into the far wall at frightening speed.
The offensive move costs him.
I cry out in warning, spotting the man with the bite-sized chunk missing from his neck, winding up his fist.
This is futile.
There are too many of them. Sooner or later, they’ll manage to get me out, even if they have to kill Vas to do so.
I’ll be all alone in the world once more.
My foot slides forward. Vasiliy is so distracted by the attack that he doesn’t even see me sneak up behind him.
I take a bracing breath.
And slam my foot against the back of my cellmate’s knees.
He goes down hard and fast. I flinch at the sound of his kneecaps smacking against the cement.
One of the guards tries to take advantage of his misstep, kicking him while he’s down. I make a sturdy fist and get right in his face before throwing the punch. A sickening crunch rings in my ears like the cymbals of a symphony, and pain rolls up through my knuckles.
Fuck, that hurt.
Fingers thread through my hair and pull, causing me to lurch back and call out in surprise.
The world tilts.
My scalp burns.
“OCTAVIA!” Vasiliy bellows, fighting harder to get to me as I stumble away, but it’s too late.
The cage door clangs shut.
The lock clicks.
And for the first time, I’m the one on the other side.
My breaths speed up, but something manic in my brain dissolves at the sight of Vasiliy, safe and sequestered inside the cage. I meet his tortured, blue gaze, trying to communicate everything left unsaid with a single look.
I can handle it.
I’ll be okay.
I avert my gaze before he can see my own self-doubt creeping through. He doesn’t need to carry that.
Thankfully, my mind goes blank, floating high in that dull, practiced space as my corporeal body is shoved into the chair that’s already been bathed in Vasiliy’s blood. It’s been a day since the last time he sat here, so all that’s left are the dry, red remnants of his sacrifice.
All I can think about is our little game. How many drops of blood would this equate to? And if I take into consideration that he only bled to hold their attention and keep me out of this very chair, how can I ever repay the sum?
My captor’s beady, brown eyes and unkempt scruff appear above. Something metal locks around my wrists, leaving my torso dangerously exposed. I instinctually pull them, testing the restraints.
“Hello, Octavia. Or should I say, Annika?”
Not this, again.
I stare directly into his eyes and imagine carving them out with a Bowie knife. It’s oddly therapeutic.
Shit, I’m gonna need so much therapy after this.
Well…if there is an after this.
My fingers fist around an invisible hand, locked away behind the cage doors. He’s safe. I can handle anything so long as he’s safe.
“Not feeling too talkative today, are we?” He walks in a circle around my chair.
No matter how hard I try to stay still, my limbs flinch the second he disappears from my line of sight.
“Well, that’s alright. You see, I have to keep you in relatively good shape for the sale, but I’ve been doing some research on that problem. ”
To my horror, he takes an intentional step towards Vasiliy.
“Actually, I have you to thank for this, baby Morozov. I’ve been looking into some of your signature techniques. That’s how I got the idea for these.”
Not good. Float away, Octavia.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll rip your fucking limbs off and throw them in the Hudson!” Vasiliy’s voice rings out, his accent so thick and violent, the individual hairs on my arms rise.
Though that also might have to do with the man unzipping a small black case at a taunting speed before lifting something thin and shiny beneath the single bulb of light above me.
Of course, I’d recognize the sharp metal anywhere.
The long needle glints in the air.
The same tool I’ve weaved between my fingers since earning my first pair of pointe shoes at twelve years old.
Vasiliy calls out, waging everything from threats to pleas, rattling the rails of the cage a few feet away. It all blurs in my eardrums. My mind goes blank.
Too many inhales.
Not enough flows out.
The man above me asks some inane questions about my secret identity. It converts to static.
Vasiliy was right when he said there was something else I was good at.
I’m excellent at enduring.
Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet Op. 64, Act 1. Dance of the Knights.
The grand march fills my ears at a nonsensical volume, and the choreography I’ve performed hundreds of times causes my legs to twitch to the beat.
My right hand is damp, slick with blood. My shoulder shakes uncontrollably.
I don’t look down, where I know the needles are still lodged in my flesh, buried deep beneath my nail beds. I don’t look because I’m floating. Spinning…
The cymbals crash with shrieks of pain, but my mouth stays shut, teeth ground tight. Silent tears pour down my cheeks like the delicate strings at the end of the reprieve.
Of course, there are no reprieves in ballet.
In fact, the space between movements is arguably the most difficult part—holding a pose through pangs of pain, sweat sliding down your face.
The reprieve ends.
The corps dancers run in from each wing to start the march once more.
Another searing pain burns beneath my nail, this time tearing through my ring finger.
“How’d you communicate with your father?”
The words barely register under the tuba’s bass notes. My teeth slice the soft flesh of my lower lip. We’re running out of fingers on my right hand.
CRASH.
I grind my teeth through the next explosion of cymbals, my head growing impossibly light.
Losing too much blood, my logical side supplies.
Fuck off, I fling back.
My head droops.
My sight warps.
Something hard and unrelenting smacks across my face, waking me.
We never reach Juliet’s soft, joyful solo. No, we pause the tape. We rewind the orchestra. The march starts again, angry and powerful.
I begin humming along, though I can only feel the vibrations of my voice. Every sound is warped and watery in the curves of my ears.
My legs twitch again. I want to waltz.
I want to waltz!
Apples and potatoes, my old teacher used to say. You swing up to the sky and pluck an apple from the tree, then down to the ground to pull your bounty up from its leafy roots.
I always thought Prokofiev would have liked that.
CRASH.
My blood flows like syrup, thick and hot and fast. The viscous solution drips from a different place this time, the needles left abandoned under my nails.
I’m not entirely sure what causes the new wave of pain.
A blade, maybe?
The sensation feels like hot glass melting down my neck, causing a guttural shriek to rattle my skull. I barely hear it.
“How were you communicating with your father, Annika?”
I giggle. The sound is ugly, crushed gravel beneath a boot.
That’s not my name.
Some part of me is vaguely aware of how fucked up it is to be laughing right now. Another, quieter part realizes it’s not a good sign for my survival.
I ignore both. I’m dancing, after all. Most people don’t know that the Dance of the Knights is a bit of a trick.
It’s placed at the beginning of the ballet, when everyone is bright and lively, so most people mistake it for a celebratory tune.
They don’t realize until the end that it was a funeral march all along.
I frown when my music fades out beneath the trickle of male voices.
“We’ve got trouble. Someone breached the perimeter.”
“What? How?”
“I’m not sure. I just got a text from the backup team…”
Ew.
I don’t want to listen to men right now.
“Be quiet. Rewind the tape,” I mutter, head lurching to the side in a dizzying shift.
I want my Prokofiev turned back on!
Suddenly, cymbals fill my ears. A smile melts across my mouth—at least, I think it does.
“Good boy,” I mumble, resigned to sit back and listen to the music progress.
But something’s…wrong.
The string section comes way too soon. The clashing cymbals warp into sharp explosions.
Idiots probably fucked up the tape. Maybe I can get them to fix it…ask if it could be my final meal?
Please, let Prokofiev be my final meal. I’ll waltz into the light. A veritable feast of apples and potatoes and—
But that’s when I realize the string section never began in the first place.
What I thought were the high notes of a skilled violinist are replaced by screams that echo through the room.
The crashing cymbals morph into pops that collide with the metal door.
Suddenly, I’m not the only one bleeding. Bodies line my feet in a delicate lace, overlapping and twitching to add a vibrant, crimson dimension to the dull, shitty ground. Brethren, I think with another giggle. I wonder how much their blood is worth. Not as much as Vasiliy’s, surely.
“Clear!” someone shouts.
Another voice filters in, as familiar and comforting as a warm cup of tea. “Don’t you dare touch her!” he yells. I lick my dry lips at the sound. Harsh consonants. Guttural tone. “She is under the protection of the Morozov Bratva!”
So many new men fill the room with their stupid bodies and awful voices that the final dregs of my waltz drown in my ears. I glare, thoroughly annoyed.
“Boss, I think you’re gonna want to come down here and see this for yourself,” someone says. I don’t hear a response, but I do feel the heaviness of tall shadows falling over me.
“Don’t touch her! Back the fuck up!”
There goes the pretty, accented voice again. I try to look his way, but my head is far too heavy.
“Who the hell is he?”
“Don’t think it matters. Brother…she has your eyes.”
Okay. That’s enough. I was having a perfectly nice funeral waltz until these assholes came in and turned off my music.
“If you identify as a man and you’re talking, please do me a huge favor and SHUT THE HELL UP!” There. That oughta do it. The words may have come out mostly slurred, but all the voices momentarily quiet down. A win is a win.
“Thank you.” I smile. Or at least, I think I do. “Now turn my music back on, please.”
“Where is she?” A new, deeper voice cuts in, punctuated by the bang of a door slamming open.
“Careful, she’s lost a lot of blood. She’s delirious.”
“I know you fuckers can hear me! If you lay a single hand on her, I’ll kill you myself!”
“Shhh,” I hiss at them all. Jesus, nobody respects the dying like they used to.
My arms and chest shiver through a crashing wave of coldness. Everything is sticky. Red.
But when I open my eyes again, someone new is standing directly in front of my chair. My gaze trails up a large body, up a grey beard, all the way up to a pair of emerald green eyes.
Eyes that have followed me in mirrors and photographs all throughout my life.
The man stares into me like he’s seen a phantom.
Then his hanging mouth closes to form one last word that follows me into sleep.
“Annika.”