Chapter 10 Kalina
KALINA
The following morning, the maids deviated from the routine. One brought me breakfast. That wasn’t a surprise. But another one came with many options of clothing.
I didn’t speak to them. I didn’t react, only able to watch and observe.
I listened, cautious as the chatty woman carried on.
Maybe she was someone who simply liked the sound of her voice.
Or she was awkward with the one-sided nature of this conversation.
But on and on she went, laying out the pants, sweaters, shoes, and boots.
Underthings were supplied too. Almost as if she were playing dress-up with an inanimate doll, she matched tops and bottoms with boots to show them to me for approval before folding them and putting them in a suitcase.
He meant it.
Alexsei wasn’t bluffing when he said he was going to relocate me.
Knowing he was a man of his word, that he didn’t change his plans or intentions, started to scare me. I was sick of others, of men, dictating my life. But when I recalled how Misha, that young boy, begged to come along, I wanted to relax.
Misha might be an ally. If he was with me, he would either be a witness to any punishment Alexsei would dole out on me or he would be a defender. As I ate and the chatty maid packed the clothes, I wondered if my assumption was true.
Misha was just a boy. He was smaller than me, and something instinctive in my heart argued that if any violence, any punishment, was coming toward us, I wouldn’t hesitate to protect him.
It didn’t matter that I was a victim, that my bruises were still healing from a beating.
I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on an innocent young boy.
According to him, Alexsei would be present to protect us, not that we’d need protection from him. I wasn’t born yesterday, though. That dynamic could very well shift in the blink of an eye. I wasn’t sure I’d ever trust a man for the rest of my life.
With that nervous mindset, I was skittish and sluggish to get dressed.
Every movement I made felt like a risk, like I wasn’t being small enough, careful enough.
While I hadn’t picked the clothes that were brought in, I had the chance to choose which of them I would wear.
That freedom to make a decision felt… surreal, distracting me from the enormity of being moved again.
When Misha and Alexsei came to my room to walk me toward the exit of wherever I was, I focused on simply breathing. On putting one foot in front of the other.
Maids and other members of the house staff flitted around in the background outside the room I’d been kept in.
I was right, too, about the carpet in the hallway being thick and plush, muffling the sounds of people walking.
It was nothing like the barebones, crummy hovels Erik chose.
Not filthy and dark with broken lights. No foul odors or weird sounds from other apartments full of domestic violence.
Was I allowed to look? To see what it was like?
I didn’t know where I was, this place where Raisa lived. It looked like a hotel. A fancy home. All I sensed was that it was so far from anything my brother ever stayed in that it seemed like a dream. Like I’d entered a whole other world.
One woman dusted a side table. A man carried a basket of linens. Guards, the same ones who came into my room with the nurses and maids, stood in the periphery as I followed Alexsei down the long hall. Misha smiled up at me, at my side instead of leading me.
Not being blindfolded felt… wrong. I wasn’t used to the ability to see the building I was held in. On the street, I wasn’t covered. Two men escorting a blindfolded woman would’ve attracted too much attention.
But here, it was just so different.
No one pushed me to hurry like Yusef did.
Erik wasn’t here to scowl and watch me for any sign of my wanting to rush off.
I wasn’t ordered to look down, to avoid making eye contact with passersby.
I just couldn’t make sense of it, so bewildered with the new experience that I had no way to know how to slot the details in my mind.
Outside, I was brought to a car. Tensing up at the idea of being caged in had me staggering in my steps.
“You want the window?” Misha asked.
He was calm, normal in this real world, whatever part of it this was supposed to be.
“So you can look out?” he asked, glancing at Alexsei when I didn’t reply with anything but a jerky look at the boy.
Alexsei frowned, not in anger but something like sadness.
He shook his head and gently put his hand on the boy’s head to urge him into the backset.
“You two can hang out in the back.” Instead of sliding in with us, so they’d flank me like when Erik and Yusef hired a ride, Alexsei got in the passenger seat.
He was giving me space. Just like he assumed I wanted.
And I did need it. The mere act of leaving that bedroom and mansion to get into this car was overwhelming me.
The engine revved up as the driver took off, but Misha reached out toward me. “Wait. You gotta put your seatbelt on, Miss Kalina.”
I reared back from his small hand. It was too much, too soon.
“Misha,” Alexsei warned. He watched through the rearview mirror.
Misha frowned, staying still with his hand in the air. “But, Dad, she needs her seat belt on. It’s safer no matter how fast the car’s going. That’s what you always tell me.”
Dad?
Misha is his son?
I should’ve pieced that together sooner, but I hadn’t, too stuck on surviving and trying to get past this shell of defense and quiet that I was locked in.
“Let her do it,” Alexsei said.
“Oh.” Misha sat back and watched me. “Your seatbelt will click in here.” Not reaching out per his father’s request, he only pointed at the boxlike thing.
A seatbelt. Right. That was right. Memories of them came back to me, old ones when my parents expected me to use a seatbelt as a child. Fourteen years was a long time ago, though. I couldn’t recall…
“Want help?” Misha asked.
I furrowed my brow, still stunned that this child would point out the need for me to use a safety measure. Erik and Yusef wanted me intact to sell, but Misha was just being nice. Concerned.
I couldn’t nod, wishing I could just break down and cry at this simple act of kindness.
“Here.” He slowly reached out over me—without being too close to brush against me at all—to pull on the belt and hand it to me. I accepted it, hating how my fingers shook.
“And you push it in here.” He held up the box at the cushion.
I jammed it in there, feeling like I was trying too hard to be normal. In the real world. It felt like another universe I still didn’t have clearance for. Or one that I’d stay in for long.
Misha’s curiosity about me hovered between us. He had to be so confused, why an adult like me was so lost. So quiet. But I was locked, like an outsider looking in. I couldn’t explain how hard this was for me. He was respectful, though, not badgering me with questions or staring like I was a freak.
Until he lost the war on staying quiet. “It’s okay, Miss Kalina.”
“Misha,” Alexsei warned from the front side again.
“It’s okay,” Misha said, not disregarding his father’s warning not to speak but more like he was rolling with it. “I used to be nervous too.”
Of him?
I needed so many answers but was too scared to ask.
“I was nervous about traveling, too.”
“Misha.” Again, Alexsei’s gaze was stern on the boy through the reflection in the mirror. “I made myself clear. You could come with us on this getaway so long as you’re quiet and don’t bother her.”
Misha sighed. “I am. I’m not bugging her. But maybe it’s too quiet and that’s bugging her more.” Bravely pushing on, Misha smiled at me. “It’s okay to be nervous about traveling.”
It was almost sweet that he assumed that was all that was bothering me right now.
“Once you get there, it’ll be all over and you can see how it wasn’t so bad after all,” Misha concluded. “We’ll be right with you the whole flight.”
Flight?
I went rigid as my eyes popped open wider.
I was going on a plane?
My heart raced.
“Misha, enough,” Alexsei warned.
Misha cringed and looked out the window, muttering, “Sorry, Miss Kalina. But it’s not that scary.”
Not that scary?
It was easy for him to say that. I was doing my best not to hyperventilate at all this newness.
Soon enough, though, we were at an airport and Alexsei took charge. Noticing how nervous I was, he asked if I’d prefer if I was sedated for this next step of traveling.
I shook my head, not in any conscious means of wanting to communicate with him but to reject being drugged. I couldn’t handle any more loss of control.
“Okay. Okay.” He held his hands up. “No sedatives. I just don’t want you to panic any further.”
Misha pushed closer to me as we boarded a small plane. A private aircraft. It had to be because no other passengers were on board.
“Have you never flown before?” Misha asked, indicating for me to sit next to him.
I’d forgotten how to use a seat belt. I’d never been on a plane. I was going to pass out in an anxious mess. Yet, his guidance of a suggestion to sit next to him was a plan I could latch on to. I could move toward that little goal.
Sit.
Buckle in again.
And… wait.
Misha couldn’t want to hurt me. Sitting next to him convinced me that he couldn’t be all that bad.
“Never flown before?” he asked again.
I shook my head.
“Oh, it’s not that bad. It’s way faster than being stuck in a car for a long drive.” He swung his legs, chatting on. “I threw up the first time I flew.”
“Misha,” Alexsei warned with a groan. He sat across from Misha and diagonal from me, still giving me space but close enough to watch over us both.
“Well, the first flight I remember,” Misha said.
“I ate this big ice cream sundae before getting on and then I got queasy and puked on this old lady in front of us. I felt so bad.” He shrugged.
“But she wasn’t that mad. It only got on her chair and not on her.
Remember when Andre flew with us to that party and he wouldn’t stop crying? ”
Alexsei almost smiled. “Nonstop.”
“Now my favorite flight was when we went to the villa on the beach. We got to see the sunset through the windows.”
On and on, he prattled. He talked to his father, not necessarily to me.
Much like the chatty maid this morning, I was just an audience in the background.
This boy seemed convinced that his idea of it being too quiet was a bad thing.
And honestly, as we lifted into the sky and flew through the air, it worked.
He distracted me, talking about previous travels and flights with his father.
It wasn’t a trick or a ploy. He wasn’t trying to distract me so something worse could get to me.
He was just talking. Filling the void of silence.
And so long as I locked onto what he said, just hearing his young voice, I could breathe easier. I could loosen my grip on the armrests.
When I dared to look out the window, that was when I felt the magic of the experience. To be in the air. Floating in the sky, untethered to the ground. I’d always admired the birds I could see out the windows. Those animals I envied for their freedom to take off and just soar.
Now I was.
Am I?
Am I flying free?
It didn’t feel like it, not when I was trapped in this shell over my mind. When I couldn’t shake off the fear that Yusef and Erik—or my husband—would come to take me back.
Nothing made sense, but with Misha talking happily and Alexsei replying here and there, I thawed at their easy companionship. I was a spectator, not a participant, but even that helped to thaw me out a little.
It wasn’t enough to push me to trust them. Not fully.
But I wanted to dream a little harder that this could be the first step toward that peace and happiness I so badly wanted to believe I deserved.