19. Ruslan
RUSLAN
The dream begins in the library.
It’s always the library, even when it is not.
Shelves lean over me like walls. Books are scattered across the floor. The lights flicker above the aisles. Somewhere, glass breaks. Somewhere, a woman screams.
Then I see Zoya.
She’s crouched behind the returns desk, one hand pressed over her mouth, trying not to make a sound. Her eyes find mine across the room.
I try to reach her. My leg will not move.
I look down and see blood on the floor, but it’s not from my leg anymore. It spreads too fast, dark under the shelves, running between the fallen books.
“Zoya,” I call.
She shakes her head, as if she knows something I don’t.
Behind her, the library door opens.
I raise my gun, but my hand is empty.
The sound that follows is not a gunshot.
It’s a child crying. Then another.
Two children crying in the dark.
I look back at Zoya, and she’s holding them now. Two little girls with dark curls and scared faces, pressed against her chest while she tries to shield them with her body.
I try to stand.
I cannot.
The shelves fall one by one.
Zoya looks at me again. Her mouth moves. I can’t hear her.
Then she disappears behind smoke and paper and blood.
I wake with my hand already reaching for a weapon.
Pain catches me before I move too far. My thigh burns under the bandage, and my body reminds me quickly that standing is not an option. I suck in a breath and grip the edge of the couch until the room steadies around me.
Not the library. A small apartment. Morning light pushing through thin curtains. A cartoon blanket over my legs. A pink hair clip on the coffee table.
Zoya’s home.
I’m on her couch because she refused to let me sleep in the kitchen chair and refused even harder when I said I could leave. Karina pointed at my leg, called me “half-stapled,” and threatened to sit on my chest if I tried to move.
I look toward the hallway. It’s too quiet here.
Then something shifts near my feet.
I lower my eyes. One of the girls is standing beside the couch, staring at me.
The one in yellow from last night.
Mila.
She wears pink pajamas with moons on them and has one sock on, one sock missing. Her curls are wild from sleep. She holds a stuffed rabbit by one ear and looks at me with the serious concern of someone who has already decided she has authority here.
“You made a scary noise,” Mila says.
I clear my throat. “Did I?”
She nods. “Like a bear.”
“I apologize.”
“Are you a bear?”
“No.”
She studies my face. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“My sister says people can’t be bears, but sometimes adults say things that are not facts.”
I sit back carefully against the pillow. “Your sister sounds sensible.”
Mila comes closer, completely unafraid in the way only a child can be when she has not yet been taught what I am.
“She is sensible,” Mila says. “But she’s also shy.”
I look past her toward the hallway again. “Where is she?”
“Hiding.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re awake.”
That seems fair.
Mila climbs onto the edge of the couch before I can stop her.
“Careful,” I say.
“I am careful,” she says, placing one knee near my hip and the other on the blanket beside me.
“You’re climbing on an injured man.”
“I’m not on your injured leg.”
“That’s not the only rule.”
She ignores this and settles herself halfway against my side, small and warm, her rabbit pressed between us.
I go very still.
Children have never been easy for me. Men, I understand. Enemies, traitors, liars, cowards. A man shows you what he wants, and if he doesn’t, you find where he keeps it hidden.
Children are different. They ask questions with their whole faces. They trust before you earn it. They put their hands on your sleeve and assume you will not hurt them.
Mila looks up at me. “Are you still bleeding?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
“Not about that.”
She seems to accept this with caution. “Mama says lying is bad unless it’s about surprise parties.”
“That’s a complicated rule.”
“Nadia says that too.” Mila pats the blanket over my stomach like she’s comforting me. “You can sleep more if you want.”
“I’m awake now.”
“Because of the bear noise?”
“Yes.”
She nods and looks toward the hallway. “Nadia, he’s not being scary.”
There is no answer.
Mila raises her voice. “He said your name sounds sensible.”
A small voice from the hallway says, “That’s not what he said.”
I turn my head slightly. The other girl stands half-hidden behind the wall, wearing blue pajamas and holding a book against her chest like a shield. She has the same curls, the same dark eyes, the same small face as Mila, and yet there is nothing the same about her expression.
Mila is open doors and raised hands.
Nadia is a locked box with a knife inside.
I say, “Good morning.”
Nadia doesn’t move closer. “You were making sounds.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Were you having a nightmare?”
Mila whispers loudly, “Nadia, that’s private.”
Nadia whispers back, “You asked if he was a bear.”
“That was medical.”
“It was not.”
I look between them. They are identical, but only in the way a flame and a blade can be made of the same light. Mila fills the room without trying. Nadia stands at the edge of it and notices everything.
I say, “It was a nightmare.”
Nadia’s face changes a little. Not softer exactly. More careful. “I get those sometimes,” she says.
Mila leans against me. “She doesn’t like loud rain.”
Nadia’s face goes pink. “Mila.”
“What? It’s true.”
Nadia looks at me as if daring me to comment.
I don’t.
Instead, I say, “Loud rain can sound like other things.”
Nadia’s grip on the book loosens.
Mila looks up at me. “What was your nightmare about?”
“Mila,” Nadia says immediately, scandalized.
“It’s okay,” Mila says. “He can say no.”
I look at the small hand resting on the blanket beside me. Her nails are painted badly, one hand pink, one hand purple. Zoya must have done it, or perhaps Mila did it herself and Zoya surrendered to the result.
“I don’t remember all of it,” I say.
That’s a lie, but not the worst kind.
Mila nods. “That happens.”
Nadia takes one step into the room. “You should drink water.”
Mila perks up. “Yes. Injured people need water.”
“Everyone needs water,” Nadia says.
“But injured people get reminded more.”
Nadia considers that and doesn’t argue.
Mila starts to climb off me. Her knee presses near my side, and I catch her under the arm before she can slip.
“Slowly,” I say.
She freezes, then gives me a solemn nod. “Slowly.”
She climbs down in the least slow way possible.
Nadia watches me help her and moves another step closer. “You’re not supposed to pick things up,” she says.
“I picked up your sister.”
“She’s not a thing.”
“No,” I agree. “She’s not.”
Mila returns with a plastic cup of water filled almost to the top. She carries it with both hands, walking so carefully that half still spills onto the floor.
Nadia sighs. “I told you not full.”
“It was full of love,” Mila says.
“It’s now full of floor.”
Mila hands me the cup. “Drink.”
I take it. “Thank you.”
She beams.
Nadia looks at my bandaged leg from a safe distance. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Nadia,” Mila says, “don’t interrogate.”
“I am not interrogating. I’m assessing.”
I take a drink of water to hide the fact that I almost smile. “Enough to notice. Not enough to panic.”
Nadia accepts that answer.
Mila climbs back onto the couch.
“Mila,” Nadia says. “Mama said he needs rest.”
“I’m helping him rest.”
“You’re lying on him.”
“I’m beside him.”
“You’re mostly on him.”
Mila looks down, then adjusts herself by about two centimeters. “Better?”
Nadia’s expression says no.
I should move her. I should tell her to sit on the floor or go back to bed or find her mother. I do none of those things. Her weight is light against my ribs, and for reasons I don’t want to examine, it makes something in my chest ache worse than the wound in my leg.
Nadia finally comes close enough to sit on the edge of the armchair. She keeps the book in her lap and her feet tucked under her.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
She looks surprised that I asked. “A book about frogs.”
“Do you like frogs?”
“I respect them.”
Mila says, “She likes them.”
Nadia says, “Respect is more serious than liking.”
“True,” I say.
Nadia looks pleased despite herself.
For a few minutes, the apartment is quiet in a way that doesn’t feel like danger.
Mila rests against me, half-asleep again.
Nadia opens her frog book and starts telling me facts in a low voice.
I learn that some frogs freeze in winter and survive.
I learn that poison dart frogs are very small but not to be underestimated.
I learn that Mila once tried to kiss a frog at the park because of “princess research,” and Nadia stopped her because science did not support the method.
I listen. I don’t know what to do with the fact that I want to keep listening.
Then I hear movement in the hallway. Zoya appears a moment later, hair loose, face tired, cardigan pulled over her nightclothes. She stops at the entrance to the living room.
Her eyes take in the room. Nadia in the armchair. Mila half on top of me. Me on the couch, holding a plastic cup with frogs being explained to me like I’m a visiting school inspector.
For one second, no one speaks.
Then Zoya says, very calmly, “Mila.”
Mila lifts her head. “Good morning, Mama.”
“Why are you on him?”
“I’m not on his bad leg.”
“That was not the question.”
Mila looks down at herself, then at me, as if searching for a technical defense.
Nadia closes her book. “I told her she was too close.”
Zoya walks over and lifts Mila off me with the ease of long practice.
Mila protests, “Mama, I was keeping him company.”
“He’s injured,” Zoya says, setting her on the floor. “You do not climb on injured people.”
“I was careful.”
“You were lying on his ribs.”
“Not all of them.”
Zoya gives her a look.
Mila lowers her eyes. “Sorry.”
Zoya’s face softens for half a second, but she doesn’t let go of the reprimand completely. “Both of you should have woken me.”
Nadia says, “You were sleeping.”
“That’s why you should have woken me.”
“You looked tired,” Mila says.