1. Alina #3
As nice as the sentiment is, that is exactly the kind of comment someone would make who doesn’t understand how carefully controlled my life actually is. It would be easy to think that a quiet gathering wouldn’t get me into loads of trouble, but reality is a far crueler mistress.
I wish I could be brave enough to actually go against my father’s wishes or have some kind of rebellious streak in me, but I never have.
“Thanks,” I say quietly, not meeting his eyes. “I’ll let you know.”
He nods like he gets it, even though I don’t think he ever truly could. People like Arin have freedom woven into their bones. They’ve never had to ask for it.
When Professor Ivanov calls for a break, the room erupts into stretching limbs and chatter. I shove my half-filled water bottle back into my bag and zip it up. Right as I stand to stretch my legs, Arin leans closer.
“If you change your mind, let me know. I’ll save you a few beers.”
I give him a polite smile that I know doesn’t reach my eyes. “Thanks.”
By the time the break ends and students start trickling back through the doors, something in the room feels… off.
I can’t explain it at first.
It’s nothing obvious—no alarms, no strange shadows lurking in the corners, no dramatic shouts or flashes of movement that force my attention away from the front of the room. It’s just a shift, a subtle ripple in the air like glass vibrating that’s invisible but impossible to ignore.
Something in my body is on edge, but nothing around me justifies it. Students flip through their notes on their screens, fingers type across keyboards. All of it is painfully normal.
I press my pen to the page but my handwriting shakes. I exhale slowly, trying to ease the tension balled up in my stomach.
Arin glances at me. “You alright?”
I nod. “Fine.”
He studies me for a second longer before turning back to his screen, but I can tell he isn’t convinced.
My phone vibrates again, a pulse against my thigh. For some reason, my heart leaps into my throat.
I slide the phone out carefully, shielding the screen from view. It’s not from Yuri like I expect, though. It’s from an unknown number, one I don’t recognize off the top of my head.
There are only three words.
Leave campus immediately.
A cold shiver races down my spine.
I blink, reread it, and reread it again.
It could be a prank. A wrong number. A glitch from the phone company sending out mass spam texts on accident and will later send out an apology for. Or maybe it’s one of my distant cousins messing with me because they always find things like this endlessly entertaining.
Before I can think, a second message appears.
Now, Printsessa.
My breath catches.
No one in or outside my father’s inner circle calls me by that nickname. No one except…
No. Impossible.
I spin, scanning the rows behind me, but everyone is hunched over their tablets or laptops. There are no strange faces watching to see my reaction. No one out of place who looks seconds away from pulling out a weapon and threatening the entire lecture hall.
My pulse thunders in my ears as I turn back to my phone and type back with trembling fingers.
Who is this?
The reply is instant.
Last warning. Move. Now.
A chill snakes down my spine so sharply, it’s almost a physical blow. I shove my notebook and pens back into my bag and stand up abruptly, zipping it up with one sweep of my hand.
Arin looks up instantly, his brows knitting together when I shove my arm through one of the loops and pull the strap over my shoulder. “Where are you…?”
I don’t answer. My throat is too tight with fear to speak.
I head down the aisle as quietly as possible, but a few students notice and watch me go. Professor Ivanov clears his throat to question me, but I’m already out the door by the time the first syllable leaves his mouth.
I shove through the lecture hall doors into the corridor, my pulse roaring.
The hallway is too bright, too quiet, too empty.
None of it fits with the panic crawling up my throat, threatening to spill out as I turn and head back toward the entrance of the building.
My shoes slap the tile floor as I run toward the exit stairwell.
My phone buzzes again. I lift it, the text thread still pulled up on the screen.
Wrong direction. Left stairwell. Out the back entrance.
My shoes squeak against the flooring as I come to an abrupt halt. How does this person know where I am?
My lungs seize.
But I trust the voice because something in me recognizes it even if my mind hasn’t caught up yet.
I pivot sharply, veering left.
When I reach the stairwell, I throw myself through the door and race down the steps two at a time.
A strangled whimper leaves my throat as I hit the ground floor and shove through the exit.
Students outside are laughing and chatting, unaware of the countdown ticking toward whatever oblivion is inevitably about to hit.
Right as I turn to head back to Gate C, the world explodes.
There’s no warning, no flicker of lights or strange sounds that warn me of the atmospheric shift. It’s just a violent eruption of force that slams into my spine like the hand of God shoving me forward.
A deafening, concussive blast punches into my back. The shockwave flings me off my feet and onto the pavement, my palms scraping against the cold concrete as my body skids a few feet.
The breath leaves me in a tortured gasp.
The ground heaves beneath me as if something alive is trying to tear itself free beneath the campus courtyard. The impact reverberates through my ribs hard enough to rattle my bones. Behind me, windows shatter in a chorus of violent cracks one after another like artillery fire.
Glass rains down in glittering, lethal shards.
They hit the ground and the nearby cars parked a few yards away, and me . Tiny stings pepper the backs of my hands and exposed neck, sharp enough to tear the skin and draw blood.
Screams erupt everywhere around me.
They are high-pitched and raw, gut-splitting sounds that are sharp enough to cut through the ringing that fills my ears. Others are low, panicked wails of confusion and terror and pain blending into a horrific symphony that is soon drowned out by my pulse filling my ears.
I try to breathe.
My throat feels squeezed shut, my lungs refusing to cooperate. I’m drowning on dry land, gasping like a fish tossed onto a dock.
I roll onto my back slowly, every muscle trembling from the shock. My vision swims, blurred by tears I didn’t realize I was crying. Above me, the sky—blue just moments ago—is already being swallowed by a widening plume of black smoke.
It curls upward in sickening, thick coils, blotting out the sun.
The economics building, where I was sitting not even five minutes ago, is no longer just a building.
It’s a furnace of flames that roar out from the broken second-floor windows, orange tongues licking hungrily at the collapsing frame.
The walls groan, sagging inward like the entire structure is taking its last breath before caving inward.
For a second, I swear I see silhouettes of people moving inside, frantic as they run through the fire.
My stomach turns violently.
Students scatter in every direction, some of them sprinting toward the front doors to help, some crawling away with their bloodstains trailing behind them. Others are frozen in shock, stuck staring up at the building while waiting for the inevitable to happen.
Someone grabs my arm, yanking me upright and onto my feet again.
A man’s voice shouts something at me, but I can’t understand him. The ringing in my ears drowns everything out and I can only blink and shake my head. He shoves away from me before turning to a girl close-by, turning her over to assess her for injuries.
Another blast, not as large as the first one, rocks the ground beneath us, sending another wave of screams rolling through the courtyard like a storm surge as more fire plumes out through another set of windows.
My brain feels split open, logic screaming that I should move while instinct screams that I should hide, all while shock freezes me in place.
I can’t tell which side is winning.
I look back at the building again, unable to stop myself. All of it has been swallowed up by the fire.
If I hadn’t left… if I hadn’t checked my phone… if I hadn’t listened…
I would be dead.
A sob rips up my throat uncontrollably. My hand claps over my mouth to trap it but it escapes anyway, shaking my entire body.
A hand clamps around my arm from behind, yanking me back so hard, I nearly skid across the concrete.
My breath punches out of me as I whirl around in panic and find myself staring into Alexei’s face, one of Papa’s guards, six foot three, built like a wall, his jaw set with the kind of focus only men like him possess.
His mouth is moving, shouting something at me, his eyes wide with urgency, but I can’t hear a thing. It’s all muffled, buried beneath the high-pitched ringing that’s carved itself into my skull. The world might as well be underwater.
I don’t fight him.
I don’t do anything.
My legs are barely working, trembling beneath me with every step he forces me to take forward.
He practically drags me across the courtyard, cutting through crowds of crying, bleeding students, pushing past a police line that hasn’t even fully formed yet as they’re still jumping out of their vehicles.
When we reach the curb, an SUV is already idling there. Alexei shoves me inside with more force than necessary, but maybe necessary is subjective when the world has just exploded and all I can manage to be is a useless ragdoll.
He slams the door so hard, the frame rattles.
Yuri is behind the wheel. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel, his expression carved from granite as he glances at me in the rearview mirror. Something flickers in his eyes, but I can’t quite make sense of it. Relief, fear, anger? I don’t know. My head is too scrambled to think.
The tires screech as he pulls away, weaving between abandoned cars, debris, and the still-forming chaos of more police arriving on scene. I twist in my seat, unable to stop myself as I press a shaking hand against the back window for one last look.
The campus, the place that has been my lifeline and my fragile taste of freedom, has transformed into a battlefield. Students stagger through the wreckage like ghosts, faces streaked with blood and dust.
I should be dead. I should be under all that rubble. I should be?—
My thoughts fracture before I can finish it.
I turn back around and stare at my shaking hands resting in my lap. Blood—my own, maybe, or someone else’s—has dried on my sweater. Every bump in the road jolts through my skull like a hammer strike.
By the time we pull through the iron gates of the dacha , the ringing in my ears has settled into a dull roar. The snow-covered trees blur past the window, stark and skeletal.
When the engine cuts, I finally lift my head to look toward the front steps.
To where Papa is standing waiting for me.
His posture is rigid, his hands clasped behind his back, his face unreadable.
His suit is immaculate as if he dressed deliberately knowing this moment would come, but that’s a wild thing to think when none of this could’ve been predicted.
Two more guards flank him, their eyes scanning the perimeter instead of me.
Alexei opens my door moments later, but I’m frozen in my seat for a heartbeat, unable to make my body move.
“ Devushka ,” he murmurs.
Instinct takes over.
I step out on shaking legs, boots crunching weakly on the snow covered gravel. The cold air slaps my face, sharp enough to sting, but it barely registers. Papa’s gaze sweeps over me like a spotlight, assessing, cataloging the damage that still covers me.
He doesn’t run to me or grab me and pull me into his arms while whispering how grateful he is that I’m alive in my ear. He doesn’t even ask if I’m hurt. He simply nods as if I’ve completed a task exactly as expected.
“Inside. Now,” he says, his voice controlled, a command thinly veiled.
Somehow, that hurts worse than the explosion. Worse than the glass no doubt still embedded in my skin.
For the first time in my life, as I walk toward him, one truth pierces through the haze with stunning clarity. This was not an accident. This wasn’t random. Not when that text message told me to run for my life before I could get caught in the blast.
Something inside me knows that whatever happened today touches closer to my father than he will ever admit.
And I’m suddenly terrified of what will come because of it.