Bayushki-bayu.
Hush now.
I press my face into Eliana’s wet hair and let my voice fall quiet.
Eventually, long after the song ends, I reach up to turn off the water. Eliana stirs when I shift her weight, mumbling something incoherent, but she doesn’t fully wake. I dry her off with one of her threadbare towels and carry her to the bed.
She’s dead weight in my arms. I pull back the covers and lay her down as gently as I can manage. Her hair fans out across the pillow, still damp, curling at the ends.
I pull the covers up to her chin and step back, intending to grab my ruined clothes and leave her to sleep in peace.
I make it two steps before her hand shoots out and catches my wrist. “Don’t go,” she mumbles, eyes still closed. “Please.”
I freeze. Every instinct screams at me to pull away. I need to put distance between us before this shit gets any more complicated than it already is.
“I’m just—” I start.
“Stay.” Her eyes crack open, hazel and unfocused. “Just until I’m asleep.”
I can’t say no to her. Not when she’s looking at me like that. So I climb into bed beside her, and she immediately huddles against my chest. Her leg hooks over mine. Her arm wraps around my waist. Within seconds, her breathing evens out again.
I lie there rigid as a board, staring at the water-stained ceiling of her studio apartment, holding a woman I have no business touching while she sleeps like I’m the safest place in the world.
Bayushki-bayu,I think grimly.Hush now.
I wait another ten minutes, counting her breaths until I’m sure she’s deep under. Then I carefully extract myself from her grip. She makes a small whimper of protest when I shift away, but I tuck the blanket around her shoulders and step back and eventually, she settles back down.
When I emerge into the kitchen, the knife I left on the coffee table catches the moonlight filtering through the tiny slivers in the blinds. I grab it.
The deadbolt and chain slide open with barely a whisper. I wedge the chair back under the doorknob from the outside. It won’t keep anyone out for long, but it’ll slow them down and sound the alarm. Give her time to scream, time for neighbors to call 911.
I take the stairs down two at a time, knife tucked against my thigh.
Aleksei wants to play games? Fine.
Let’s play.
43
BASTIAN
carcass: /'k??r.k?s/: noun
1: the body of an animal after slaughter.
2: all that’s left of him.
I stand on the sidewalk outside the building and pull the driver’s license from my pocket. The address matches. Ninth floor, apartment 906.
I study the photo on the ID one more time.Petya Egorov, it says. The name means nothing to me, but the face does. This is the piece of shit who tried to shove Eliana into his trunk.
I tuck the license back in my pocket and approach the entrance. The doorman, a pimply kid who can’t be older than twenty-two, looks up from his phone.
“Help ya?” he asks lazily.
I pull out my wallet and extract five crisp hundred-dollar bills. “Take a walk. Thirty minutes.”
His eyes go wide. “I can’t just?—”
