"Can we go today?" His eyes are wide with amazement, and I'm glad his focus has turned away from horse racing to more educational pursuits.
"We'll have to ask Fyodor when he gets back, but I don't see why not."
The food arrives and Sasha digs into his pancakes, syrup dripping down his chin until I hand him a napkin. I pick at myeggs and let my gaze wander around the cafe, watching the other guests come and go, businessmen in suits and tourists with cameras and families with small children who remind me of my students back home.
Two men sit a few tables away, watching us over the tops of their coffee cups. They're not eating or talking to each other, or even pretending to read the newspapers folded on the table between them. They're just sitting there with their eyes fixed on our table and it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
One of them is heavyset with a shaved head and dark eyes that don't move from my face. The other is thinner with sandy blond hair and pale eyes. He's staring at me like I'm on the menu and it makes me feel very uneasy. I suddenly wish I hadn't brought Sasha down here. Room service would have been just as delicious but inside the locked room is safer.
I don’t know exactly what Fyodor does for work, but a man who kidnaps a teacher to care for his son isn’t exactly a saint. And the number of times he's come home from "work" bloody or scabbed over is a huge red flag. If he's some dark criminal—which I strongly believe he is—those men could be his enemies. I could be putting myself and Fyodor's son in danger.
I look away quickly, my heart starting to pound. Maybe I'm imagining things and they're just bored businessmen with nothing better to do than people-watch. But the feeling in my gut says otherwise, and I've learned to trust that feeling over the past few weeks.
"Sasha." I keep my voice calm even though my hands want to shake. "I think we should go back to our room now."
"But I'm not done with my pancakes."
"You can bring them with you. We'll get a box."
He looks at me with confusion, picking up on something in my tone that I'm trying to hide. "Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong. I just remembered something I need to do upstairs."
I signal for the waitress and ask for a takeout container, trying not to look at the two men again even though I can feel their eyes on me. The waitress takes her time, chatting with another table before finally bringing me the box, and every second that passes makes my skin crawl with the need to move, to run, to get Sasha somewhere safe.
"Can I go look at the games?" Sasha points toward a doorway near the back of the cafe where I can see the glow of arcade machines. "Just for a minute while you pay?"
"Sasha, no, we need to stay together?—"
But he's already out of his chair and running toward the game room before I can stop him, his half-eaten pancakes forgotten on the table. I leave his pancakes and the box and hurry after him, but I know this is a bad idea. My nervous system is exploding with warning signs.
The game room is dim, lit only by the flashing screens of the arcade machines and a few neon signs on the walls. Music and electronic beeping fill the space, loud enough to drown out the sound of my own breathing, and I can't see Sasha anywhere in the maze of games and pinball tables.
"Sasha!" I call out, but my voice gets swallowed by the noise.
I move deeper into the room, checking behind each machine, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat. The shadowsseem to shift and multiply around me, stretching and twisting with every flash of the arcade screens, and I don't know if it's my imagination or if those men followed us in here.
I have no clue what Fyodor's doing in Moscow or why he's been so secretive about everything, but I'm starting to understand that whatever it is has put all of us in danger. Real danger, the kind that ends with dead bodies and blood and children who never make it home.
"Sasha!"
A small hand grabs my arm and I nearly scream before I realize it's him, standing beside a racing game with his eyes wide and startled.
"Why are you yelling? I was right here."
"We need to go. Now."
I grab his hand and pull him toward the exit, not caring anymore if I'm scaring him, not caring about anything except getting us out of this room and back to somewhere safe. Afraid and alive is better than ignorant and dead. We burst through the doorway into the bright lights of the hotel lobby, and I almost run directly into Fyodor.
He looks terrible, his face pale and his jaw tight, and his eyes scan the lobby behind us intensely. He grabs my arm hard enough to make me wince.
"Where have you been?" He growls angrily. "I told you to stay in the room."
"You didn't tell me anything. You left without a word, like you always do."
"We don't have time for this." He's already pulling me toward the side exit, his other hand finding Sasha's shoulder and pushing him along. "We need to leave. Right now."
"Fyodor, what's happening? There were men watching us in the cafe, and I think they followed us into the?—"
