Different this time. Not the slide of linen.
A catch of breath. Sharp. Involuntary.
I freeze. The pattern of breathing changes instantly. The deep, heavy rhythm of sleep splinters into something jagged and thin.
I know that pattern.
I heard it in the bunks in Volgograd—the sound of a brain replaying a horror loop while the body is paralyzed by chemicals.
My hand tightens around the chair's arm until the leather groans.
Hold position.
This is not a physical threat. I cannot shoot a dream. If I go to him now, I am crossing the only line that matters, stepping out of my role as the sentry and into a space that has never belonged to me.
But the sound doesn't stop.
It gets worse. A low, strangled noise in the back of his throat. A whimper he tries to suppress even while unconscious.
He sounds young.
The realization hits me like a fist. Ivan Baranov—the Pakhan's heir, the man who stared down Viktor Sorokin without blinking—sounds like a terrified child.
I count the breaths. One. Two. Three.
The whimpering turns into a desperate, wet gasp.
I am moving before I decide to.
My feet make no noise on the floor. I roll my weight from heel to toe, avoiding the spots in the parquet that creak. I approach the bedroom doorway with the lethal caution of a clearing operation.
Except the enemy isn't in the room. The enemy is in his head.
And I don't know how to kill that.
The bedroom is a cavern. Blackout curtains seal the windows, thick velvet swallowing the city light. The air is cooler here.
I see him.
The shape on the king-sized bed thrashes. The sheets are tangled around his legs. Ivan is fighting something I can't see. His head snaps to the side, pressing into the pillow. His hands are fists, knuckles glowing white in the faint light from the hallway.
"No," he breathes, a cracked, broken sound. "Not the glass."
I stop at the foot of the bed.
This is wrong. I see the machinery beneath the skin. I should turn around. I should walk back to the chair and pretend I'm deaf.
But I can't make my legs move backward.
The nightmare peaks. Ivan's back arches off the mattress, a spasm of pure panic. A shout tears from his throat—a raw, formless sound of terror.
"Ivan."
I say it sharply, a command tone—the voice Voronin used to snap us out of shock.
He gasps, a violent intake of air, his body collapsing back onto the mattress.
Then he freezes.
