“That’s odd,” Anastasia said.
“There’s usually a lot more locks.”
And when they stepped through the doors, she saw the locks were still very much present but not engaged.
“No one expected anyone to come looking?”she asked.
“It has to be.”
“Weren’t you told to set fire to this?”
He shook his head.“I was informed that my only job was to remove them.”
“What, like take the bodies?”
“Anastasia?”
She held a hand up.“I know this is crazy and you probably don’t believe me, but I’m fine.You had an order, and if it came from Nikolai Gnesin, there was nothing you could do.This makes no sense.”She nibbled her lip.“Do you think he knows you kept me alive?”
“No, there’s no way anyone could know.”
“But they found your cabin?”
She saw he had no answers as to how they were able to achieve that.This did not bode well for her.In fact, it scared her.
“Maybe we should just look around.I know my family were loyal to Nikolai Gnesin when I lived with them, but a lot can happen in four years.”She moved past him, and being back home didn’t change the way she felt about him.
She was still attracted to Dmitriy.There had to be something wrong with her.
She moved through each room, taking her time, and it was like the house was trapped in a stillness.The living room was exactly how she remembered her mother liking it.Two large, fluffy seats, a long cushion, and a few pillows that always got thrown at her by her brothers because they would take the large sofa, and she had no choice but to get comfortable on the floor.
Her mother had always insisted on having a family movie night.The movies were picked, and no one could bow out.Each member got a night where they chose the movie.Her eldest brother, Sven, would always pick horror movies.Those nights, she would kiss goodbye to sleeping.He would make sure to pick the scariest ones possible.Then there was her middle brother, Erick, who would choose action movies.She couldn’t keep going down memory lane, so she made her way toward the dining room.
Memories flashed of her father demanding they all stop behaving like children, as a small food fight broke out between her brothers.
Moving on, she made her way through the game room, her father’s study, and there was no sign of death.No sign that anyone was home, or that anyone had died here.
The downstairs looked impeccable, so she made her way upstairs, and when she came to her own bedroom, which she figured would have been changed to something else, she was shocked.Her room was exactly as she had left it.The bed was made just the way she liked, the blankets always smooth, without a crease.She would spend so much time each morning just getting her blankets so neat.Her brothers would tell her she had OCD.She didn’t.She just liked things neat, and there was a place for everything.
The walls still had a couple of posters she couldn’t bring herself to pull down.Some of them were math equations she couldn’t quite gasp.A few science ones.She never had pop stars or movie stars on her walls.It was always educational.She liked to study every chance she got, mainly because learning had been a challenge.
Stepping out of her room, she went into each of her brothers’ rooms.The house was completely still, and as she braced herself to go into her parents’, she opened the door, and this is where everything was different.Her parents’ room had been changed.
“Dmitriy,” she said, yelling his name.It probably wasn’t the best idea.
Within seconds, Dmitriy was by her side.“What is it?”
“This is different.This is my parents’ room, and they never had a stack of computers, or ammunition.”
“You’re sure?”
“I bounced on their bed on Christmas morning to know if Santa had been there.I sat on the bed when Mom was getting ready to go to a party.Trust me, I know this room.This isn’t it.”The bed was gone.All personal belongings were gone.The screens that were loaded up across one long wall were all closed.
“What is this?”she asked.
“Someone’s monitoring something.”
“What happens if we turn them on?”Anastasia asked.
