“I know this is difficult, Pyotr. I hear it in your voice. But I need you to stay objective. Can you do that?”
I think about the way Daria looked last night when she told me about her marriage. The tears she tried to hide when she talked about running with a two-year-old in the middle of the night.
I think about how she felt trembling beneath my hands on her kitchen floor. The trust in her eyes when she asked me to take over.
“I can do my job,” I tell him.
He doesn’t push. “Keep me updated. And Pyotr? Be careful. Bogdan Lebedev isn’t stupid. If he realizes we’re looking at him instead of Daria, he might accelerate whatever he’s planning.”
“I’ll handle it.”
The call ends, and I set the phone on the table. Through the wall, I hear Daria praising her student for nailing a difficult passage. Her voice is maternal and encouraging, so different from the haunted woman who sat across from me last night and confessed pieces of her nightmare.
I have nine days to build a case strong enough to save her.
I just hope it’s enough.
***
I’m lying in the narrow bed in the spare room when I hear a small voice, thin and frightened, calling out from down the hall.
“Pyotr!”
Not Mama. Pyotr.
I’m on my feet before I fully register moving. The hallway is dark, but I know the path. Fourteen steps from my door to Kira’s. I’ve counted them during my nightly checks, memorizing the layout the way I memorize every space I occupy.
Her door is cracked open. I push through and find her sitting up in bed, clutching Rex the T. Rex to her chest. Tears streak her cheeks, and her small body trembles in her dinosaur pajamas.
I keep my voice low as I cross to her bed. “Hey, I’m here. What happened?”
“Bad dream.” Her voice wobbles. “There was a monster, and it was chasing me, and I couldn’t run fast enough, and it had big teeth, and?—”
Her words dissolve into hiccupping sobs. I lower myself onto the edge of her mattress, and she crawls into my lap, burying her face against my chest. Her small fingers clutch the fabric of my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
I can’t remember the last time a child reached for me like this, or the last time anyone trusted me enough to seek comfort in my arms without expecting something in return.
Lana’s face flashes through my mind. Dark braids. Gap-toothed smile. The weight of her small body as I carried her through bombed-out buildings in Syria, promising her everything would be okay. Promising her she’d see her father again.
I shove the memory down and focus on the trembling girl in my lap.
“Monsters aren’t real.” I rub slow circles on her back. “You know that, right?”
She sniffles against my shirt. “But they felt real. They had yellow eyes, and they wanted to eat me.”
“That does sound scary.”
“It was really, really scary. The scariest thing ever.”
I adjust her weight so I can see her face. Tears still cling to her lashes, but the trembling has eased.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I ask.
She nods as her curiosity momentarily overrides her fear.
“When I was little, I had bad dreams, too. About wolves. Big, gray wolves with teeth like knives who chased me through the forest.”
“What did you do?”
