The hours blur together as I drift from room to room. Neither of the guards says a word. Neither does Ivan, when our paths briefly cross in the kitchen, where Oksana says nothing about my preparing another cup of tea.
I never find a way out of the labyrinth.
I’m in the library, vacantly parsing through title after title of hundreds of books, when I hear the chime of the elevator. For a moment, I’m certain I’ve imagined it. But I don’t know his footsteps well enough to imagine them. I can’t yet summon the deep, husky tenor of Iosif Yuri’s voice. And I absolutely don’t hallucinate in Russian.
It’s him. He’s back.
I can hear him speaking, and then Oksana’s clipped reply.
My heart pounds ferociously within my chest, and I hurl my body against the bookshelf in my efforts to hear them.
“…Ona poyela?” he is asking.
“Da,” Oksana answers. Then she adds, in English, “She didn’t eat much, but some.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she switched languages for my benefit.
She more or less confirms it a beat later.
“Where is she now?” Iosif questions.
My blood turns to ice in my veins.
“Somewhere in the apartment,” Oksana answers.
She definitely knows exactly where I am.
Iosif says nothing in response for a long, maddening minute.
Then, his voice sounds louder, “Janella. Come here.”
It isn’t a request. Nothing from his lips ever seems to be. It is a command, and I have no choice but to obey it. Invisibility isn’t an option. I am being summoned like a dog, and my master doesn’t even need to tug on a leash.
I can’t afford to find out what happens if I don’t come.
I force the tension from my limbs, at least enough to move. My feet chart the path from my refuge to the hallway where he stands, his brows arched expectantly.
“There you are,” he says in lieu of a greeting.
“Hi?” I squeak out, my face burning at the sound.
The look on his face when his gaze unashamedly sweeps over me is indecipherable to me. It knocks the breath out of my weary lungs when he drawls, “The dress suits you.”
My lips part. No words come out.
What the hell am I even meant to say to that?
Iosif isn’t concerned with what I have to say. He barely waits before he’s already turned away and leading, moving down the same hallway he’d led me down last night. This time, he walks me past the door he’d opened then. He leads me to… He’d said that door is to his office. He throws open the door, gestures me inside first, and I can see that’s exactly what it is.
It also isn’t empty.
Ivan is sitting on the couch. Another man, one I haven’t seen before, stands by Iosif’s desk. He is holding a leather briefcase.
Witnesses,I realize with a stab of alarm.
This is actually happening. The man opens up the briefcase and draws out papers, setting forms down one after another. I can’t breathe.
“Sit,” Iosif commands, his palm splaying at the small of my back and physically guiding me to one of the two chairs in front of the enormous desk.
What else can I do? I sink into the cool leather.
