"She'll break," Evan says, snickering. “She did last time.”
I remember breaking. I remember the cell, the darkness, the pain. I remember the sound of their footsteps coming closer, theway my body would curl in on itself, trying to become smaller, invisible, anything to make them lose interest.
I remember what they did to the other girls. The ones who didn't survive.
But I also remember Kazimir's face when he found me. The way he looked at me like I was something worth saving. The way he held me, his body wrapped around mine, keeping me safe.
The way he touched my stomach just hours ago, his hand gentle and reverent, like he already loves the child we might have made together.
I can't break. Not again. Not when I have something—someone—to protect.
"You can't keep me here," I say, forcing my voice to stay level. "Kazimir will come for me."
"Let him come." Iosef stands, looking down at me with those dead eyes. "We'll be ready."
They leave then, all three of them, and I hear the sound of a lock sliding into place. Multiple locks. Just like before.
I'm alone.
The panic tries to claw its way back up my throat, but I shove it down. Panic won't help. Panic will only make me weak, and I can't afford to be weak. Not now.
I look around the room, cataloging everything. The chain on my wrist is solid, but the pipe it's attached to looks old. Rusted in places. Maybe if I work at it long enough, I can loosen it. Or maybe I can break my thumb, make my hand small enough to slip through the shackle.
The window is too small and too high to reach, even if I could get free of the chain. There's nothing else in the room except the mattress and a bucket in the corner that I try not to think about.
No weapons. No glass to break. Nothing sharp.
Nothing I can use to end this if it comes to that.
Because it might come to that. If they try to touch me, if they try to hurt my baby, I will find a way. I will bite through my own wrists if I have to. I will bash my head against the concrete until everything goes dark.
I will die before I let them have me again if Kazimir doesn’t come for me. If he’s gone, and I can’t get away, I won’t go back to what they did to me before.
The thought should terrify me. But there's also something almost peaceful about it. A choice. The one thing they can't take from me, no matter how many chains they use.
My hand goes to my stomach again, and I feel tears burn behind my eyes. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry."
But I'm not sorry about Kazimir. I'm not sorry for the nights we spent together, the way he made me feel alive again after so long feeling like a ghost. I’m not even sorry about the baby, because if it is his… or even if it’s not, he’s made me feel like it is, anyway.
I'm sorry that I might not get to meet them. That I might not get to hold them, to possibly see Kazimir's eyes looking back at me from a tiny face.
That I might not get to have the life we talked about, the one I’d just started to try to believe in before everything fell apart again.
Tears come then, hot and silent, sliding down my cheeks, and I let them fall. There's no one here to see my weakness. No one to use it against me. I cry for what I might lose. For what I've already lost. For the girl I was before all of this, the one who believed the world was hers to play with, who thought that even if her life was decided by others, it would always be mostly good and comfortable and pleasant.
That girl is dead. She died in the cell beneath Iosef's compound, and what crawled out in her place is somethingharder and sharper, more willing to do terrible things to survive. But even that version of me might not be enough this time.
If they come back—when they come back—I will fight. I will make them work for every inch, every touch, every moment of compliance. I will make them regret taking me. And if fighting isn't enough, if they overpower me or drug me or find some other way to break me down, then I will find a way out. A permanent way.
The door opens again, and I tense, my body going rigid with fear and fury.
It's Grigory this time. Alone, which is worse.
He's carrying a tray with a bottle of water and what looks like bread. He sets it down just inside the door, far enough away that I can't reach it without stretching the chain to its limit. "Iosef says you need to eat," he says, not coming any closer. "For the baby."
The way he says "baby" makes my skin crawl.
"I'm not hungry."
