Normal. The word sits wrong in my chest, heavy and foreign.
Back to Mary, who counts coins and avoids eye contact.
Back to pretending none of this happened.
The thought makes more tears spill, hot and sudden.
What the hell is wrong with me? Isn’t that what I want?
But then another thought sneaks in, quiet but sharp.
Does that mean I’ll never see them again?
Anton, Dima, Lev, Boris—all of them. Gone.
No more gun oil and Russian cursing. No more arguing over coffee strength or who gets the last protein bar. No more Anton watching me like he’s memorizing my pulse.
No more danger.
The idea should be comforting. Instead, it cracks something open. More tears fall. I swipe them away, angry at myself.
Why does that make me feel so fucking sad?
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. Take one deep breath. Then another. The air feels too thick, my chest too small. I look up at the ceiling, force my shoulders to drop.
“Breathe,” I mutter. “Just breathe.”
The mirror catches the movement of my mouth—some pathetic pep talk I don’t believe in. I look back at her: the shaky version of myself who’s been living on borrowed time and adrenaline.
Somewhere beyond the bathroom door, my phone alarm goes off—5.30 AM.
Dima will be waiting by 6 AM sharp.
I rinse my mouth and splash water on my face. My hands won’t stop trembling.
“Get it together, Mary,” I whisper to the mirror. “You’re fine. You’re just nervous.”
The word fine sounds like a prayer I don’t believe in. Tonight’s the gala—the night before everything’s supposed to go back to normal. My brain keeps chewing on that word like it’s gum that’s lost all its flavor. Normal. Normal Mary. The one who balancesspreadsheets, worries about late fees, and visits her grandma on Sundays.
I brace my hands on the counter until the nausea settles into a steady ache. Maybe it’s just coffee on an empty stomach. Or stress. Or not sleeping. I tell myself that twice, even though it doesn’t stick.
Sweat runs down my spine, sliding under the waistband of my shirt.
Dima looks like he rolled straight out of a military catalog—black shirt, cargo pants, boots that don’t make a sound. Sleeves up, forearms all veins and intent. He circles slowly, quiet, like a shark that’s already bored with the kill but doing it anyway.
I shift my stance, pretending I know what I’m doing. Spoiler: I don’t.
But then I watch myself work the way you notice a bruise turning into a scar—slow, inevitable. My breath comes lower now, not the tight little gasps I used to panic with. I plant my feet and feel the floor instead of floating above it. My hands don’t flinch when I bring them up; they find the position Dima showed me yesterday without my brain yelling at them. My elbows tuck. My chin drops three degrees. I’m counting in halves—inhale, exhale, move—like a metronome. When I pivot, it’s with my hips, not my shoulders. The little tremor at the edge of my fingers is still there, but it’s quieter, a background hum instead of an alarm.
I notice the change the way you notice a song you used to hate and now can’t get out of your head. It’s not confidence. Not yet. It’s something uglier and more useful: competence. A muscle memory starting to feel like mine.
“Ambush,” he says flatly. “You have three seconds to decide—fight or run. Pick wrong, you die.”
Comforting.
I nod, breath still uneven from the last round. My lungs burn. My ponytail sticks to my neck. It’s only been a few days of this, but Dima has the same mercy as concrete.
He snaps his fingers. “Move.”
