Usable.Not safe, protected, or even alive.Just something to be kept functional.
Arkady lets out a short breath through his nose, something close to a laugh but without humor.
“You think that’s your decision to make?” he mutters. “Those girls are here because I decided they would be.”
Ivan doesn’t raise his voice. “That’s correct,” he answers calmly. “They’re not yours in the way you think.”
Lila flinches as if she’s been struck. Her hands lift, then drop again, her fingers trembling briefly before she forces them still by pressing them into her thighs.
I take one slow breath, then another, and try to keep my thoughts from fracturing into panic. If this escalates, we’re trapped behind a steel door with no exit, no way to run, and no way to hide. The only thing we can do is listen, remember, and survive the aftermath.
Arkady’s next words come out with an edge that makes my stomach clench.
“You’ve been moving because you’ve been planning,” he says, his voice low with accusation. “You expected Kiren to squeeze and you wanted to be somewhere else when it happened.”
“Yes,” Ivan says.
Lila’s eyes widen further, and she turns her head as if she might be sick.
Arkady’s footsteps stop. There’s a small sound, fabric rustling, maybe the slide of a coat sleeve, and my pulse spikes because I can’t see what he’s doing. The silence that follows feels wrong somehow, like the air has gone still around whatever decision he’s making.
“Rowan,” Lila whispers, the word trembling with panic, like saying my name might hold her together.
I cross the room in two quiet steps and take her wrist gently, not pulling, just connecting, my fingers firm enough to let her know she’s not alone. Her skin is cold.
Arkady’s tone hardens. “You’re not the one who gets to anticipate me.”
Ivan exhales once. I can hear it, a soft release of breath through his nose.
“I already did,” he replies coldly.
There’s a fraction of silence. Then movement. A sudden change in the air beyond the door, the scrape of a shoe against the floor, the sound of someone turning too quickly.
Lila’s fingers close around my hand, her nails biting into my skin.
“Stop,” Arkady orders, his voice cutting through the corridor.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then Ivan speaks. “Put it down.”
Arkady laughs, but this time the sound is strained.
“You think you can order me?”
The gunshot explodes through the corridor, so loud in the enclosed space that it feels like it strikes the door and rebounds into the room. Lila jerks beside me, a breath caught in her chest, and my body reacts before my mind does. Every muscle locks. My hand flies instinctively toward my abdomen, as if I can shield what I can’t even see.
For a moment, everything goes quiet. There’s no shouting, no rush of movement, only the distant grind of the trains and the faint electrical hum somewhere above us. Then something heavy hits the floor outside, the impact unmistakable as the vibration travels through the building and up into my feet.
Lila makes a sound that isn’t quite a sob and isn’t quite a gasp, her face going pale as she stares at the door as if she expects itto open and reveal the scene like a nightmare spilling into our room.
My mouth is dry, and my heart beats too hard. I force myself to breathe anyway, slow enough to keep the nausea from turning into something worse.
Then new voices appear in the corridor. Low and careful in a way that people use when they’re waiting to see what the man in charge will do next. Someone speaks quickly. Another voice answers.
Then Ivan speaks again. “Move him,” he instructs. “Now.”
The words are quiet, but the reaction is immediate. Boots start moving in the corridor, quick and purposeful, the movement of people who don’t need to argue or ask questions.
