For a moment I stand there, watching the boy sleep.
Then I turn off the lamp, step out, and lock the door behind me.
Back in the living room the game is already moving into the third quarter. I drop onto the couch. The same spot, same warmth still lingering where he’d been pressed against me, and stare at the screen without really seeing it.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Encrypted message from Viktor.
VIKTOR: Update?
I type back one-handed.
Ivan: All quiet. He’s cooperating.
A pause. Three dots…
VIKTOR: Good. Keep it that way.
I set the phone face-down.
The game continues. Tackles. Touchdowns. Crowd noise piped through speakers. But my mind isn’t on the field. My thoughts are down the hall on a sleeping boy who shouldn’t mean anything… and worse, on the dangerous, stupid, impossible feeling that maybe—just maybe—he already does.
Chapter 9
Landon
My eyes snap open in the dark.
Not the groggy, gradual waking of normal mornings—this is instant,electric.
My heart already thumping hard enough that I can feel it in my throat. The room is quiet except for the murmur of a television still playing somewhere down the hall. An infomercial, I know the tone from too many of my own nights waking up having fallen asleep watching the TV. Late-night sales pitch for miracle knives or miracle mops. The kind of sound that means someone fell asleep on the couch in the first place.
But whatever. That’s not important right now.
My instincts scream one word:Now.
No hesitation. No second-guessing. The window is open—small, but real—and I’m not letting it close again.
“It’s now or never,” I whisper as I steel myself.
I slide out from under the covers without making the mattress creak. Bare feet touch cool hardwood. Claw is already in myarms. I press him against my chest for one heartbeat, then move.
The pajamas come off fast and silent. I pull on yesterday’s jeans, the plain t-shirt, the hoodie I’d left folded on the chair. Every movement economical, practiced. Dad taught me how to move in the dark when I was twelve, he said it was “just in case.” I never thought “just in case” would mean escaping my own captor but life moves in mysterious ways.
Backpack next. Already half-packed from earlier paranoia. Laptop, battery still gone but who cares, charger cable, the few handwritten notes I’d salvaged from the bag Ivan gave back. I tuck Claw carefully inside, zip the top, sling the straps over both shoulders.
The weight is comforting. But right now I need speed, not comfort.
One last glance at the bed—covers thrown back like I might still be under them—then I ease the bedroom door open.
The hallway is dim, lit only by the blue flicker spilling from the living room. The TV is louder now: an enthusiastic voice promising “revolutionary results in just fourteen days!” I creep forward, heel-to-toe, the way Dad showed me. Weight on the balls of my feet, knees soft, breathing shallow through my mouth so I don’t whistle air through my nose.
The corridor opens into the main space.
Thereheis.
Ivan, moved now and sprawled in the armchair that has become his unofficial throne. Head tipped back, mouth slightly open, deep rhythmic snores rolling out of him. The remote is loose inhis lap. One arm dangles over the side. The coffee table in front of him holds an empty water glass, his keys, the phone?—
Thephone.
