“I was going to say ‘formal,’ but quiet works too.”
She lets out a soft, polite laugh. “The house has its rhythms. You’ll learn them.” She moves toward the door. “If you need anything, just ring. I’m usually nearby.”
“Thank you. Really.”
She nods and leaves. The door clicks shut.
I turn and stare at the food. It doesn’t look real.
When’s the last time I had a meal that smelled this good?
I carefully sit down at the table and study the plate with some suspicion. It only takes a second for any caution to melt away, though.
I’m starving.
My first bite is quickly followed by a second. I quickly lose count. The chicken is the best thing I’ve tasted in months.
I scarf it all down, unashamed. When your body has been running on peanut butter and granola bars, it takes what it can get.
After lunch, I feel much better. So much better that I decide to explore the residential wing, navigating the corridors Mikhail showed me and the rooms I’m allowed to enter.
The sunroom is beautiful, with floor-to-ceiling windows, plants, and warm light. I can see Anya using this space. The living room is formal, barely used. The main kitchen downstairs is industrial, accessible through a service corridor that smells of cleaning supplies.
Everything is perfectly maintained, and within each room I sense the faint, almost subliminal feeling of being observed. I can’t point to a camera. I don’t see lenses or red lights or any of the obvious signs, but a prickling at the back of my neck, a tightness in my shoulders, the animal awareness of being watched is there.
It could be paranoia. Aftershocks of Landon. The surveillance, the knowledge of where I eat and what I order, the systematic dismantling of any illusion of privacy. It makes sense that I’d project that feeling onto a new environment, especially one with guards, gates, and keypads.
But it doesn’t feel like a projection. It feels like recognition.
Night falls early in November. By five, the windows are dark. By six, the house has shifted.
From my bedroom, I hear heavy footsteps in the corridor below. Not one person but several, moving with purpose. A door opens and closes. Then another. Low male voices speaking Russian. The words are indistinct through the floor, but the tone isn’t. It’s clipped. Urgent.
I sit on my bed and listen.
More footsteps sound in a different direction now, not below me, but to the west. The restricted wing. Heavy doors open and close, an electronic keypad beeps, and a lock disengages.
Then nothing.
A moment later, a faint thud I can’t identify.
My chest is fluttering. Anxiety seeps through my very pores.
The thud fades, and the silence swallows the house again. A few minutes pass, and footsteps retreat. A car starts somewhere outside.
I sit in the dark of my beautiful room counting my breaths.
One. Two. Three. I’m safe here.
Four. Five. Six.The gate is locked, and the guards are armed. Landon can’t reach me.
Seven. Eight. Nine.The sounds are nothing. I’m reading into things because my nervous system has been running on adrenaline for four years, and it doesn’t know how to stop.
Ten.
I get up and go to the bathroom, where I wash my face and gaze at my reflection.
I look exhausted.
