I no longer care if he trusts me or not. I just need to know he’s going to come for me when this ordeal ends.
Seconds of agony pass, but I don’t dare make a sound, because Seva was right. I could be a liability. I could betaken hostage and used against him. That’s the last thing he needs when dealing with a deadly attack.
When I smell the faint whiff of smoke, I wonder if my panicked mind is playing tricks on me, but it’s definitely there. I’m sure I took the pot of goulash off the stove, so what could be causing this? Darker thoughts arrive in an instant when I remember I’m locked in a box with nowhere to escape if there is a fire. Seva would come back for me though, wouldn’t he?
Unless he’s in another part of the house and doesn’t even know I’m in peril.
I paw at the walls around me. They’re wooden. Which will either make a nice pyre for me or allow me to escape the danger. I have no axe on me though, and the wood issolid—real planks, rather than plywood. What am I supposed to do? Kick the door in hopes that I can break the lock?
I have to remind myself to breathe and settle for a moment, listening to the sounds outside. There’s silence, then a thud as if something fell, then nothing again… and then something clicks right next to my leg.
My heart accelerates because that was the lock of my tiny door opening, but Seva isn’t there to welcome me back in the kitchen. Is it possible that the attackers managed to dismantle the elaborate system Seva has in place, and everything opened, which would include this door? I back away from the gap in terror, even though it would make sense for me to seek other shelter. After all, I don’t hear any footsteps or voices.
Just… a strange scratching at the door, and a familiar squeak.
Is Ratimir looking for a place to hide? Against my better judgement, I push open the door, and the rat crawls onto my hand. He’s seeking a treat I don’t have, and I can’t even apologize, because I’m too afraid to speak.
He nips my finger and pulls on it like when we trained him.
When the three of us played together, Ratimir would get his treat once he brought me to Seva for a kiss.
So maybe… it’s over? Maybe it’s safe for me to leave the hideout?
The smell of smoke tells me we’re not yet out of the woods, and if Ratimir was sent here by Seva, maybe he needs my help? As fit and skilled as he might be, he is still human. He could have locked himself in somewhere, or… broken his leg, and—
I try to be quiet as a cat when I crawl out of the kitchen island. I smell smoke, but it doesn’t billow into the room, and nothing seems to be on fire. So it could just be the aftermath of the explosives.
I grab the biggest kitchen knife and follow Ratimir with my heart in my throat.
I’m someone who would fight for their own life to the last tooth and nail, but as I walk down the dark corridor with a weapon, I realize I’d kill for Sevastyan too. Call me crazy, but if I saw one of those assassins standing over him, I would stab the bastard and keep jabbing at them until my man was no longer in danger. If Seva is out there in need of my help, I’ll protect him.
A pained groan calls out to me from somewhere ahead, and I speed up.
Dread settles deep in my stomach when there’s no follow-up noise, because I fear what this could mean. Seva could already be gone. Just like that.
A vision of the future crystalizes in my mind. If we survive this, we need to leave. Seva is wrong about staying in this boobytrapped house. He said it himself: he doesn’t know how many people are after him, which means that we will never know peace. I’m sure that after years as an assassin he’s aware of more ways to track someone downand kill them than I can imagine, but what kind of life is this? Even the most impenetrable safe can eventually be breached. What happens when we’re old and grey? When he needs to see a doctor? If he stays here, the odds will be stacked against him no matter how deadly his house is.
The proof of how fucking deadly it is rests on the floor before me. One of the men lies sprawled, bled out from a single wound, the other’s flesh is reminiscent of tenderized raw meat, pierced by so many bullets I feel too nauseated to keep looking.
Ratimir glances my way, but as I’m about to follow him, a wail cuts through the air, and I break into a run. It must be Seva. Surely, out of all the people fighting here, he must be the survivor!
My muscles burn as I dash up the stairs, then down the corridor, toward the gurgling noise, because if Seva needs help, I will do anything to provide it.
After seeing two corpses downstairs, the next mangled body shouldn’t come as such a shock, but the juice I’ve had earlier comes up my throat at the sight of the bloodied spikes piercing the flesh of a stranger stuck in a pit that has apparently been under the floor all along.
It’s not Seva.
This stranger wears a balaclava and has blood foaming up at his mouth. I don't see him surviving this ‘accident’, but he’s twitching his hand toward a phone left on the nearby floor, and that sets me in motion.
The dying intruder only has one eye open, but when I kneel at the edge of the hole, he glances up at me despite clearly not being all there. I shouldn’t feel sympathy for a man who came here to hurt Seva, but my heart still beats faster as I adjust my sweaty fingers around the handle of the knife. This is still a person and might even have loved ones.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, briefly averting my gaze from the graying features to look at the stairs that would lead me to the main door, where I first entered the villa so many days ago.
I am free to leave this madness behind. No one would stop me if I dropped everything and walked away.
But I can’t.
My life before Seva was gray and full of resentment. He’s painted it in lush greens, reds, and golds, and I want to stay on the canvas of his making, letting him mold me with every stroke of the brush.
