Page 37 of Nemesis

“Then just now, you said, there’s not much they can do to me that I haven’t already survived,” he continues, parroting my own words back to me.

“Seems to me like you answered your own question,” I say stiffly.

A sharp intake of air rips through the quiet cell. I’ve never heard Vasiliy breathe like that before. Not when he was punched into oblivion. Not when he was stabbed with a knife. Nothing ever seems to reach him, no matter how horrific or bloody it gets in here.

“Who?”

I blink.

“Who hurt you, Octavia?”

My bare legs tuck up beneath my arms. I shouldn’t have to hide it anymore. I hated hiding it then. Even under threat, keeping the secret of those promising young men ripped me to shreds. Besides, he paid me the currency I established. He deserves an answer of the same quality as the ones I sought.

“I always stayed in the studios late into the night, practicing with the day’s tapes over and over,” I start. A few flutters, and my eyes readjust more to the cell’s darkness. “A group of guys got out late from company rehearsal one night. Wandered into my studio. I tried to fight them off, but they ganged up on me. I just remember…I couldn’t breathe.” My voice dampens in my own ears.

“They took turns. Ripped my hair to keep my mouth open. I don’t want to…” It doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters in here. “Anyway, one of my teachers happened to walk by and told us the studio was closed for the night and to go home. I didn’t go home, though. I went to my teacher in tears and told her everything—how they held me down, forced themselves into my mouth. How they would’ve continued, had she not chosen to walk by that night.”

I’m so focused on the dirty crack on the floor that I don’t see him move until I’m back in his arms. The formation feels comforting. A constant in this place we can’t control. “You know what she told me?” I laugh in a humorless key. “She said what she saw was just another young student trying to whore her way to the top with company men.”

“Octavia—” he whispers, voice breaking in the third syllable. Suddenly, I’m being moved, tugged closer into his chest like we’ve earned the intimacy of such a gesture. I’m not sure why I allow the comfort.

“It’s fine, Vas,” I say, patting his arm. “It’s all in my past. But, you see, this is not my first experience with men who wish to punish me in that way. I can handle it.” I clear my throat, ignoring the way my vision wavers under a wet sheen. “I always handle it.”

“It is not in the past for me,” he rumbles against my back. “And that is something no woman should ever learn to handle.”

I turn in his lap, seeking out his bright blue gaze. “I’ve seen your scars, too,” I whisper, lifting one hand to the marks littering his chest. “We move forward however we can, right?”

“I can’t,” he chokes, bringing that soaked piece of fabric back to my cheek. “I can’t move forward from this. I need names, zlaya. Hell, I need a fucking list⁠—”

“We may never leave here, and they’ve all scattered.”

“Then it will be a hunt,” he answers without skipping a beat. “And you will never put yourself in harm’s way for me ever again. Next time, you’ll let me face whatever violent urges spark to life in their demented skulls.”

My head shakes. “You lost too much blood, Vas. If you’d taken my punishment, you were going to die.”

“I. Don’t. Care.” He carves out each word against my skin. “Do you want to know what I’ve learned in years of working with men like that?” He lifts his head, meeting my eyes. “Selfish people survive. Altruism is a silent killer. It’s the way we’re fucking hardwired from birth, the only reason the species has survived this damn long. If you want to live through something like this, you have to be smarter.”

My brows lower.

I consider pushing back. I think about the fact that interrogators probably don’t allow selfish men to live beyond their usefulness, either. I think about the hypocritical basis of his stance. I almost ask if he truly believes his own words, why he’s sitting with a random girl in his lap, pressing a makeshift bandage to her wound.

But I don’t.

I can’t bear the thought of his flesh disappearing from mine. Of his hand pulling away from my throbbing cheek.

“Okay,” I say. My lashes flutter closed, and I lean into his touch. “I’ll never do it again.”

He presses closer. I think we both heard the lie in between the words, but in the fragile peace of the cool cell, neither of us has the heart to name it.

My eyelids grow tired of squinting through the darkness—the only sign I have that night has fallen beyond the walls of this room.

I blink rapidly, trying to dispel the wave of sleepiness that passes over me. Out of the corner of my eye, Vasiliy shifts up and down with each pushup, the final step of his rigorous routine.

That’s right. He has a captivity fitness routine.

Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of something more horrifying. At least he seems to have bounced back from the last beating a few days ago. I’m a quick healer, he often boasts. I hate it when he does that. The men haven’t come back for anything other than the daily cup of water. While I’m grateful for the distance, my stomach keeps growling protests at the complete absence of food.

There’s been plenty of time to think in here.