Page 31 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

I stare at him.

“Watch something,” he says. “Get out of your head.”

“With you?” I ask before I can stop myself.

His mouth shifts once, not quite a smile. “If you want.”

That only makes me angrier, because he says it like he’s offering me something simple when nothing with him is simple anymore.

I gather the papers into a stack, corners knocking out of line under my hands. “I’ve got a headache,” I say. “I’m done for tonight.”

This time, he doesn’t stop me.

Back in my room, I shut the door and stand there with my hand on the handle.

The headache has been building for days, always worse by evening, and tonight my whole body feels heavy. I turn on the bathroom light, squint, and open my period tracker. The missed date sits there in plain red. I count backward once, then again.

Three weeks late.

I step on the scale because I need something else to blame. The number is up. I stare at myself in the mirror. Hair the same. Skin the same. Eyes still mine, still watching, still thinking too fast. Nothing looks different. Something is. I feel it in how I move, slower getting up, slower turning. I feel it in the dull ache that shows up by evening and stays. In the sudden roll in my stomach that comes out of nowhere and leaves just as fast.

I brace both hands on the sink, shut my eyes, and splash cold water over my face. Then I stand there dripping and count it through again, day by day, until there’s no way left to talk around it. I’m trapped in this house, in his world, and inside my own body, carrying a secret that’s already running out of time.

The next morning, I find him in the downstairs office. He looks up when I step in. One hand is flat on the desk. The other still holds the same file page we were on last night. Good. He can sit with it.

“I need to go out,” I say. I don’t sit.

He doesn’t answer right away. He just looks at me, taking his time like he’s waiting for me to hand something over for free. It gets on my nerves every time.

“What for?” he asks after a full minute.

“Pharmacy.”

I keep it short. He’d only pick at anything longer.

He pushes back from the desk and straightens. “What happened?”

“Nothing dramatic,” I say. “I need vitamins. Supplements.” Then I add, “Your hospitality comes with a vitamin D deficiency.”

A corner of his mouth lifts. His head tilts a fraction. One brow goes up. He looks at me like he’s waiting for the catch. When I don’t offer him any, he says, “You have people for that.”

“I don’t want people for it.”

He looks at me another second, then reaches for the phone and calls Mrs. Wentworth.

When she answers, he says, “She’s going to the pharmacy. You’ll go with her.”

Oh, great. Mrs. Wentworth.

A woman with eyes for everything behind those red-rimmed ladybug glasses, always clocking me, always adding things up. Maksim doesn’t leave gaps. Of course he sends her.

As if that isn’t enough, he adds, “Car in ten minutes. Two men.”

“Three will follow anyway,” I mutter.

I don’t wait for his answer. I turn and walk out before he can read anything else off my face.

The drive drags as we roll into the district, same black SUV, same spacing, the lead car cutting through traffic while the one behind holds tight like it’s tied to us. Two men in front, one watching the road, the other checking mirrors, both clocking me every time I shift like I might bolt if they give me half a chance. Mrs. Wentworth doesn’t talk during the drive, and she stays close when we step out, one pace back, one pace to the side, never in my way and never far enough to disappear.