Gregor needs to approach me. This is the hard part, what to do if one of the others approaches me instead.
I make eye contact with Gregor, willing him.
He addresses me in Russian. “Sister? Can I help you?”
I clutch my rope, so humble. I move in a way that he recognizes, a way that is deeply familiar to his bones. He reads me as real. This is something the sisters gave me when I had amnesia.
“It’s okay,” he says in Russian to the other guys. He flicks his fingers, an order to stay back. “It’s okay.”
I go to him and show him my map.
“Let’s see now,” he says.
Out comes the blade. “My pika is two inches from your beating heart. It is not good.”
He stares at me, mouth agape. He thought I was real.
I am real. Not in the way he thinks, perhaps. “You will tell them to leave you. You’re troubled. You want to talk to the mother alone. You will walk me back alone. Tell them this.”
He complies, telling the men he’d like to walk me to the address I seek. “Go on without me.”
The men amble away. There is no trickery—they really are leaving.
“That is good. Maybe you will live.”
“Did Dmitri send you?”
I smile a small smile. “I’m with Viktor.” My heart swells as I say this.
Gregor, however, goes white. As he should. Viktor Dragusha is crazy—everyone knows it.
“Help us and you won’t die,” I tell him. We walk down the street and around the corner, and then another. Viktor drives up, and I shove Gregor in and get in.
We’ll get a lot out of this one, I can tell. I pray he can lead us to Lazarus, to Kiro.
Kiro has no idea what’s coming at him.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ann
We share asleeping bag again. I wake up first and watch him sleep. It’s nice. I feel safe next to his big, warm body and I wish he was awake. I want to talk with him and hang out with him. Joke with him. Fuck him.
Not that I don’t want to get away. I have to get away—there’s no other rational choice, right? But still…
I don’t just feel safe with him, I feel relaxed in a way I haven’t for a long time, and I’m finally caught up on my sleep. Trapped out here with Kiro, exactly where I don’t want to be, I feel…almost human.
And I don’t have nightmares of the kitten anymore. I still have nightmares, but they’re of the collapsed hospital. Which actuallywasnightmarish. It always seemed suspicious that I freaked about the kitten and not about being trapped in that hospital.
Like maybe my mind has decided it’s strong and safe enough now to freak out about something that was actually scary. Out here in the peace and quiet.
With Kiro.
I reach out and smooth a beard hair, getting it into place alongside the others. He’s a beautiful study in browns. His wasp stings are still visible as lumps along one cheekbone, but they only seem to accentuate his rugged hot-guy looks.
Him giving me the phone was huge. He doesn’t trust technology, but he trusted me. I wish he’d trust me about his story. He needs to know what’s going on out there.
Little furrows appear on the insides of his eyebrows, then they disappear.