2
Mara
He’s hurt. Blood is seeping through his fingers where he’s holding the wound on his arm.
One of the other men, the one who carried me into the chopper, tugs my seatbelt tight and clicks it into place, drawing my attention from the one with the scar like an X on his face. The one with the patch over his eye. He places a headset over my ears and reaches under the seat to take out a small box. A first aid kit. He hands the hurt one something to put over his bleeding arm.
There are six of us inside the chopper plus the one flying it. The soldiers are anxious, charged, there’s an energy about them, adrenaline high. I hear them talk about what happened through the headset. They laugh about this one’s face or how that one screamed. They smell of sweat and exhilaration. It’s almost palpable, the scent coming off of them. Intense. They clean off their rifles and put them into a black duffel bag. Even now, after so many years in captivity, it’s terrifying to see those killing machines.
I watch them but what I want to do is look at him. Because I feel him looking at me.
And I know him.
I sneak a glance. He’s leaning back so his face is mostly in shadow, but I see the shine of the eye without the patch. Bright green. I wonder what happened to the other one. I think how the color doesn’t fit him. He’s a hard man. A killer. But that color is like spring. Like promise.
“Don’t be scared,” he says, and my heart does exactly the opposite. Its already frantic pace picks up making it pound against my ribs. But I think it’s his voice that’s doing it. Not his words. Like a deep rumble vibrating inside me.
The chopper veers at an impossible angle and I gasp, gripping the edge of the seat as rain pelts the glass door. It’s picked up, coming down harder than it was. Below us is the black water of the Hudson River. And we’re flying too close to it.
“You’re safe,” the man with the patch says.
I shift my gaze up to his. Force myself to look at him as we near a low but wide building and prepare to touch down in the large, mostly empty parking lot.
I know him. Not his man’s face. His man’s body. But his eyes.
Eye.
And I feel it. The tug of something buried deep inside me. So deep it’s almost dead but not quite. Not yet.
The landing is bumpy. The men pile out, one of them hoisting the duffel bag over his shoulder like it weighs nothing. Soon it’s just him and me left inside the helicopter. I remain where I am, unsure of what to do. He’s still studying me like he can’t believe it’s me. He’s already undone his seatbelt and is taking off his headset. I take mine off too.
“Here,” he says, coming to sit beside me. When he reaches to undo my belt, his hand brushes my bare arm and I gasp. He draws it back. It’s like an electric shock. Something sparking and alive, a charge of pure electricity. He feels it too. I see it on his face.
It’s then I start to shiver, realizing how cold it is outside. How cold I am. I’m barefoot and wearing a summer dress in wintertime. I’m naked underneath.
I wrap my arms around myself. Petrov used to take care with me, in the beginning. He grew less and less careful as time wore on. When he found out the truth, found out Felix had betrayed him and made a fool of him, he stopped altogether. My clothes were taken away and I was moved out of my comfortable room to a different one. A small, dirty one.
Not that it bothered me so much. A prison is a prison whether you sleep on a feather bed or a dusty old mattress in a corner. But my new room was cold. Freezing. I can’t remember what warm feels like anymore.
I wonder where Petrov is now. If he knows what’s happened. I wonder if he’ll punish me for it when I’m returned to him. If I return on my own, maybe it will be less bad. If he doesn’t have to come after me. The time I ran before, he had to get me, and I still remember his punishment. Still remember how I couldn’t get out of bed for days after.
That brings me to another possibility. This could be a game. A trick of his. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Hey,” the man says to get my attention.
I blink, his voice drawing me back to the present.
He touches my chin to lift my face to his and my breath catches when I fully look at him. It’s like his eye, it belongs in a different body. A young boy’s body. Not this man with the deep X at the center of his right cheek. This man whose face has been sewn together. This close I can almost make out each stitch across the angry-looking scars.
He turns his head so I can see the other side. The beautiful one. And he is beautiful. The eye without the patch darkens and he doesn’t quite look at me for a moment.
“You’re cold,” he says, voice different. Like he’s trying hard to soften it. He frees me of the seatbelt. “We’ll get inside. You can warm up.” He pulls his jacket off and drapes it over my shoulders.
It’s heavy and warm and I smell him on it. Something about the gesture makes me want to cry.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” When I don’t reply he tries again, voice louder. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I draw back at his tone. He sounds angry.
He mutters a curse under his breath and shakes his head. “Okay, let’s go,” he says. He steps out of the chopper then turns to me. When I don’t move right away, he just reaches in and lifts me out like I weigh nothing. I grip his shoulders for balance. He’s big. Strong and solid. And for one instant, we remain like that, him staring up at me, me down at him, the blades of the chopper whipping my hair around.
He shifts my position so he’s cradling me against his chest. He ducks his head and carries me to a door that one of his men is holding open. He feels different than Petrov. Holds me differently.
The sound of the chopper’s blades fade as the door closes behind us and we’re moving up a staircase. It’s dark inside, the lamps barely lighting our way. The boots of the men ahead of us are loud against the metal stairs. But a few minutes later, once we’ve climbed another shorter set of stairs, we’re inside what looks like a large warehouse. The walls are unpainted brick, the exposed beams supporting the roof.
He sets me down. The cement floor is cold against my bare feet, although it’s not as cold as it is outside.
I back away a few steps and take it all in. Eye-patch man talks to one of the others but keeps watching me. There’s a kitchen against one wall. It’s all stainless steel, wood and brick. The table has six chairs around it and behind me is a living space with a few leather couches, a coffee table. Sitting on top is a bottle of whiskey and a half-full glass. A large television is mounted on the wall.
Someone starts some music. It’s loud, heavy metal. Not the classical Petrov always listened to. I like it.
Most of the walls don’t have windows, but the ones that do are made up of small panes framed inside steel that span from floor to ceiling. A hallway leads to half a dozen closed doors. I wonder what this place was. Not a home, or not meant to be.
I hear my name then and turn to find eye-patch man watching me but talking to someone on his phone. His eyebrows are furrowed, gaze intent on me. He nods at whatever the other person is saying.
One of the men laughs from the kitchen area and I look over to find them standing around the counter, drinking beers. They’re quick to adjust their expressions when they see me watching them. A moment later, eye-patch man disconnects the call, tucks the phone in his pocket and comes toward me.