Istared at the early morning sun tracking across the ceiling of the motel room I’d stayed in last night. Yesterday, things between me and Nikolai had threatened to spin out of control. So, I’d done the only thing I could think of. Called his bluff. I’d gone into the station and went to visit a friend who worked in records. After endless small talk, I’d left out of the back exit and made my way in a taxi to Chiara and Angelo’s house, before changing my mind and going to a motel.
I had battled with myself all night whether to tell them what was going on. In the end, I couldn’t risk it. Nikolai was unpredictable and dangerous. I couldn’t put them in danger for me. I felt like I was going crazy. He wanted the truth. He thought he was prepared for it. Neither of us were. His words from the night before played in my head on an endless loop.
“Kirill has children, you know. Two of them. I haven’t met them. I can’t be trusted around kids, or his wife, apparently.” And that was his own brother. What would he do when he knew what I’d hidden? How would he react? I was fairly sure he wouldn’t actually kill me, but then again, I’d never seen him so provoked. Fear had made me hold my tongue. It was the truth that I was too scared to share. The killing blow.
I got up, feeling exhausted, and checked out, heading to school in the same clothes as yesterday.
School felt endless. I was jumpy. Every creak in a quiet room or footstep echoing in an empty hall had me spinning around, ready to run. Finally, it was over. I called Chiara before visiting hours at the hospital.
I’d drawn the short straw and was chaperoning at the dance tonight. The setup was intricate. Hade Harbor High took their seasonal events seriously, and I was already late, but I had to check who was hanging out with Leo tonight. Thankfully, both Angelo and Chiara were going over to St. Mary’s for the entirety of the visiting hours, so I could do my duty at the dance. Luckily, I had my costume for the dance already hanging in my classroom.
“Seriously, it’s cool. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my little lion.” Chiara voice was comforting. “I have a present for him anyway.”
I groaned. “He doesn’t need anything. You spoil him.”
“Well, he’s my godson. Who else am I going to spend all my money on? I’d like to spoil you, too, but you won’t let me,” Chiara complained.
“I’m an adult. I don’t need spoiling.”
“That is precisely where you’re wrong. Everyone needs spoiling sometimes. Anyway, I have to go inside. I’ll talk to you later!”
The thought of not seeing Leo for even one night made my heart ache, but with Nikolai breathing down my neck, it was only a matter of time until he found out about him. The very idea terrified me. I had longed for it for such a long time, to be free of the guilt I carried. But the truth remained that my father was determined to destroy us, even if Nikolai could forgive me for hiding Leo from him. It felt like I was stuck in a rat’s maze, scuttling this way and that, only to find every exit blocked off before I could reach the end. Now, the idea made me want to grab Leo and escape at night on a bus heading across the country. I had my fake documents that Renato had given me. We could just run.
Even as I thought it, I knew it wouldn’t work. Now that he knew I was alive, Nikolai would only find me, and I’d be somewhere new and alone. He’d never stop. Not only that, but finding a donor for Leo meant staying, no matter what.
A few hours later, the school was bustling. The music from the gym blared out of open windows as I wandered around, keeping an eye on the students as they danced. The entire school had been festooned with spooky decorations, and the lights were low. I passed a display of severed heads on an altar. It was genuinely creepy. Maybe it was less the decorations and the fact that there was a homicidal maniac stalking me that had my nerves on high alert.
Students were everywhere. Their costumes ranged from the truly gruesome to the absolutely scandalous. My own outfit was lame at best, considering I hadn’t thought about it until a couple of days ago and grabbed the first thing I could find. A party dress, my old prom queen sash, and a little red food coloring dripping from my mouth, with a pair of glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth I’d found in Leo’s toy box.
The atmosphere in the gym was relaxed now, and the initial awkwardness of the beginning of the dance had passed. Plenty of students were dancing with abandon and having the time of their lives. The last dance I’d been to like this had been prom. Just the thought brought Nikolai to my mind.
“Miss Rossi, a dance?” Marcus appeared in front of me.
The Ice Gods didn’t usually go for school dances, and they were drawing plenty of longing stares. They had made about as much effort as I expected of them. They were dressed in their hockey uniforms and blood-flecked goalie masks, Jason Voorhees-style.
“We both know the answer to that.”
“Worth a shot. Here, some guy gave me this to give to you.”
Marcus held out a note. My blood turned cold in my veins.
“Who gave it to you?”
“Some guy with a sick mask on. Why?” Marcus looked over his shoulder toward the gym’s entrance. “Is he a weirdo or something?”
Or something.
“It’s fine. Enjoy the dance.”
With shaking fingers, I opened the note.
For tonight’s game, hide-and-seek. Your dare, prom queen, is to find who I’m hiding, before she’s never seen again. Hurry up, Cici’s waiting.
Cici? Chiara. Nikolai had Chiara hidden somewhere. Would he hurt her? I couldn’t wait around to find out. I headed out of the gym, urgency building in my chest as I groped for my phone and shakily pulled up Chiara’s number. I clamped the phone to my ear as her line rang and rang. I headed away from the busiest area around the gym. Where would he take her? Somewhere quiet, where she wouldn’t be found.
My art room? It was worth a try. The sound of my heels echoed through the corridors. As I went, the number of stragglers from the party reduced, until I was striding up dark corridors alone. Chiara still wasn’t picking up.
I switched to Angelo. His phone went straight to voicemail.
I shoved my hand in my mouth to muffle a cry of frustration. I couldn’t afford to be noisy. Obviously, Nikolai was expecting me, but I didn’t need to make it easy for him.
I slipped my heels off and left them by a locker. Reaching back into my bag, I closed my hand around my liccasapuni, my paranza corta knife. I’d barely thought about the blade in years, and had found it stashed in the glove box of my car. Now, it felt like my only lifeline.
I made it to the bottom of the stairs to the next floor. Glancing over my shoulder, I froze. A figure stood at the other end of the corridor. He was dressed in black and wore a mask that was vaguely reminiscent of a skull, but black and neon, with Xs for eyes.
Nikolai?
I put a foot on the first step, and the man started toward me. He didn’t move like Nikolai.
I ran up the stairs. Once I reached the upper floor, I spun in the direction of the art classrooms. So much for being quiet. He was already following me.
I sprinted on silent feet along the hall, not daring to look back. The realization that I was running around my place of work wielding a knife registered dimly, but I couldn’t care about that right now, not when Chiara was in danger. I approached the art room and slowed, peeking through the circular glass window at the top of the door.
It wasn’t that dark inside. The desk light was on, and a figure dressed in black sat at my desk. The same neon mask sat over his face.
How had Nikolai beat me here?
I couldn’t see Chiara anywhere in the room. This couldn’t be where he was keeping her. I was still stretching up to peek in the window when my phone rang in my hand. I got such a fright, I nearly dropped it.
I answered, raising it to my ear with trepidation.
“You called?”
“Chiara?” I croaked.
“Yes, bitch, who else did you think you called ten times? My ringer’s off. We’re at the hospital, remember?”
“You are?”
“We are. You want to speak to the little lion?”
Her question came just as the figure at the desk inside my classroom turned its terrifying mask my way. I felt the moment his eyes connected with mine.
I backed away from the door. He’d just been trying to get me isolated, and like a fucking idiot, I’d fallen for it.
My back came up against something hard. I froze as hands closed on my hips. It was a person, standing flush against me.
“Boo.”
I whirled around, my knife rising as I registered that the person standing in the neon mask in the hall behind me couldn’t be the same person sitting at my desk inside my class.
My hand holding the knife made contact with the mask, turning the man’s head sharply to the side as the metal glanced off the hard plastic.
I didn’t wait around to see if it was Nikolai or not. All reason had left my head at this point, and I was in survival mode. In this case, survival meant getting back to a highly populated area. I was running before masked man number one recovered.
I sprinted to the end of the art wing corridor and nearly fell down the stairs that led to the science wing. The sound of footsteps in hot pursuit pounded through the stillness.
I got to the bottom of the stairs. There, the corridor split in two directions. One was the science classes, and eventually, the way back to the gym and safety. The other way was toward the shop classes, an area I didn’t know well. I knew it was the opposite direction from the gym, however, with a side door that led toward the woods. I took two steps toward the direction of the gym, people and safety, just as a figure strolled into view at the end of the hall.
It was one of the men; which one, I had no idea. He ambled toward me, his black-gloved hand trailing over the lockers. He was whistling a tune. Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run.
The sound of the pursuing footsteps had stopped. I turned slowly, looking up the stairs. On the top one, only thirty feet away, the other man was sitting in an easy crouch, his mask tilted to the side.
I backed away. I had no options left. I turned on my bare heel and made for the shop classes, and that door to the woods.
I made it as far as the last classroom, when the small side door at the end of the corridor was nearly within reach, before someone caught up with me. His hand went around my mouth at the same time as his hard arm clamped across my stomach. Then, we were moving backward.
It was Nikolai, I could tell. It was the way his strong hands held me effortlessly but didn’t hurt. It was the scent of him. Like coming home after being lost for years. Was there a twisted sense of relief in that? Yes, as fucked up as it was, I’d prefer the devil I knew. Who the hell was working with him to terrorize me, I had no idea, and didn’t want to know. Having one psychopath in my life was already too many.
“Shh, prom queen. Stop squirming so much, it’s making me want to chase you down again.”
I stilled, trying to drag air into my lungs from behind his glove.
The door to the classroom closed behind us, as I struggled against him. He allowed me to twist in his arms before backing me into the edge of hard table. I hated his mask. It was even scarier when I couldn’t see anything familiar about him.
“Did you find your friend?”
His mocking tone sent anger through my panic. He was reducing me to an animal, mindless in my fear, while he was just playing with me.
He released my mouth.
“You’re absolutely mad. How did they ever let you out? Does your brother know how unhinged you are? You’re a menace to society,” I spit at him, a rapid torrent of anger and fear escaping me with my first free breath.
He simply chuckled. “And yet you only pretended to turn me in yesterday, didn’t you? I suppose a saner man would just kill you, and Angelo and Chiara, and be done with it. In my world, a betrayal like yours demands an answer. What answer would you like?”
Something inside me snapped. I couldn’t keep quiet while he leveled that kind of charge at me, when losing him had cost me everything.
“I didn’t betray you. I didn’t want to,” I started and stilled quickly. Nikolai had pressed a gloved finger against my lips, shushing me.
“Wait, I’ve heard this one before. Let me guess? Did Daddy threaten you if you didn’t pretend to be dead? Or wait, maybe he threatened me in prison… am I warm?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. The truth was a lot more damning. I’d lied to protect Leo. I didn’t know how Nikolai would react to knowing he had a son, and I’d hidden him.
Those freaky X eyes stared into my soul. “Did he threaten me, and you thought it would be safer to play dead than anger daddy dearest?”
He wasn’t completely wrong. He just didn’t know about Leo. I couldn’t tell him. He was too frightening right now. Still, I could be honest about one thing.
“Was it a crime to not want you to die? Was it a betrayal to care that you lived, even without me?”
Nikolai was still. Tension rose between us. I wanted to see his eyes. I reached for his mask, and he tutted, shaking his head. He wasn’t holding my arms, his hands were just braced on either side of the desk behind us, bending me back, making me arch my spine into him. His hips had pinned me in place, and I could feel the weight of him against my center.
I shivered. I could feel his belt buckle and something else. Was he hard? The thought-twisted as it was right now, considering how he’d just chased me through the school-made me feel hot all over. It had been so long, and the only touch I’d ever known was this man’s. My body was trained to respond to the smell of him.
“The crime, Sofia, was believing in your father’s empty threats, over me. You chose him and let him dictate both our lives. You didn’t choose me. You didn’t believe in me. That’s your betrayal, lastochka.”
“He meant it—”
“I don’t care!”
Nikolai’s sudden roar stole my voice. I’d never heard him so angry. It wasn’t just anger. It was hurt and that was much, much worse. That piece of me that had been breaking since he’d found me cracked again. It was my resolve to hold out against him. His threats couldn’t break it. His terrifying games couldn’t dent it. But his vulnerability? His hurt, shown so plainly? That nearly made me lose my head completely.
He leaned his forehead against mine. The mask felt hard and wrong. I wanted to feel the heat of his skin.
“I don’t care what excuses you let yourself believe to assuage your conscience. The truth is that once your little cage was blown open… you couldn’t wait to leave me behind. Say it.”
I shook my head, sudden tears building behind my eyes. He really thought that? It was heartbreaking. In his eyes, I was a real villain.
“You’re wrong.”
“You never cared about me, you just pretended to… you were playing the long game, and I was the fool who never even suspected it. Isn’t that the truth?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He wasn’t listening. “I lost everything when I found out you were gone. Since that moment, I’ve not known a moment of peace…” He shuddered slightly and pulled back. “And now, neither will you. It’s only fair.”
He stepped back, the moment of quiet between us slipping away. He looked down at my knife, clutched uselessly in my hand. It was the hand with my tattoo. My bird in the cage. He seemed to still and then slowly reached for it, holding my wrist for his inspection. In all our tussles so far, between darkness, long sleeves, and his distracted mind, he hadn’t noticed it until now.
He rubbed a finger across it, back and forth, his masked head tilting slightly to the side as he considered it. All the things we hadn’t said to each other seemed to build at that second, and I wanted to confess it all in a long rush. About Antonio, and Leo, and how I’d missed him. About the guilt I felt, and how seeing him again felt right in a way I had given up hoping for, even if he was scaring me. I deserved his punishment. Maybe it could heal the pain and guilt of hiding Leo for so long. Maybe it was the only thing that could. Before I could speak and spill my guts to him, he shook his head, a subtle shake, like he was pushing away the soft, vulnerable moment that seeing the tattoo etched on my wrist had triggered.
“Enough sharing circle time. New game. Tag. I’m it. If you get caught, you get fucked.” He stepped back, giving me space to move around him.
Fear and heat shot through me, making my blood pound even harder than before.
“If catch you, I won’t be gentle. I’ve been in jail for seven years, lastochka. I’ve forgotten everything I ever knew about being gentle.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Run fast, unless you want that.”
I still couldn’t move. Words I didn’t know how to say crowded my head, until Nikolai lunged toward me.
“Go!”
Finally, my brain snapped back to reality, and I listened.
I went.
