Page 67 of Savage Warrior

It does not escape me that she’s ignoring any and all of my suggestions that I may be leaving soon. Despite all the talk of welcomes and home-cooked food, I’m beginning to have a bad feeling about this. I let Megan help me into bed, then I meet her friendly gaze.

“Am I a prisoner?”

She doesn’t start, as she might have if the question took her by surprise. She regards me for several seconds, then shakes her head slowly.

“Not a prisoner, exactly. But you will be staying here for a while.”

“What if I do not want to?”

Her smile never wavers. “Let’s not worry about that right now.”

“But I—”

“I have other patients who I need to check up on. There’s a buzzer beside the bed if you need me. I’ll leave you to rest.”

I’ve been here for a week. Seven whole days, with no word from ?tefan and no explanation for his continued absence.

“He’s working,” is the best I can get out of Megan or any of the other females who regularly drop in to chat to me. Neither has there been any response to Megan’s attempts to contact Natalija and Yuryl, but I tell myself it is early days and the mail system in Belarus is unreliable at best.

I do, though, have a stream of visitors.

There is Cristina, the wife to Ethan Savage, ?tefan’s boss and the leader of this organisation. She is Moldovan so speaks Russian. My English is improving as quickly as my health, but still it is good to chat in my native tongue. She has two children, a boy of about ten and a baby. The older boy, Tomasz, and his cousin, Jacob, who is about the same age, are forbidden from disturbing me, but Cristina brings baby Sebastien with her when she visits. The baby is sweet. He reminds me of Yuryl when he was tiny. I like Cristina, though I find her daunting. She was brought up in a fabulously wealthy family, so as far as I can see we have little or nothing in common, but she is kind, and as soon as I’m able to walk without falling over, she helps me to stagger outside to enjoy the fresh air and stunning scenery.

Beth is nothing at all like Cristina. She is Jacob’s mother, married to Ethan’s brother, and where Cristina is all grace and elegance, Beth arrives in a tattered boiler suit and announces she is here to bleed my radiator. I have not the faintest idea what that means but I watch with interest as she crawls about on the floor of my room with a spanner.

Beth’s mother, Faith, also lives here, in one of the cottages down by the cliffs. She is absolutely lovely and spends a lot of time just sitting with me. She brings me magazines, and even though I don’t read English very well, I enjoy the pictures of the beautiful fashions and I am reminded of my ambition to open my own dressmaking business. But that was before, in another life, when my papa was alive.

“I love to sew, too,” Faith tells me when I share my dream one day.

Faith is easy to talk to, she simply sits and waits, and it all comes out. I tell her of the hardships of trying to cope after my mother died, my papa’s illness, the responsibility of trying to bring up my young siblings with no money, no one to help us. I hesitate when it comes to the part about working in the clubs to earn enough for the rent, and the even lower depths I was prepared to fall, just to get by.

She pats my hand. “We do what we have to do, love. You just need to put it behind you now and look to the future.”

I nod, but inside I know the future will be just like the past. It always is.

Nevertheless, when Faith arrives one morning with Jack carrying her ancient sewing machine and sets it up in my room, I cannot resist having a go. Faith supplies me with a length of bright-red cotton fabric, and I amuse myself by making it into a blouse to replace my own tattered garment. The following day I repurpose an old pair of men’s jeans into a pair of shorts for me. I’m pleased with my efforts, and even the gloriously elegant and exquisitely dressed Cristina is impressed.

“Where did you learn to do this?” she asks, holding the shorts up to the light for inspection. “They’re perfect.”

“I worked for a seamstress. She taught me to do alterations.”

“Would you make me a pair?” Cristina asks. “I shall pay you, obviously.”

I’m reluctant to take any money, but I enjoy the work, so I agree. Bolts of delightful fabrics start arriving in my hospital room, with requests for tops, trousers, children’s clothing.

The days pass more quickly now I have something to do. I could even be happy here if I was not frantic with fear about the plight of my family.

And if ?tefan was here.

“Arina, you have a visitor. Would you come with me, please?”

I lift my gaze from the complicated French seam I am repairing on a pair of Cristina’s silk pants. The blond-haired man who was with Megan when they brought me to the island is leaning on the doorjamb. I seem to recall his name is Jack.

“Who is it?” My heart leaps. “Is ?tefan back?”

Jack shakes his head. “Not ?tefan, no. This way, please.”

Stiffly, I get to my feet, and he passes me a warm padded jacket, standard issue every time anyone sets foot outdoors here.

---