Page 136 of The Harbinger

Her apartment was small, old, and dim but warm. The chill departed when the wind couldn’t lick my damp skin any longer, and only the sun shone through the rectangle windows.

She placed her dirty carrot in the sink and motioned for me to sit as she ran water into a kettle.

“Spasibo.”

Clothes hung from a line in the wood-framed window. A thick winter jacket, an orange and white striped shirt made for a child, and a kitchen linen withMickey Mousedancing along the stained white material.

Although the house appeared lived in for generations, the smell made my stomach grumble with hunger. It’d been hours since my last meal, and it didn’t go unnoticed by my host as she placed the kettle on the stove.

“Do you have a wet cloth?”

I pointed to my seeping wound I was sure had splinters still lodged inside, and showed her my stained hand.

“A wet cloth,” I reiterated and pointed. “For my arm.”

She swiped a curtain aside beneath the kitchen sink and pulled out a rag with frayed edges. She wet it, then pointed to my clothes, dripping along her floor.

I jumped from my seat, the aches settling in my bones now that I’d stopped moving. “Sorry.” I didn’t know how to apologize in Russian, but I hoped she understood my meaning.

The woman disappeared through an open doorway into a bedroom with peach-colored curtains that had a filigree pattern throughout.

A few moments later, she emerged with a towel and motioned for me to wrap it around my body while she placed another on the floor beneath my chair to catch the remnants of my jaunt through the creek. Before I could take my seat, the kettle whistled, setting an eerie tone through the space before us.

What would I do now that I’d made it to someone? I couldn’t stay here. The woman looked like she could barely afford herself, much less an American who could barely contribute. I could go to the police. I could ask her to call them if she had a phone or point me in the direction of the police department.

And then what?

Was being on the streets better than being at the mercy of a psychopath? Sacha made it very clear his father would’ve killed me if it wereheI’d met that day. And that was for doing nothing at all. What would he do when Ivan told him I’d killed his wife?

Would Sacha have the power to protect me? Would this brand mean anything to Ruslan?

What would I do now that I made it out on the other side of the forest? My heart battled with the uncertainty.

The woman placed a cup of tea on the table while I dabbed at my wound, wincing when a splinter stabbed deeper into the flayed flesh.

There was only one way to make sure it didn’t fester…

I took a deep breath as the woman walked away and picked up a receiver hanging from the wall—a landline with a cord.

As the woman spoke, her gaze turned to me. “Politsiya,”she said with a hushed tone.

I guess the decision was made for me if she was calling the police. It was better than returning to Ivan and his mountain of lies. But if he was a liar, did that mean Sacha wasn’t planning on using me as a sacrifice, and he was just saying that to get under my skin?

I grabbed the end of the splinter as the woman hung up the phone and tugged.

Strings of muffled curse words split my pinched lips as the stinging ache tingled my fingertips and kinked my collarbone. A fresh bit of blood dribbled down my arm, and I wiped it with the rag, careful not to let it drip onto the floor. My labored breathing caused my head to swim in a sea of light and air, so I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes for a moment.

Breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.

An eruption of angry voices crashed the passive atmosphere around us, causing me to jolt in my seat, my lids bolting open.

As I turned to the woman, my eyes brimming with curiosity, she swiped her hand down in front of her with a quick, disgusted hack in her throat while she tended to a pot of soup, the bubbling liquid sending steam into the air.

When did she make soup?

I sipped the cold tea and thanked her, my nerves eating at my stomach.

She’d just poured this…

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