Page 4 of The Harbinger

I’d never been treated like I was worth a damn, not that I could remember anyway.

“He won’t want to keep her,” Ivan, the man beside me, said.

They switched to another language as I pulled my head away from the door, my body heavy and sinking into the bench seat beneath me.

“She’s awake,” Ivan said.

“Did you take too much?”

“What do you mean?” I frowned, looking between them both. I hadn’t fallen asleep.

I turned away and stared out the window as the roads turned into a large tarmac with a large black and white airplane, its two jet engines propped beneath the wings.

“You passed out for a minute,” the driver said.

What? No. I was watching the road.

The road… “Where are you taking me? I need to get back. My friend is waiting for me.”

The driver stopped next to the plane, my stomach pitting against me as my high waned and their lips sealed to my questions.

“Get out, and don’t make a fuss.” Ivan grabbed my arm and pulled me tight. “And if you embarrass me again, I’ll make sure your grave is shallow for the wolves.” Ivan released me with a shove.

I wrapped my numb fingers around the handle as I looked at the driver.

He’d shown me some compassion when I vomited in the alleyway, but he didn’t raise a finger to defend me in any capacity. Was Ivan his boss? Or was his kindness a facade?

I’d be stupid to think he’d help me.

I stepped out when he refused to make eye contact, then grabbed my shoes from the floor.

The blackened tarmac scorched my soles, yet the pain I expected to feel wasn’t there. It was as though I walked on a cloud. There was no searing agony from the heat or biting pinch from the small random pebble.

I was free from the torment my body betrayed me with until the man from the deal stepped out of the car in front of us and cast his gaze my way. I sunk in on myself, but Ivan pulled me toward him—the very direction I didn’t want to go.

Chapter 2

Sacha

“GdeNina?”

Vlad followed behind the pale girl with tense features and wide gray-blue eyes.

“She said she needed to use the restroom, and when she didn’t come back, we searched for her, but she just disappeared.”

“And so you decided to take a random girl off the street?” I turned my attention to Ivan pulling the girl onto my plane with shoes in her hands. My lip lifted in disgust as her bare feet slapped against the black tar like hands on skin. “Who allowed that?”

“I did.” He bowed his head.

“You?”

Disbelief settled in.

“Yes.”

We stepped onto my plane as Ivan tossed the girl into a cushioned seat, her gaze strapped to the expansive glass that traveled from floor to ceiling, giving us a panoramic view of the sky.

“Whoa. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She raised her filthy hands into the air as though she could reach right through the window and touch the clouds, her silver ring glinting from the sun.

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