Page 30 of Lethal Legacy

Maybe I just didn’t want to wake before the deadline was up.

Not that it matters, I tell myself as I hastily dress.I’m making the right decision. The only decision.

I push Roman’s face determinedly out of my mind. I can’t afford to think about him again.

If I do, all I see are the minutes ticking down to the moment when I say goodbye to him forever.

A muffled thump comes from next door, and I freeze. Then I hear a muted grunt and spring into action.

“Papa!” Heart racing, I tear open my door and then, key shaking in my hands, unlock Papa’s.

There’s no sign of the nurse. The first thing I see is Papa’s wheelchair, upended on the floor, one wheel spinning in the air. Then, to my utter relief, I see Papa.

He’s lying on the floor, pushing himself grimly upright with his one working arm, trying to drag himself back to the chair. He shakes his head angrily when he sees me. “Sleep,” he grunts, waving me away impatiently. He thumps his chest. “Stupid,” he says in Russian, his face twisted with frustration.

Then I see the shattered teacup and toppled electric kettle beside him on the floor, the boiling water from it still steaming where it’s spread across the tiles.

The cord from the kettle crosses the floor at ankle height.

Just the wrong height for Papa’s wheelchair.

For the sake of his beloved afternoon cup of tea, my father is sprawled on a hard tiled floor.

He narrowly missed being scalded by an entire kettle of boiling water.

What if I hadn’t been here? What if he’d knocked himself unconscious and lain here all night, possibly badly injured and burned?

My blood runs cold at what I might have come home to. It’s also unlike Papa to be so careless.

“How did this happen?” I gently help him upright, ignoring his muted protestations that he’s fine. Papa will be telling me he’s fine on his deathbed.

He gestures to the window, frowning, trying to form words. Through a combination of garbled speech and hand movements, I understand that he wasn’t watching what he was doing, because he thought he saw someone out of the window. My chest hitches with the familiar, dragging fear.

“Someone like who, Papa?”

His hands mimic a camera. I close my eyes briefly, willing my pounding heart to calm down.

It could be a coincidence. You don’t know for certain that it was someone looking for you.

But I see the same grim caution in Papa’s eyes that I feel, the ever-present edge of danger that haunts our every moment. “Are you sure they were trying to photograph you?”

He makes an impatient gesture, an inarticulate noise of frustration. I understand the thrust:does it matter?

I don’t need Papa to point out the obvious. First the robbery, and now this? When you’re running, you don’t wait for coincidences to be disproved. You assume that a coincidence means you’ve been found. It’s how we’ve survived this long.

That means I have to assume that someone has become suspicious about us. I don’t know who or why, but I do know that I have no choice but to work on the assumption that we are no longer safe.

Combined with the loss of our passports, our current poverty, and my father’s weak state, the thought that anyone might have noticed us is beyond terrifying. I’ve never felt more vulnerable, less able to find a way out. I’m swamped by an overwhelming wave of exhaustion and defeat.

Where the hell are we supposed to run to now?

And how will I take care of Papa?

The second question gives me an outlet for my fear.

“What about the nurse?” I ask angrily. “Where the hell was she when this was going on?”

Papa shakes his head, frowning, and pats my hand. Through his shortened words and gestures, I understand that the nurse had a family emergency. He insisted she go home early. “Ne—nuzhno,” he chokes out.Don’t need.

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