Page 25 of One For my Enemy

II. 7

(Games.)

LEV:okay

LEV:that’s it I’m done waiting

SASHA: waiting for what

LEV:the opportune moment

SASHA: ah yes of course, silly me

LEV:there’s such a thing as too eager sasha

LEV:believe it or not

SASHA: hate to break it to you but you left ‘too eager’ about two hours ago and now you’re somewhere in the realm of ‘zealously available’

LEV:interesting theory

LEV:ok see you in five minutes

SASHA: okay

LEV:unless you don’t want me to come?

SASHA: I already said you could lev

SASHA: don’t make me change my mind

LEV:okay good I was trying to be polite

LEV:which was a real roll of the dice

LEV:but hopefully my good intentions are showing

SASHA: you play a very risky game

LEV:yeah I like to live dangerously

LEV:see you in 5

II. 8

(Luxuries.)

It was the first time Lev had ever actually planned to enter Baba Yaga’s shop, despite having orbited it for nearly his entire life. He’d been careful to ask Sasha for details (“Where is it?” “Which intersection?” “Wait, what do you sell again?”) but it was easy enough to find from the patterns of his own memory. He was half-holding his breath when he pulled open the door, bracing for whatever he might find on the other side of the glass. He hadn’t entirely ruled out the possibility he’d trip some sort of Fedorov alarm and wind up dead on the floor, quicker than he could even say, “This was Roma’s stupid idea.”

While death remained a rationally consistent possibility, what Lev discovered in its place was the soft, warm scent of something that might have been honey and vanilla, like a caress to all his senses. The lighting of the store was soft and inviting (unlike Koschei’s, which had scarcely any lighting to speak of), and the walls were swathed in some sort of soft fabric that made him want to curl up and take a nap… after he took a very long, very luxuriant soak in an overlarge jacuzzi.

So, maybe not quite a doomsday situation, then.

A sound to his left caught his attention and he turned his head, locating Sasha where she was perched on a stool behind the counter. “You’re here,” she noted without ceremony, and he angled himself in her direction, unable to prevent a smile. She was wearing a pair of worn skinny jeans and a white t-shirt, one leg crossed over the other so that one of her oh-so-very-dirty Jack Purcell’s was propped against the counter, a pencil shoved into a thick mass of her hair with a paperback book wrangled between a trident-grasp of three fingers. She wasn’t wearing any makeup that he could see, and frankly, she looked very, very much as though she’d put no care whatsoever into dressing herself for his arrival.

Though, that being said, she also looked like she was fighting the need to propel herself towards him, so he counted that as a victory of some kind.

“Sasha,” he acknowledged, and she set the book down. “Where’s that serum you mentioned?”

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