Page 13 of Captive Virgin of the Bratva

You’re imagining things,I tell myself, stepping between rows of parked cars, the ER entrance just ahead.

The parking lot is quiet when I arrive at work, half lit by the flickering overheads that buzz and sputter every few seconds. Long shadows stretch across the pavement from the tall lamp posts, broken only by the occasional breeze that kicks at fallen leaves. I pull my coat tighter around me as I walk, my fingers numb from the chill, shoulders aching from sleep that never quite came. The kind that leaves you heavy, fogged, not rested.

I check the time again—6:48 p.m. The shift won’t start for another twelve minutes, but I prefer to get in early. I always do. I like the quiet before the chaos. Like having the ER to myself, even if just for a few minutes. Like standing at the nurses’ station with coffee no one else has touched yet.

I scroll through my phone as I walk—half reading, half just letting my eyes skim headlines and texts I haven’t responded to. Nothing important. Nothing urgent.

Then it happens. A sharp sting—like a wasp strike, fast and clean—jolts into the back of my neck.

I freeze.

My fingers go limp, the phone slipping from my hand and clattering onto the pavement. For a second, I think I’ve pulled a nerve, or maybe pinched something—but then the ground tilts, slow and wrong, like the air just changed gravity.

My vision doubles. Triples.

Panic stabs through me as I try to turn around, legs already unsteady. I manage half a step before my knees buckle.

Concrete rushes up. My hands don’t catch me.

I hit the ground hard, my cheek scraping rough pavement. The sting blooms into a cold numbness that spreads down my spine, then out to my fingertips. My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. Not a scream. Not a word. Just a rasp of breath I can barely feel.

My heart slams against my ribs, and I try again to move, to turn, to crawl—but my limbs are sluggish, disobedient.

I hear footsteps. Close. Slow.

Something shifts in the corner of my vision—a shape, tall and dark, stepping into the weak spill of light from the lamp overhead. A figure. No features. Just blackness moving against blackness, like it doesn’t need to be seen.

My pulse spikes. I try to scream again.

Nothing.

The figure kneels beside me. I smell cologne—faint, expensive. Something sharp beneath it. A hand brushes hair from my face with surprising gentleness, and I want to flinch, to bite, to run. But my body won’t move.

I hear a low voice, but the words are waterlogged, drowned under the rush of my own blood in my ears. The figure presses something against my arm—fabric? Gloves? I can’t tell.

Then—

Darkness.

It doesn’t fall like a curtain. It rolls in like fog. Heavy, creeping, absolute.

I go under.

Chapter Three - Kolya

The gravel crunches under my boots like bone being ground to dust.

I step out of the SUV, the door shutting behind me with a dull thud that seems to echo through the trees. The air is colder out here—sharper, cleaner—but beneath it lingers the copper tang of blood, cut faintly by sweat and damp earth. A light flickers from inside the farmhouse ahead, seeping through cracked windowpanes like a warning.

The place is isolated. Perfect for what we needed—quiet, no neighbors, just thick woods pressing in from all sides. But I can feel the rot under the floorboards before I even cross the threshold.

Boris waits near the front porch, arms folded, jacket undone despite the chill. His face is tight, unreadable. That alone tells me it’s worse than expected.

“He’s inside,” he says simply. “Still alive.”

I push the door open.

The smell hits harder once I’m in. Stale wood, mildew, old fabric soaked with sweat—and beneath it all, the iron-rich scent of blood. The room’s dim, lit only by a single hanging bulb that sways slightly, casting shadows that ripple across the peeling wallpaper and sagging ceiling.

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