Page 75 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

Pavel narrowed his eyes.“You should care.Things are shifting.This isn’t just politicians waving their dicks around.Something’s coming, and it’s big.You mark my words.”

Anton made a fart noise with his mouth and raised his glass.

“That’s enough, you two,” said Oleg, stepping in like the self-appointed moderator of bullshit.“But… Pavel’s not wrong, exactly.My brother went to Paris last year with his gymnastics team.Said he saw homeless people on every street corner.Filthy, begging, some half-naked.You don’t see that here.”

He gestured around the room with both hands.“Guaranteed job.Guaranteed housing.Medical care.Education.Hell, this dacha?Belongs to the people.We didn’t buy this place.We earned it.What kind of idiot would trade that in for—what?French cheese and blue jeans?”

Everyone murmured their agreement.It was hard to argue with the surface of it.On paper, the system worked.It had its flaws, sure, but so did everything.Right?Then I recalled Vera’s parents, and how they could fit six of this dacha into their single one.Was that even remotely fair?

I glanced out the window.

Movement caught my eye.Just the barest flicker of motion in the dusk.Dimitri.Returning from the woods.His shoulders were slumped, his walk slow.Defeated.

It dawned on me that this world did work for men like Oleg, Pavel, and Anton.They fit here.They existed for the sake of existing.The system rewarded them for being exactly what it wanted: obedient, simple, content.

But men like Dimitri?Like me?

We wanted more than just a warm place to die.

The door creaked open, and Dimitri stepped inside, eyes darting briefly around the room like he was calculating threats.One of the women—Larisa, I think—saw his hand before I could move.

“Oh my god, what happened to you?”she shrieked, grabbing his wrist before he could hide it.

He winced.“It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?Your hand’s bleeding!”

She dragged him into the kitchen with all the delicate grace of a tugboat.I followed just far enough to hear the sink running and her voice rising over the water.

“You boys are always hurting yourselves.What happened?Did you fall?”

“Yes,” Dimitri said quickly.Too quickly.“I, uh… I tripped on a root.In the woods.”

“Well, don’t bleed all over the kitchen floor,” she scolded, but her tone was more amused than angry.“Your poor mother’s probably worried sick.”

There was a pause.The kind that crackles in the air.

“She’s… she’s fine,” Dimitri said, voice uncertain.

I winced.

He didn’t know about the lie.About the story I’d told them to cover his absence.And now he was caught in it.

I stepped into the kitchen, all smiles.

“There he is,” I said, sliding in beside them.“Dima, your mother didn’t give you any more of those mushroom pies, did she?”

His eyes flicked to mine.A half-second beat.Then he gave me the smallest nod of understanding.

“No,” he said.“She just wanted to make sure I was eating.You know how she gets.”

Larisa clucked her tongue.“All mothers are the same.”

But as she turned back to the sink, still fussing, I saw it.

The way Dimitri’s fingers trembled.

And how his eyes never quite met mine.

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