Page 88 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

We turned a corner and came to a squat gray building with blacked-out windows and a chalkboard sign propped against the door.Painted letters read:LENINGRAD ROCK CLUB—TONIGHT: KINO.

“Kino?”I said.

“They’re amazing,” Petyr said, his eyes lighting up.“Been wanting to see them for months.”

He opened the door, and music slammed into me like a fist to the chest.

Inside, the air was thick with cigarette smoke, sweat, and something like electricity.The crowd was a patchwork of shaved heads and spiked hair, ripped denim and leather, boots with no laces and girls in heavy eyeliner who didn’t look like they gave a damn about anything.It was like stepping into another world.A louder, freer, angrier world.

He paid the cover charge, and we slipped inside.I followed him toward the bar, dodging bodies and elbows, trying not to stare at everyone but staring, anyway.I’d heard rumors about places like this.Western, they said.Rebellious.Dangerous.But I’d never believed they really existed, not here.Not in our gray kingdom of silence.

Petyr leaned close to my ear and said, “We still have to be careful.KGB monitors the place.”

I blinked at him.“Then why the hell are we here?”

He shrugged.“They monitor the blanket factory, too.They monitor the fucking water we drink.At least here we get a good soundtrack.”

I didn’t know whether to be terrified or impressed.Maybe both.

I ordered us vodka.The bartender looked like he belonged in a gang—scars and tattoos and eyes that didn’t blink—but he poured our drinks without a word.Petyr clinked his glass against mine.“To being somewhere else.”

I nodded and drank.The vodka was cheap and clean and did its job fast.The bass from the speakers pulsed under my skin, as if someone had hooked my heart to a generator.

We wandered through the crowd.Torn posters clung to the walls—western bands, Soviet icons defaced with lipstick, a massive charcoal sketch of some angry woman with snakes for hair.I could barely hear myself think.I didn’t care.

Then I saw him.

A man at the far wall, nursing a beer.Staring at us.I knew that face.

I leaned closer to Petyr.“He was at Sanctuary,” I said.

Petyr didn’t look, but I felt him stiffen.“Don’t react.Just enjoy the show.”

The lights dimmed further, and the stage lit up.

The band walked on.Four young men in black, one with hair down to his shoulders, holding a battered guitar like it was a weapon.And then the music started.Loud, raw, alive.

I’d never heard anything like it.

It wasn’t the polished bullshit that came over the state-controlled radio.And it wasn’t folk music with lyrics about tractors and wheat.It was fury and longing, every chord a punch and a prayer.My foot tapped before I realized it.My blood felt warmer.Like I’d just remembered I was alive.

I leaned up toward Petyr’s ear and said, “Thanks for bringing me here.I love it.”

The next song slammed into us like a train.Fast, brutal, and beautiful in its chaos.The crowd surged forward, a mess of elbows and boots, everyone suddenly leaping and thrashing as though their bodies had no choice.I could barely hear the lyrics over the wall of sound, but then something broke through the distortion, cutting clean:

“We walk in lines / But dream in fire / The street is cold / But we don’t tire…”

A jolt ran through me.The words weren’t shouting slogans.They weren’t feeding us the usual platitudes.They were saying something real, something dangerous.Something true.

“They tell us wait / But we ignite / Behind closed doors / We learn to fight.”

My throat went tight.I didn’t know if the song was about war, or the KGB, or love, or just being a person in this goddamned frozen world, but I felt it in my bones.It was like someone had cracked a window in a locked room inside me, and fresh air was rushing in.My body started moving before I gave it permission—just a shift of my shoulders at first, a bounce in my knees.Then Petyr turned to me, laughing, already caught in the rhythm.He grabbed my hand without thinking—just a moment, just a squeeze—and then we were both swept into the tide.

We weren’t holding each other.We weren’t even close enough to talk.But we danced.

I’d never danced like that before—not like the stilted, forced marches at youth functions or the limp shuffle at military canteens.This was wild, joyful, violent, and free.The crowd shoved and spun, arms pumping, hair flying, boots stomping, everyone grinning like lunatics.No one cared who I was.No one cared what I was hiding.

Petyr yelled something in my ear but I didn’t catch it.I just laughed and danced harder.My shirt stuck to my back with sweat.The floor shook beneath my feet.I lost track of time.For a few blinding, perfect minutes, I forgot who I was supposed to be.

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