Page 3 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

And just like that, the scene was intact again.

We were the perfect couple.Handsome young factory workers, enjoying a cultured night out courtesy of her very well-connected "friend" at the Mariinsky.

I took another sip of vodka, slower this time, as the man across the room turned and disappeared into the crowd.

* * *

The walk home was colder than I remembered it being when we left the factory.The kind of cold that makes your bones feel hollow.My ears were stinging, and my breath came out in little ghosts that trailed behind us as we walked in step, hands stuffed in our pockets like schoolkids.

We didn’t talk.Didn’t need to.Vera still had that quiet, dreamy smile on her face—one she only ever wore after the ballet or after Mira.

Our apartment building loomed ahead, five stories of cracked stucco and broken mailboxes.The bulb above the entrance had gone out again, and the stairwell was cloaked in shadows.I reached out to push the heavy door open—and then we heard footsteps behind us.

A woman stepped from the shadows.

She didn’t say a word.Just fell into step behind us, silent as the grave, as if she’d been waiting.Vera didn't even flinch.

We climbed the stairs, boots scuffing against old concrete, each of us wrapped in our own silence.At the fourth-floor landing, Vera pulled out our keys, unlocked the flat, and flicked on the overhead light.

“Nina?Pavel?”she called out, voice bright in that way she always faked for our flatmates.

No answer.

I stepped inside and shut the door behind us.The silence was instant and deep.

And then the two women moved.

Vera crossed the room in three steps and threw her arms around Mira.The hug was fierce and unselfconscious, like two parts of the same soul reuniting.Then they kissed—soft, aching, and slow, like no one else existed.

I turned away.

The kitchen was just down the narrow hall.I went in and found a note pinned to the cupboard door with a bent butter knife.

Gone to visit family this weekend.Please clean the bathroom.You forgot last week and it’s disgusting.Love, Nina & Pavel.

Ah, wedded bliss.

I stood there for a moment, holding the note, the yellowing paper soft between my fingers.I heard the murmurs from the other room.Words too quiet to make out.A soft laugh.A sigh.The creak of the old armchair giving way under someone’s weight.

They needed time.Time to be who they were, not who they pretended to be.

I didn’t bother taking off my coat.Just walked back through the front room and said, “I’m heading out for a few hours.”

Neither of them asked where I was going.

They knew.

I left the apartment and took the stairs two at a time, my heart already ticking a little faster.The chill slapped me in the face the second I stepped back outside, but I welcomed it.It meant I was really out here, in the city, untethered for a little while.

I knew exactly where I was going.

Sanctuary.

It never had a sign.Never stayed in the same place for long.One week it was in the basement of a shuttered bathhouse.The next, an abandoned paper mill with blackout curtains and candles in vodka bottles.Tonight?I’d find it.Someone always knew.

As I crossed the street and tucked my scarf tighter around my neck, I grinned to myself.

I had a few hours, a little money in my pocket, and a hunger that had nothing to do with food.

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