Page 45 of White Wolf

“Good! Again!” Ivan called.

Sasha stepped back out of Feliks’s reach, weaved, dodged, and snapped a punch that almost connected. Almost. Feliks blocked him, but for a moment his eyes went wide, startled, like he was surprised Sasha had gotten so close.

“You have to be faster,” Ivan said. “Not so timid. Get in there! Really hit him.” He smacked his palm with his own fist for emphasis.

“Mind your footwork,” Kolya said.

Sasha glanced down –

And Feliks popped him in the jaw.

It was light, just a tap really, but his teeth snapped together and the pain lit up the inside of his skull, shooting through his bones, rattling down his neck. He bit his tongue and tasted blood.

He grunted in surprise and staggered back, reaching up to cradle his face. His skin felt hot and tight immediately, already swelling.

“I see it’s going well,” Nikita said dryly, and Sasha wondered when he’d arrived and how long he’d been watching.

“Hey, it’s his first day,” Ivan said in his defense, and Sasha felt a burst of warmth for the man. “I remember you on your first day.”

“I was thirteen,” Nikita said. “And you knocked my tooth loose.” He touched his canine with the tip of his tongue, like he was testing it.

“Yeah, but it didn’t fallout.”

Nikita snorted and then looked at Sasha. “They’re probably teaching you all wrong.”

“No. Um…no, they’re great.”

Another snort. He shrugged out of his coat and laid it across the desk, on top of the others there. He unbuttoned his cuffs and started to roll his sleeves up. “You’re standing all wrong. Come here and I’ll show you.”

Embarrassed now, he walked forward to meet Nikita halfway across the floor of the makeshift gym.

Bare-knuckled, out of place in his pressed shirt and belted pants, the captain lifted his hands in a careless way, expression bored.

Sasha resumed his stance, just like Ivan had showed him, leading with his left, fists up tight so he could deflect a blow to his face – not that it had helped him do so yet. He took a deep breath and tried to let it out in a steady stream, not wanting to betray his nerves. He had no doubt he looked like a startled deer, all whites-of-his-eyes and flash of teeth when he grimaced. He waited – for an instruction, a correction, for Nikita to make the first move.

And he kept waiting.

The man’s pale eyes – gray on the train and in the apartment – revealed striations of pale blue in the fall of early sunlight. A wolf’s eyes, Sasha thought, uncanny and intimidating.

Finally, slowly, Nikita threw a punch. A halfhearted jab, really, with no force or energy behind it. Sasha blocked it easily and danced back out of reach.

“Good, good. But hold your ground better. You can’t be retreating the whole time. You’ll never land a good blow that way.”

Sasha nodded.

And then waited some more.

After a moment, Nikita said, “Do you remember the man you passed outside earlier?”

“Commander Beria?”

“Yes. Him. Do you remember him?”

Sasha thoughtrecalling his namewas essentially remembering him, but he said, “Yes.”

“Last week, he left his office downstairs, walked over to the bread queue, and picked out a little girl who was waiting with her mother. Two of his men, one on either side, took hold of her arms and pulled her out of the queue.”

Sasha swallowed the sudden tightness in his throat. He didn’t want to hear the rest. He knew where this was going, it was impossible not to, but he thought hearing it in words would somehow make it more horrible to contemplate.

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