Page 95 of Refrain

She glances back at him and her face changes. It’s that bitter salve I’ve learned to crave—hate. Light. Some of that darkness clears for a second. Maybe it’s long enough.

“Okay.” She turns back to me. “You have ten minutes.”

Ten minutes. It’s longer than any ounce of freedom Piotr has ever allowed me.

My thumb caresses the trigger of the gun. Bound as he is, Piotr doesn’t have a chance in hell of overpowering me. Not with his kingdom turning to ashes around us. I can already feel the heat. Smell the smoke. Fire. Brimstone.

There are only a handful of unoccupied floors that separate this suite from the roof. At least, now, this dwelling will resemble what it has always been for me—hell.

“Put the gun down, Ksei,” he tells me. “You don’t want to hurt me…and even if you did…I willownyou, my love, even from hell.” He sounds tired as he says it. So sure. I can’t hurt him. I can’t even kill him.

I don’t have to.

“Ksei…” His dangerous tone is back, my old lullaby.

“You won’t own me ever again.” I drop the pistol at my feet and meet his gaze fully for the first time in so long. I stare deep and see myself reflected back as the lights flicker on and off, off and on.

By the third flash, I almost see her again. Ksenia, before the brutality of his reign over my body. The girl I used to be. Maybe I will one day find the rest of her again. To give myself a head start, I draw the syringe from my pocket, freeing the needle.

“You won’t own me or Anna,” I tell Piotr Petrov as I plunge the tip into his neck before he can stand, flooding his veins with the narcotic. It won’t slow him down for long. I know that, even as I turn on my heel and leave him there while the building pitches and sways around us. “Never again.”

Howls echo around me, those of an angry wolf denied his prey.

He’ll never stop.

I’ll always have to run.

But he won’t haunt me anymore. I won’t carry him within my skin. I won’t be like her…

A monstrous roar shatters my eardrums, and I flinch in recognition. Gunshot. Whirling around, I find Anna, clothed in white, holding a gun between both hands. Piotr’s in front of her, still kneeling despite the hole blown clear through his head.

“Holy shit—”

“He didn’t deserve it,” she says, her voice high-pitched and broken. “He didn’t deserve it.”

My footsteps falter as I reach for the gun. Inches from touching her, I change my mind and grab her arm instead, pulling her into me. She drops the weapon on her own, and it falls without going off. I know at the back of my mind that there isn’t time for this now. Still, I can’t resist breathing her in, sensing her familiarity despite the stench of death and smoke.

“We need to go.”

Together, we move, following an unseen path through smoke and flames. The intruders must have set new fires as they left, because there are too many. Everywhere. Screams fill the corridors. Shouts. There are more people in this building than just the scum the Petrovs command. Innocents. Bystanders.

All dying nonetheless.

“Move!”

I can’t see. I can’t breathe…

“This way! Move!”

My feet flex on command, one in front of the other as my hand flails for any surface it can use for leverage. Glass. The wall. Cold concrete.

It feels like an eternity before I blink and find myself exiting through a doorway. Sirens pierce the air amid a deafening array of shouts and screams. One single emotion overrides my shock, however.

Piotr is dead. I wait for the pain. The memories. Yet I feel nothing. Just the ache as my lungs fight to clear themselves of smoke and a painfully tight grip marshals me away from the building.

Anna must have made a habit out of escaping from danger in her time living with the Petrovs, because she moves assuredly through the chaos. Like a fallen angel almost, at home in this inferno of death and fear, faltering however as more first responders arrive on the scene.

“I know where we can go. Somewhere safe,” I add as her eyes widen fearfully. I can’t resist the impulse that makes me finger a red curl escaped from her braid. It’s real. She’s real. “I’m going to keep you safe.”

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