Page 86 of Dance with Death

E:Yes.

A:I always feel safe with you. I wish you were with me now.

E:I’m so sorry. I feel like I’ve failed you, A.

A:He’s coming.

“Shit.”

I burn a path into the rug with my panicked pacing. My veins pulse with adrenaline I can’t resolve. If Vigo’s coming for her now, I can’t help her. I can’t do a goddamn thing. If I thought it was hard before, it’s nothing compared to the fear I have now.

He’s coming,she wrote.

He’s coming.

And I can’t help her.

He’s coming.

The last text I got from Anya was a haunting message sent a month ago.

He’s coming.

I’ve all but died inside, not knowing what happened to her, where she is, if she’s okay. I’ve devolved into a shell of a man who can hardly get out of bed.

I only eat when Nikolai forces me to, threatening to hurt Sasha if I refuse. I only sleep when I’m so beyond exhaustion—from dance rehearsals and being involved in Nikolai’s sadistic torture-fuck sessions with poor Sasha—that my body forces itself to shut down.

I’m not the man Anya fell for right now, and I don’t think I have it in me to become that man again until I know she’s okay.

He’s coming.

He was coming for her a goddamn month ago.

Did he find the phone?

Does he have her tied up somewhere?

Has she been tortured endlessly since the day we last texted?

Is she even fucking alive?

I know she’s still alive. I know I would feel it in my soul if she were dead. Maybe that would be preferable to the alternative in my mind—where she’s been locked up, tied down, fucked, beaten, and tortured for a goddamn month.

If she’s going through half the shit I have nightmares about every time I collapse on her pillow, I wouldn’t even blame her for breaking her promise to me and ending it all. I’d even pray she gets the opportunity and the courage to do it. And then I’d do the same thing because there’s nothing left for me in this world if she’s gone.

Fifty-two days.

Fifty-two days of waiting.

Fifty-two days of incessant, secret phone checking.

Every time I pick up the damn thing, I hope, pray, sacrifice my soul to whatever god in the universe wishes to take it, that I’ll see that divine notification that I’ve got one new message.

That’s all I want.

One new message.

I get up from the bed I can’t seem to fall asleep in and wander to the dresser. I pull out the pink and green floral box of photographs and sit on the armchair. I sigh, deciding whether it’s worth pulling out the phone to check. It’ll only depress me further to see there aren’t any new messages.

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