Page 32 of Dance with Death

It washer.

And now it’s the unknown girl losing herself to sobs beside me.

I close my eyes and breathe, slowly, steadily, willing the violence that burns so bright beneath my skin to fade, willing the adrenaline in my veins to stop pulsing. The only thing that could ever calm me in this hell was Anya’s sapphire blaze and the determination and strength in the husky tone of her sweet voice.

Yours, I say into my mind, and somehow, I find the peace to care about the well-being of this girl having a meltdown on her knees.

I lift my hands, palms facing Nikolai in a gesture of surrender.

“Your inability to control your impulses will someday destroy you,” he tells me as if he’s an older, wiser mentor.

He’s certainly older.

Maybe wiser with experience.

Never anyone’s fucking mentor, least of all mine.

“Maybe. But I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

“Well, then. If you no longer care about Emma Mayfield’s wellbeing, I’ll put in the call now to end her. Of course,” he cocks his head, “she is young…in good shape. Perhaps we can take her and sell her instead,” he muses.

I bare my teeth. “Don’t you fuckingdare.”

“What does it matter to you,mal’chik?” he asks with mock innocence. “You just informed me that you have nothing to lose.” He waves a hand at Kostya. “Make the call.”

Kostya reaches into his pocket with one hand while the other clings to the girl. He slips out his cell phone.

“No!” I reach out a hand as if I could halt him with some magical power through my palm. “Don’t make any fucking calls. I’m done, okay?” I hold up my palms in surrender and lower slowly, begrudgingly, to my knees. “See? I’m done.”

Nikolai tips his head at Kostya and he puts his phone back in his pocket. I sigh in relief, and in defeat.

“Good.I wanted to introduce you to your new dance partner.”

“What?”

“Her name is Sasha. She’s fresh to captivity, as you can see by her pathetic state.” He casts a sideways glance in her direction with a look of disapproval. “I’m afraid we need to evict you from your room.”

“Evict me?” My eyebrows knit together, then come apart again as I understand. “You’re going to lock her in there.”

“Yes. She needs to be situated close to Kostya and so, she needs your room.”

The girl starts to speak in rapid succession, her words stuttering and starting between her cries. I don’t understand a word she’s saying, but it sounds like Russian. Nikolai affirms that it must be when he bites back at her, shouting something in his native tongue that makes Sasha flinch and sink back on her heels.

“She doesn’t speak English,” Nikolai tells me. “I imagine that will make dancing together a challenge, but you have a year before the next performance. Plenty of time for you both to learn enough about each other to dance together.”

My head is shaking before he even finishes his sentence. “No.No.I’m not dancing with anyone else. Anya was my partner…ismy partner. Always will be. I refuse to dance with anyone else.”

“Don’t befuckingstupid, Ezra. Anya is gone. She’s not coming back. You will never dance with her again. The sooner you accept that, the better your days will be.”

“Here? As if my days could be anything but shit living here with you.”

He wraps his hand around my throat, sliding his grip up beneath my chin. He lifts with enough force that I’m made to stand, planting one foot, then the other, rising to my feet. I stumble backward as he pushes and slams my back into the wall behind me. He brings his face too fucking close to mine, close enough that I can smell the whiskey on his breath.

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,mal’chik. I won’t bother to threaten you with violence because it only drives you. But I will use your empathy against you. I will do terrible things to that girl to punish you. You know that I will.”

He leans in closer to whisper to me and his stubble brushes against my cheek. The scratch of it triggers every violent molecule within me to attack the creep who is far too close to me.

I shove against his chest, but he doesn’t budge. He shifts his hand, pressing his thumb over my windpipe and I freeze, knowing that if I fight him, if he presses too hard in the right spot, he could crush it and kill me.

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