Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
When I find out, I’ll make him pay for it.
10
ANYA
When Viktor leaves, I take the sandwich. It doesn’t matter now. There’s no point in a hunger strike or making Viktor pay. Mikhail is going to kill everyone in his path until he gets to me. Once he finds me…
No. I won’t allow myself to go back there. I’ve spent enough time enduring his torture in real time. I don’t need to revisit in my mind.
Not that that stops the dreams. The first night after our conversation, I only wake up in a cold sweat. My heart is pounding and I have to remind myself that I’m not in Mikhail’s mansion. I’m in a safehouse somewhere in Brooklyn. He’s closing in, but he doesn’t have me yet.
The second night, I’m woken up by a guard because I’m screaming in my sleep. I tell him it’s fine. It’s just a nightmare. I ask him to promise not to tell Viktor about this. He’s a young man, and he still has kind eyes. This job hasn’t beaten the humanity out of him yet. He promises not to tell.
Another week goes by, and the pattern becomes the same. Every night, the guard wakes me up screaming. He starts anticipating it. He brings me a warm glass of milk or a bottle of water to help calm me down. He brings me a night light. He doesn’t tell Viktor.
I know he doesn’t, because Viktor never asks about my new sleep terrors. I don’t know how he sleeps through them, but I don’t worry about the logistics. He’s in the dark, and my guard, Andrei, keeps me safe at night. He’s the only person in this damn house I’m starting to trust at all.
After the second week, I ask Andrei to sneak me caffeine supplements. He isn’t sure about it. He doesn’t want to get in trouble, which is understandable. I promise him it’ll be our secret, though. I’m too afraid to sleep. He seems to understand that, at least, and starts sneaking me caffeine pills at night.
I stay awake. I pace. I devour books until my eyes are too heavy to stay open. The second I start to drift off, though, the caffeine zaps me awake. That works for about three days until I feel so off the rails that even Viktor starts to notice.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks one day over breakfast. “You seem even more on edge than usual.”
“I’m fine,” I spit back, although I’m starting to see things that aren’t there.
I have the most awful hallucination when I go up to my room. I hear a lock slide into place and forget where I am. The sound is so real and so familiar, it makes me break out into tears.
“Please,” I say, banging on the door. “Please don’t leave me in here.”
I pull on the handle, and the door easily opens. It’s not locked. That wasn’t real. The daytime guard stares at me with some concern before I slam the door in his face.
Staying up is clearly not working. I ask Andrei to bring me sleeping pills. Maybe they’ll help me to get through the night without any dreams.
I’d agreed to marry Mikhail under some duress. Papa said it was a strategic alliance. He said it would be good for both of our families, and would bring us protection that we couldn’t dream of.
Ultimately, though, it was my mother who convinced me to go through with it.
“You have to understand, my darling, that your father is going to leverage marriage to you as a reward one way or another,” she told me the night I returned from the apartment. “If you don’t marry Mikhail now, you may end up with someone much worse.”
I couldn’t imagine anyone worse. I didn’t think such a person even existed. But I knew she was right. There were surely worse men. Older men, creepier men, men who weren’t even the slightest bit attractive. I understood then that, no matter what, my father controlled my future. Choosing Mikhail gave me, at least, some semblance of autonomy.
Father was thrilled when I finally agreed. Then, he had all my things packed up and shipped to Mikhail’s mansion. I thought I would have more time. I thought I wouldn’t have to live with him until after the wedding.
“You have to get to know the man,” he told me. “This is the best thing for you.”
It didn’t feel like the best thing. I wanted more time to get used to the idea. I wanted more time to mentally prepare myself.
Mikhail came to collect me like I was a prize. He smiled at me, told me he was happy I’d come to my senses, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. I should’ve realized then that he was a psychopath. I should have called it off right then and there. I should have listened to my gut.