by Vivian Wood
“Your eyelids flutter when I do that,” he says, his voice a low growl. He moves his fingers inside me again, the heel of his hand rubbing hard against my clit.
“That’s because it feels fucking good,” I whisper.
He does it again, and this time I bite my lip almost hard enough to draw blood.
Then he whispers in my ear.
“You know what I heard about American girls?”
I take a deep breath.
“It better not be that we’re easy,” I gasp.
For good measure, I stroke him from root to tip, hard, his cock pulsing in my hand.
“I heard your pussies taste like Coca-Cola,” he says.
“I don’t think that’s true,” I whisper.
“There’s one way to find out,” he says. “And I’ve been thinking about it since you tried to burn your shirt.”
Kostya bites my earlobe for good measure.
He moves his hand again, and I suck in a breath. Kostya just laughs, and then he’s on his knees, his fingers still inside me, his head under my skirt.
I have no idea how the hell this is going to work, since I’m still standing, but he’s kissing my belly and then my hips and he hoists one thigh over his shoulder, while he trails kisses along the inside of it, his fingers still moving inside me the whole time.
I glance down. The hand that’s not finger-fucking me is stroking his cock. I look around for a moment, just to take a reality check.
The crown prince is about to eat me out in a stairwell with his head up my skirt, I think.
Yes. Correct. Insane, but correct.
He flicks his tongue lightly over my clit, just enough to tickle me, and I gasp again. His fingers move again, and I realize that in a few minutes, I’m probably going to come as hard as I’ve ever come.
Then something shrieks.
It’s an alarm, some electronic noise that’s so loud and grating that it feels like it’s making my teeth buzz. My eyes snap open and I nearly fall over, but Kostya somehow manages to catch me, despite being on his knees and having both his hands occupied. I clap my hands over my ears despite myself as Kostya stands and stuffs his cock back into his pants.
Is this a fire drill? And are you fucking kidding me? I think.
Then I look at Kostya’s face, and my breath catches in my throat, because he’s worried. He takes one of my hands gently in his and moves it away from my ear, and I try not to notice that he’s still slick with my juices.
“We have to go, now,” he shouts.
“Where? What’s going on?” I shout back, but he’s already pulling me by the hand, through the door and into the hallway, where I subtly try to rearrange my underwear.
“Something bad,” he shouts back.
He’s walking so fast that I’m nearly jogging to keep up, turning left and right through maze-like hallways until I’m more than lost, and the constant sirens aren’t helping at all. My brain feels like it’s being shaken, like my eyeballs are vibrating with the noise, and then finally Kostya drops my hand and we go around a corner, where he opens a big double door.
Is this the conservatory? I wonder, totally confused.
It’s not the conservatory. This must be a different floor, because instead of the conservatory’s high windows and polished floor, there’s a small room with two armed guards and a metal vault door.
I stop short, because now I really don’t know what the fuck is going on. Kostya strides to the door and puts his hand on some kind of scanner, but one of the guards comes over to him, points at me, and says something in Russian.
Kostya shakes his head and replies, and it sounds curt and commanding, but so do most things in Russian.
Now the other guard comes over, and he says something. I can hear the door unlock, and Kostya pulls his hand from the scanner, draws himself to his full height, and says something very commanding to the first guard.
The guard responds. The other guard responds. Both of them have huge machine guns and Kostya’s got nothing at all, but even as it escalates into a Russian shouting match, he doesn’t back down.
I stand in the first doorway, holding my breath. The tiny amount of Russian I know doesn’t help at all when everyone is shouting and angry, so I have no fucking clue what’s going on or what they’re arguing about.
Finally Kostya roars something and slams his hand against the vault door.
Both the guards go quiet, and all I can hear is the alarm shrieking. Then Kostya says something again, and turns to me.
“Hazel, come on,” he says, and opens the vault door. The guards glare as I walk toward it, and I still have no idea why.
I just nod at them and step through. Then the heavy door swings shut behind us, silencing the alarm, and Kostya leads us down a gray concrete hallway toward another, more regular-looking door.
Chapter Twenty
Kostya
We’re walking through the entryway to the bunker. I can finally hear myself think, now that the goddamn alarm is out of earshot. My stomach is twisted into a thick knot, because if there’s something worse than something going wrong, it’s not knowing what’s gone wrong.
Plus, I cannot fucking believe the timing.
Halfway down the hall, I stop, glance at both doors, and take Hazel’s shoulders in my hands.
“It’s not a fire drill,” she says.
Her eyes are wide as she looks around the concrete hallway, pipes and electric cords running along both sides.
“No,” I say. “That alarm means there’s a black-level threat.”
Her eyes widen a little more.
“Meaning there’s been a threat to a member of the royal family or the cabinet,” I say. “The black level protocol is for all remaining members of the royal family and cabinet to secure refuge in a bunker. There are a couple around the palace.”
“Okay,” she says, and sucks in a breath, nodding like she’s trying to take it all in.
It’s a lot, especially considering what we were up to about two minutes ago.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” I admit. “This bunker is for royals and high-level officials only, so if there’s anyone inside already, there will be some questions.”
She nods, then takes one of my hands in hers.
“The guard didn’t tell you what happened?” she asks.
I just shake my head, and she kisses my hand.
“I hope it’s nothing,” she whispers.
“Me too,” I say.
The thought of my father, mother, or little brother hurt or dead makes me nauseous. Even though the cabinet members aren’t family, I still know them all. I know their families.
Please, God, let this be a false alarm, I think.
I let Hazel’s hand go and open the second door. Beyond it is pure, inky blackness, so thick I feel like I could reach out and touch it. We’re the first ones here, then, so I find the switch on the wall and turn on the overhead lights.
They flicker to life one by one, ugly and fluorescent, but the whole bunker is ugly so it’s only fitting. The door we came through opens onto a landing, and an aluminum staircase leads down to the main area of the bunker, the size of a large living room with an arched ceiling overhead.
All concrete, of course. The place was built by the Soviets, who may not have realized there were other building materials.
We walk down the staircase and into the main room. Underneath the landing is a hallway that leads to a few rooms: a perfunctory kitchen, two dormitory-style bedrooms with rows of bunk beds, and a makeshift office. I head for the office and Hazel follows me.
I don’t even sit down before I pick up the phone and hit the red button on it. After half a ring, someone picks up.
“Report,” Chief Minister Arkady barks at me in Russian.
“Kostya in the basement dungeon bunker, along with Hazel Sung,” I say. “Crystal sardine.”
Quickly, I pray that I got this month’s password right.
Chief Minister Arkady heaves a si
gh of relief into his end of the line.
“Kostya, good,” he says.
Then I hear him talking to someone else in the room, and all I can make out is go tell the Queen.
That means my mom is okay. The knot in my stomach loosens, just a little, and I look over at Hazel. She’s sitting on an ugly wooden bench, elbows on knees, watching me.
“What’s happened?” I ask.
“There’s been an assassination attempt on the King,” he says, gravely.
“An attempt,” I say. My heart squeezes in my chest.
“The bullet only grazed his shoulder, thank God,” Arkady says.
“My mother? Misha? The cabinet?”
“All well right now,” Arkady says. “Everyone at the palace is fine.”
I cover the mouthpiece of the phone and whisper, “Assassination attempt, but everyone is fine,” to Hazel.
She nods.
Then Arkady pauses, and even over the phone, I know that’s not everything.
“Tell me,” I say.
It’s a long, slow, halting story full of holes, but it’s essentially this: my father was in Tobov, the capital city, for a meeting of the Council on Black Sea Fisheries. As he was leaving, a gunman leapt out of the crowd and got off one shot at him before my father’s guards brought him down.
Then it gets complicated, partly because no one seems to have all the information. The gunman was screaming about a partner, or maybe many partners, hiding in wait around the city. There were strange reports from air traffic control of a squadron of unidentified planes flying south over the mountains — a blip on the radar for a moment, then gone.
The military has been intercepting something that looks like coded messages all day, sent via fax machine from service stations in remote areas to other service stations in other remote areas. And then there are the rumors: someone’s seen a fighter jet, someone’s learned that Russian hackers are planning to breach our national security and sabotage the state-run oil company, there are submarines in the Black Sea headed for Velinsk.
“It’s probably all nothing, except for the assassination attempt,” Arkady says. “You know how things spin out of control. But at this stage, we have to take it all seriously.”
We talk a bit more. I speak with my mother, who’s nearly beside herself, sobbing into the phone. My father is meeting with his military advisors, so I can’t speak with him yet, but we agree to video conference in fifteen minutes and I hang up the phone.
Hazel looks at me.
“Someone tried to assassinate my father,” I say.
I can barely believe it, but as soon as the words are out of my mouth, anger flares inside me. Suddenly, I’m seeing red.
How dare they? How fucking dare they, after everything my father’s done for Sveloria?
No, he’s not always the gentlest leader. He has some policies that I think are stupid, that I wish he’d do away with, but twenty-five years ago Sveloria was a war-torn wasteland that had been utterly wrecked by the Soviet Union, and now it’s a peaceful country with a thriving economy.
I jump up and start pacing back and forth in front of the ugly, boxy steel desk.
Now someone wants to murder him?
“Is he okay?” Hazel asks.
“The bullet grazed him,” I say. “He’s fine.”
“Is everyone else okay?” she asks.
I turn and pace the other direction, and as I do, I realize she still looks worried. It stops me in my tracks.
You didn’t even ask about her parents, I think.
“He said everyone in the palace was fine,” I say. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask about your parents.”
Hazel half-smiles, and shakes her head, looking at the floor.
“I’m sure you’d have heard if they weren’t,” she says, but there’s still a flicker of worry in her eyes.
“I told Arkady you were here,” I say. “At least they won’t worry.”
“Thanks,” she says.
There’s a long pause as Hazel looks at the floor and I pace back and forth, trying to collect my angry, scattered thoughts.
“Did they catch the guy?” she asks.
“Yes, but they don’t know if he’s working with others,” I say.
Pace, turn. Pace, turn.
“It’s the USF,” I say. “I fucking know it is.”
“I thought they were defunct,” Hazel says.
I stop pacing for a moment.
I shouldn’t tell her that the United Svelorian Front is active again, that they’ve been wreaking havoc and my father has throttled the media. She’s an American, and she’s not even in Sveloria on official business. She’s on vacation.
But she’s also here, with me, in a goddamn bunker, and I think she deserves to know why.
“They’re not exactly defunct,” I say, slowly.
I tell her about the raids, about the burned farms, about the anti-government attacks.
I tell her about how my father is handling the situation, how I think it should be handled, how the USF isn’t actually united at all, that some of its constituent groups are peaceful protestors who want reform and some are violent militias who just want to watch the world burn. That we think they might have Russian backing, but that we don’t really know.
I sit next to her on the bench and tell her about the rumors, about the jet planes and hackers and submarines. Hazel just listens, nodding until I finish.
There’s silence. She looks at her hands.
“I guess that’s why my mom is here,” she says. “I thought it was weird that she got sent somewhere without too many problems.”
The phone on the desk rings. I touch her knee lightly, then stand and answer.
“Kostya.”
“Where are you on the video call?” my father growls into the phone.
I glance at the state-of-the-art monitor on the desk. I haven’t even turned it on.
“I’m glad to hear you’re well,” I say, my own voice sounding hollow. “I’ve had some technical difficulties. I’ll be on in a few minutes.”
“Hurry up,” he says, and hangs up the phone. I bend down and boot up the computer, and it whirs to life. The technology down here gets updated at least every year, which is more than I can say for the canned food in the kitchen.
Hazel stands.
“Prince stuff?” she asks.
I nod.
“Hours of it, I’m afraid,” I say. “In Russian.”
She half-smiles.
“Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to entertain myself,” she says, and walks out of the office.
It’s incredible how quickly a situation can go from heart-stopping to tedious. Within thirty minutes of listening to my father and his military advisors argue, bicker, shout, and point fingers at everyone from the Russians to Turkey to “the young people,” I’ve had enough of them.
We still don’t know what’s going on. Most of the rumored threats don’t seem credible, but we’re still untangling everything. I’m barely participating, and in another window on the computer, I’ve got Twitter open.
If there’s a silver lining to the assassination attempt, it’s that it’s been too big to ignore. My father can muzzle the TV stations and newspapers, but he can’t muzzle thousands of people with phones. Now, at least, the people know what’s happening like they deserve to.
After two hours, I sneak out to use the bathroom. Unlike the rest of the bunker, this room is all stainless steel, with a toilet, sink, and shower big enough for exactly one person.
Hazel’s sitting at a table in the main room, an ugly gray blanket wrapped around her, and she looks up when I come out.
“How’s it going?” she asks.
I just shrug.
“No one knows anything, so this is useless, but they’ll never admit it,” I say, walking toward her.
The table is covered with a half-finished puzzle of an elaborate castle, the box off to one side.
“There are books, but everything is in Russian,” she sa
ys. “I’m not a puzzle person, but it’s this or stare at a wall.”
“Interesting choice,” I say.
“Because I’m in a castle, putting together a puzzle of a castle?” she asks, turning a piece around in her fingers. “The only other one is a basket of puppies, and I wasn’t in the mood.”
In the office, I can hear the shouting escalate, and I close my eyes briefly.
“Go,” she says. “I’m fine out here.”
I nod. I’d much rather be here, even helping Hazel put together this stupid puzzle, than arguing with men over video chat. I can still smell her faintly on my fingers, and even though it ought to be the last thing on my mind right now, I can’t help but be distracted.
Stop it, I think. There’s a time for ruling and there’s a time for fucking around.
I walk back into the office, where men are still shouting in Russian.
Another four hours later, we finally wrap things up. There’s no reason that we didn’t wrap it up already, because we haven’t gotten more information in ages. Air traffic is still looking for those jets, and the military police are still trying to uncover a larger conspiracy behind the assassination attempt. That means we’re all still in Soviet bunkers and there’s nothing we can do besides sit on our hands and wait.
My father dismisses his advisors, then looks straight into the camera.
“Kostya, stay on the line,” he growls, and then gets up from his chair. I’m left staring at the concrete wall of a different bunker.
I sigh and lean back in the chair. It’s steel and leather, but it’s old and the leather is dried and cracking, showering bits onto the concrete floor.
Everything about this bunker is harsh and ugly, a throwback to the way things used to be, a sharp contrast to the sunny, beautiful palace above us.
At least it’s here, I think. No matter how good things seems sometimes, we’ll always need these.
On the computer screen, my father sits in his chair again. He’s wearing a jacket, so I can’t even see his bandaged arm. I sit up straight.