But there was no mistaking it. Filitov’s house was a pile of rubble. And that had been the stench that woke him up, though the smell had fought to get there on the opposing breeze.
“Claudia, get up.” He shook her awake and reached for their clothes. “We have to go.”
His people had to be near. His people had to be the ones responsible for this.
She mumbled and rolled onto her back, hip bones jutting out like knives. “What? It’s so early.”
“Come on.” He shoved her pants and t-shirt at her, then tugged his own briefs on, followed by his jeans. “Hurry it up.”
She pushed herself up on an arm, groaning, no doubt, from the various aches and pains that accompanied a night on the open earth. When she looked past his shoulder, she gasped.
“What is that?” Her voice came out hoarse. And if he weren’t so damned anxious, he’d tease her about how cute it was.
“Trouble.” He hopped to standing and tugged his t-shirt on, jerking his head at her to get her to hurry up. “Come on. We have to go.”
She seemed to snap to attention and pulled her clothes on without another word. When she was dressed, he pulled her to her feet, resting his hands on her shoulders.
“Do you trust me?”
She let a terse sigh. “Oh God, this again.” She looked away for a moment. “Yes. Of course.”
“I don’t know who burned his house down, but we can’t stick around. We could be in danger, so we have to move fast. I’m going to get us a ride the second I can.”
She nodded, eyes wide and innocent as he took her hand, tugging her along behind him. He crested the rest of the hill and went down the far side, dodging bushes and thickets of wildflowers to get back to the main path. They’d seen a few trucks amble by the day before, kicking up a trail of dust that could be seen for miles, so all they could do now was walk and hope that another one came their way. Even though part of him was desperate to get back there and find out if Filitov had made it out alive. If there were any clues about who might have done this.
But of course there wouldn’t be clues. Whoever had discovered Filitov’s hideout wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave a trace, not if they were smart enough to find him in the first place.
Boris’s mind throbbed with questions and frets as they jogged toward the main path. It had to be his organization. Unless Filitov had gotten into other dealings in the interim. In which case, who knew? It could be anybody. Maybe Boris had unwittingly led them into an even greater trap. Maybe that had been exactly what Filitov warned him about last night—bringing Claudia into the fray, into greater trouble than she already was.
Fuck. Their feet slapped against the dirt path and he kicked up the pace from a jog to a brisk run. They wouldn’t last long like this, but they needed distance, at least. To get away from the scene of the crime.
Because no matter who had burnt the house down, one thing was certain: he couldn’t rid himself of Claudia now. They were both in too deep.
“We were supposed to be in there.” Claudia sounded choked and tiny. He glanced back at her; she dragged her palm across her cheek, wiping away tears. “Who would burn his house down?”
“Hell if I know,” he said, slowing down, wrapping an arm around her. “And I wish we had the time to find out. But we don’t.”
“There’s no way he could have made it out, right?”
He sighed, eyes on the path as it turned from brown to horizon. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
“We would have seen him. We would have run into him by now, don’t you think? Maybe we escaped the other way.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “You shouldn’t think about these things. Don’t torment yourself.”
She stiffened, slowing further. “How can you not think about these things?”
He stopped, spinning on his heels to face her. “I do think about these things, more than you know. I do enough thinking about it for the both of us. So just leave it to me, okay?”
She watched him with watery eyes for a moment before nodding. “You must handle emotions differently.”
He hefted with a laugh. That was the understatement of the century. “In my world, you have to.”
“And what world is that?”
He let her question hang in the air, like an unwelcome guest at a party, mostly ignored, totally awkward. Thankfully, a cloud of dust ahead snagged his attention. A truck. It had to be.
“This one is ours,” he said, pushing himself into a run. The grill crested a small hill and a beast of a work truck lumbered toward them.
It only took a few minutes before they caught up to the dusty thing. Boris waved his arms in the air as they approached. The driver acknowledged them and slowed, rumbling to a stop. Boris hurried to the driver’s side, peering up once the man rolled down his window.
“Vam je potrebna pomoć?” The man said. He peered down at Boris suspiciously, then glanced through the front window as Claudia finally caught up. She stood panting behind him, hands on her knees.
Boris’s Croatian was rudimentary at best; but in the language of subduing, he was fluent. “Pomozite nam molim,” Boris said. He could do a better Croatian accent, but he thought looking a bit like a lost tourist would help them, and match up with his crappy grasp of the language well. He pointed toward the direction where they’d come from, then at the two of them, then inside the man’s truck. “mozhemo ichi?” Can we go, or something like it.
The man heaved a sigh, thick dark hair matted from the grime of farm work. At least that was Boris’s best guess. “Davay, otishao.”
They could get in. Boris smiled and thanked him, pulling Claudia around to the passenger’s side with him. He climbed in first, then helped her in. Once she pulled the heavy door shut, the man shifted the truck into gear.
“Aren’t we going the wrong way?” Claudia asked under her breath. Boris sent her a dirty look then turned his attention out the front window, using his peripheral vision to track the movements of the man beside him. He’d be an easy target. Maybe too easy.
Boris turned to look at the man. Just as the driver glanced his way, Boris brought his elbow back into his throat, as hard as he could. The driver let a guttural yelp and clutched at his throat. Boris put him in a headlock and tightened his arm, while using his free hand to open the driver’s side door.
Keeping the man in a tight headlock, he fished for the seatbelt release; once it clicked open, he pushed the man out the door, quickly assuming his post in front of the wheel. His body fell out of the truck and banged against the side—a dull thud. In a fluid motion, he maneuvered the listing truck back onto the path and swung the door shut. Slamming his foot on the brake pedal, he executed a quick U-turn in a flat patch of grass nearby.
The driver lay writhing on the ground as the truck lumbered past him. Boris winced. He didn’t know what was more batshit crazy—that he’d just lifted this guy’s truck with barely a struggle, or the fact that this barely even registered on the scale of bad things he’d done in his life. Once the driver grew smaller in the rear-view mirror, he glanced at Claudia.
She watched him with an open mouth.
“It was necessary,” he said, like it might prevent any shocked questions. Claudia turned to look out the grimy back window, mouth still open.
“You just stole his truck,” she said finally. “I thought we were going to ride with him. Like regular people helping out some strangers.” She shook her head, scooting to the far side of the truck. “Fuck, Boris.”
He ground his jaw as he drove, pushing the truck faster. “You watched me kill a man with my bare hands and this shocks you?”
“That was to save me,” she spat. “This was…”
“To save you again,” he said, glancing over at her. The big wheel vibrated in his hands as he drove. “You don’t get it. But we’re in danger.”
She blinked at him, mouth a thin line, not saying anything.
“We just need to get the hell out of here,” he said. “We’ll leave
the truck somewhere in the city when we get there. I doubt we’ll have a tail for a while.” Once they got oriented in the city, he’d send her home. He had to. Because she couldn’t stick around for the rest of his mission. Getting her mixed up in the assignment had been a bad idea, though he couldn’t quite ignore the distant protests pulsing through his body. Claudia, I’ll miss you.
“Another tail.” She hefted with a laugh. “You talk like a spy. Is that the world you come from?”
Boris didn’t say anything, just let the grumble of the shifting gears act as his answer.
***
A half hour later, Boris slowed the truck to a stop at the end of a long line of vehicles. Shouts and honks rang out. Claudia rolled down the window so she could crane her head to see better. Dust stung her eyes in the early morning air.
“What’s going on?” She pulled her head back in when a group of kids rushed past the truck, shouting in Croatian.
“We’re totally stopped.” Boris’s jaw flexed as he gripped the steering wheel. Their drive through the countryside had been almost romantic—maybe as romantic as she’d get out of someone like him—if one could overlook the grand theft auto and the arson from earlier that morning. And despite the craziness of the last week of her life, there was something steady and logical about Boris. Even though he went against all odds.
“What should we do?” She sighed, lifting her arm from the arm rest once it started to stick again. It wasn’t even 9 a.m. and the heat was intense.
“We should leave the truck.” He stared out the windshield for a moment longer then turned to her, almost like seeking her approval. She nodded in agreement. Somehow, he knew best. Even though he infuriated her with the sidestepping of her questions, with the insistent cloak of mystery he wore, Boris should be trusted.
“It looks like there’s a parade,” Claudia said, pushing open her door after Boris opened his. The fragrant scent of bread wafted from somewhere nearby. If she and Boris weren’t on the run from mysterious arsonists, this might be a place she’d like to sit and stay awhile. Wander aimlessly through the chestnut groves. Get lost in sunny reveries.
But not today.
“Stay close to me,” he said, searing her with a look. “We can’t get separated.”
She hopped down to the ground, the shock rattling up to her knees. “Oh no? You don’t wanna get rid of me after all?” She shoved the door shut with a grunt. “Just one night on a Croatian hillside was all it took to change your mind?”
Boris narrowed his eyes at her, but there was the hint of a smile there. He grabbed her hand before she could strut off cockily like she wanted.
“Men are dogs,” she went on. “You’re all the same.”
He pulled her close to him, pressing his mouth against her ear. “Leaving you was a mistake.” His voice came out low, almost a growl.
Shivers coursed through her and a grin broke out on her face. “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”
Boris laughed, loosening his grip, tugging her along behind him. “Sounds like you’ve got some of your own secrets.”
“Probably not as many as you.”
He hefted with a laugh. “I’ll let that one slide.”
Claudia giggled, letting his comment sink deep into her. She could get used to stuff like this. Wait, Claudia. What are you talking about? She blinked hard, like it might clear her head somehow. Because Boris was clouding her judgement. This past week had fostered the most insane blend of intimacy and confusion. Spending close quarters with someone like they had meant she felt like she knew him inside and out. Which she did, in a way.
But also in a huge way she didn’t. And she’d do well to remember that, too.
If only there were anything normal about the way they’d met, or the direction they were headed. Boris led the way through the people, the crowd growing denser the further they got. Drums pum-pum-pummed in the distance, with squawking horns signaling a marching band somewhere in the area.
A vendor flagged down Claudia, gesturing toward a basket full of fresh-baked breads. Claudia stalled, peering into the basket, fascinated by the dark grains and the assortment of nuts baked into various loaves. This was the real Croatian countryside—she should be able to at least take a bite.
“Claudia.” Boris’s stern voice broke through her rationale and she jerked herself into motion behind him. “You gotta stay with me.”
“Right.”
“I think I see the parade approaching,” Boris said. “The route is just ahead.”
“Can we watch it?”
She barely caught his sigh over the clamor of voices. “You already know the answer to that.”
She nudged him with her elbow. “Our first date is shaping up to be pretty boring.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I hate to see what kind of first dates you consider exciting.”
His grip on her hand relaxed and they pressed forward, occasionally jostled by the zealous villager. At one point their hands slipped apart and Boris turned with panic in his eyes. She greeted him with a smile—“I’m still here, don’t worry”—and they continued on, hugged on all sides by sweating parade-goers.
When Boris’s hand slipped from hers a second time, she didn’t fret. She kept him in her line of sight, though a few people pushed in between them. They must have been nearing the parade route itself, with how dense the people were getting. Boris’s closely cropped head bobbed just a few people ahead of her. Got him in my line of sight. All good.
Someone shoved her from behind, a swell of people, and suddenly she was pushed off to the right, caught in a force she couldn’t control or change. Boris’s head disappeared into the masses and panic streaked through her. “Boris!”
Her voice was swallowed up into the overwhelming chaos. Fuck. She stood on her tiptoes, desperate to lay eyes on him. Maybe she shouldn’t move—that seemed like a good way to get her bearings, at least—but the crowd was too dense, it pushed and pulled at her, like the aggressive waves of an ocean.
She glimpsed an opening off to her right, under an overhang. A respite from the crowd. She darted that way, eager to use the relative calm as a way to ground herself. She couldn’t actually lose Boris in the crowd—right? They’d find each other.
They had to.
The lack of cell phone was like a knife at her throat. How did people used to find each other back in the day without phones to call? It boggled her mind—especially in the middle of parades. In amusement parks. In big cities. Basically anywhere.
If only her phone weren’t floating at the bottom of the sea alongside Boris’s, they might not be having this problem right now. If only she hadn’t been kidnapped. That’s pretty much where all the troubles began. Anxiety knotted her gut and she crossed her arms, scanning the crowd fervently, desperate for a glimpse of Boris.
“Waiting for someone?” A voice in English startled her out of her thoughts and she turned. A tall, bulky man, pale as a vampire and with thick, greased black hear smiled down at her.
“Um, yeah.” She cast a forced smile at him and turned away, studying the crowd.
“Maybe I can help.” He stepped closer when she stepped away. “I do, after all, have the advantage of height.”
She glanced at him then stepped away again. “It’s okay. My friend will be here any moment.”
“Yes, your friend.” The man clucked his tongue, hands clasped behind his back. “Has Boris been a good travel mate? I’ve been wondering.”
The use of Boris’s name made her blood freeze. She spun slowly to face the stranger, hesitant to even tell herself she’d misheard him. There was no mishearing him. Which spawned a million other questions, the first one being: was this our tail?
“Who are you?” The question leapt off her lips before she could even think twice.
“I’m Vassily Pavlichenko.” The man smiled wanly, glistening white teeth shining through. He was such an odd presence, one that made her palms cold, even in the thick Croatian heat. What the fuck is this guy doi
ng at this parade? Nothing made sense. It hadn’t made sense this morning, and it made even less sense now.
“You know Boris?” She crossed her arms tighter.
“Better than you.”
“I doubt that.” She sniffed, realizing too late that probably it was obvious she didn’t know him well. Way to out yourself as an amateur. If she knew Boris well, she’d have known that this man was following them. She’d know why, too. Shouts swelled around them—in the distance, a chant began.
“Has he informed you of his mission objective?” Pavlichenko arched an eyebrow.
Claudia struggled to weigh the pros and cons of all possible reactions in the several seconds before a response was necessary, but she couldn’t crack the code. She had no idea how to play the game, because she didn’t even know what game she was playing. “Maybe he has, maybe he hasn’t.”
Going Once, Taken Twice: A Dark Romance Page 8