by Brynn Ford
Nikolai has already traversed the small hallway that leads to the dance studio and stands in the doorway, glaring at me. I move across the floor as swiftly as I can, flinching at the way the unforgiving marble slams into my kneecaps with every motion.
All I’m wearing are cotton shorts and a well-worn, off the shoulder sweatshirt. Because my legs are bare, the coldness and the hardness of the floor is jarring as my bones knock against it, one knee, then the other, over and over.
Nikolai has moved well inside the studio by the time I make it to the threshold. I keep going, wondering if Ezra might actually explode from the pent-up rage he’s barely keeping under wraps. He’s practically dancing with the constant movement, with the jolts and twitches that scream so loudly that he wants to fight.
Once I reach the center of the dance floor where Nikolai stands waiting, his foot comes down on the small of my back and slams me down flat to the floor. I turn my head just in time for my cheek to press into the cold floor, my arms and legs sprawling, as the air is forced out of me in a rushed groan.
“You fucker!” Ezra screams. “Get off me!” And I know Kostya is holding him back.
“Mal’chik. Please,” I barely whisper, filled with sadness, a quiet plea into the empty space and I don’t even know if he can hear me.
“You’re failing, Anya,” Nikolai says to me. “I don’t believe for a second you brought him to your room just to show him photographs. You like him. You want him. You’re trying to use him for yourself and neglecting your task of training him to perform for me.”
“No, I swear…I promise you, I was just trying to show him why…why he can’t keep fighting me, trying to escape.”
His foot abruptly lifts. “Get up.”
I jump to my feet in a hurry and turn to face him.
“Get rope. Tie his hands together.”
“Khozyain, please, it’s not his—”
I stop myself from finishing that sentence.
Why am I defending Ezra?
It’s his fault we’re in this mess in the first place.
Except…I forgot to lock the door.
It’s my fault.
Nikolai’s head cocks to the side. “Are you trying to prove my point? You never hesitated to bind a partner in the past.”
I shake my head quickly and take a step back. “No, I’m sorry.”
I turn and rush off to the corner to gather a length of rope. I take it to where Ezra stands, now with Kostya forming a human barrier between him and Nikolai. His legs are wide, his hands clenching and unclenching, chest pumping with rapid breaths. I slip between Ezra and Kostya and stand in front of him.
“Put your hands in front of you, mal’chik,” I tell him.
He huffs, overwhelming me with the runoff stream of his adrenaline sweeping all around me. He does as he’s told, but his arms twitch and his hands shake. As I start to wind the length of coarse rope around his wrists, I intentionally let my fingers graze his knuckles, praying he can feel my regret for stamping down his hope so effectively.
I twist and turn and coil and bind with practiced mastery. Nikolai is an expert in the art of binding, and he’s passed all his knowledge on to me. It’s knowledge I wish I didn’t possess. When I’m convinced that Ezra is bound to Nikolai’s satisfaction, that he’s bound in a way that he won’t be able to escape without assistance, I step back, bow my head, and wait.
The click, click, click of Nikolai’s shoes across the dance floor is like a slow ticking clock, counting down the seconds of the oncoming punishment. When I finally feel Nikolai’s presence at my back, like a whoosh of arctic air through a door being thrown open during a winter storm, I shiver from head to toe.
“Put your arms behind your back,” he says.
No.
No.
No, no, no.
“Please, no, please,” I beg unashamedly because I know what he’s going to do.
He fists my hair and yanks my head back harshly, forcing me to stare up at the ceiling.
“I’m not asking, rabynya, I’m telling.”
I swallow and breathe, in and out, closing my eyes to try to find my center. It’s shifting and wobbling off course. I bring my shaking hands behind me and try to convince myself that everything is going to be okay.
Nothing is okay, but I have to pretend in order to survive.
Nikolai releases my hair and my head drops forward. I’m caught by green before me. Green eyes that remind me of thriving, vibrant life. Green eyes that throb with radiant energy.
As Nikolai secures my wrists behind my back, I let myself live there in the green because it’s the only color that I have to cling to in this overcast, gray, shadow-filled, onrushing punishment.
Nikolai moves to our sides and looks back and forth between the two of us.
“You are both heading for a world of pain if you continue to misbehave like this. You have one job and one job only and that is to fucking dance.”
“I think there’s a problem then, boss. I haven’t gotten paid for this job yet,” Ezra says, his voice is flowing magma, hot and wild.
He turns his head, disrupting his eye contact with me in favor of squaring off with Nikolai. “And your benefits plan really fucking sucks.”
I sigh and the exhale is filled with a mixture of exasperation, dread, pride, and perhaps, a bit of humor.
Nikolai takes a step toward him, his chest nearly pressed into Ezra’s shoulder at his side. “I’m curious…” he begins with a smirk. “How is it possible that Anya has yet to wipe you clean of your arrogance? Her own should have outmatched yours by now.”
“I’m not arrogant,” Ezra insists, and I wish he would just shut the fuck up.
Every word he utters will add time to the punishment to come.
“Oh, yes, you are. I’m just surprised she hasn’t crushed your spirit yet. She did so well with the others.”
I see Ezra’s face tick at this remark, as if considering something he hadn’t before.
“I’m unbreakable,” Ezra replies.
Oh, God.
I wish he hadn’t said that.
I wish, I wish, I wish he hadn’t said that.
Nikolai speaks low and harshly, “Perhaps you are. But I know she is not. Come.”
He turns on the spot and walks briskly out of the room. I shake my head at Ezra and his face drops, probably at the recognition of surging fear in my expression. He doesn’t know what is to come, but I do. I know and I wish I didn’t because knowing makes it that much worse.
I don’t wait to make sure Ezra follows behind me as I trail after Nikolai. Kostya will drag him along with the threat of his stun gun if he doesn’t cooperate.
Two-and-a-half years ago was the second time I received this punishment. I remember freezing in fear the moment he tied my hands behind my back just like this. I was unwilling and unable to move when he told me to follow after him because I’d experienced this punishment for the first time just weeks before.
I had known the horror that was coming and the fear of it rooted me to the spot. My stubbornness and fear had ultimately only made the second punishment worse—he kept me in longer and it took longer to bring me back. So now, I follow him immediately, hoping my acceptance will make it easier.
If only Ezra will keep his mouth shut, then maybe it won’t be so bad.
I look down at the floor as we walk, crossing the estate to the east wing, still on the first level. Walking past the grand staircase, we enter the garden corridor. We’re still indoors, but tall, rectangular windows are carved into the dark stone walls every few feet, reaching high above us, the stone curving above to form an archway overhead.
If there was sunlight and life at Mikhailov Manor, it would shine through here, it would bring light into this dark, dark residence. But its perpetual winter, perpetual gray, perpetual cold, perpetual
darkness.
We pass through the corridor and veer left, walking down two steps that fall onto a cracked stone-paved landing. This area of the home is a more recent addition, more modern than some of the other parts of the manor which still held their historical décor.
We’re standing in an alcove that feels more like a cave, intentionally designed that way. The light from the garden corridor fades back into darkness here, save for the recessed lighting in the stone overhead. The walls are rough, made to look like the rocky interior of a grand cavern, and it’s humid, surrounding us with an overwhelming dampness. To me, it’s a stony secret passage, a hidden gate that leads to the depths of the underworld.
This alcove serves as the gateway to a steam room that no one uses anymore toward our right. But we’ll be going left, in through the single glass door cut into the cave-like wall that leads to the indoor pool.
This is where reality strikes.
This is where my body reacts.
This is where I step backward, lose control, and tell him no.
“No, no, please, moy khozyain, I can’t…”
“Anya.” Ezra sounds as though fear has washed away his reckless energy.
Nikolai comes after me. “Yes, rabynya, yes.” He snatches me by the elbow, dragging me forward.
I don’t fight him, but I resist. I know it’s going to happen whether I want it to or not, and though I wish I could be more dignified, more graceful about accepting my fate, my human instinct refuses to let me.
A stirring panic swirls in my chest, pulling into a dense ball that rolls around my ribcage as it lights on fire. It’s like a dense star burning bright in a flash of light, then dying, collapsing, becoming a black hole that pulls my entire life force into that single dark space.
Nikolai pulls the glass door open with one hand, dragging me from the elbow with the other as I try to pull away from him.
“No! No, no, no. Moy khozyain…” I beg. “Moy khozyain, please. I’m sorry, I’ll do better. I’ll be better, I promise.”
I hear how pathetic I sound, yet I’m powerless to stop it—that black hole in my chest is pulling and changing me, taking away my control, altering the way I react.
He shoves me past the door, then Kostya forces Ezra behind me before letting it drift shut. I back away until I hit the side wall and can’t go any farther. I keep my eyes locked on Nikolai, suddenly instinctive and defensive like the prey he’s made me become.
I can feel Ezra’s eyes on me.
I can hear him yelling.
I can sense him struggling.
I can see Kostya tying Ezra’s bound hands to a towel bar that’s bolted into the sturdy wall.
I know all these things are happening, but my conscious is shutting down in my panic. My lungs are working double time, my breaths quickening, and tears singe my eyes, knowing that soon I won’t be able to breathe at all.
Nikolai is coming after me now.
I’ll be under the water soon.
I’ll be entirely breathless soon.
I’ll be dead soon.
Chapter 12
Anya
Nikolai’s hand firmly wraps around my upper arm and I scream. I scream so loudly and so sharply that everything else in the room stills.
Nikolai stills.
Kostya stills.
Ezra stills.
The smell of the chlorine wafting in the air even feels exceptionally stagnant for an extra beat.
But when that beat passes, everything shifts back into focus. It’s a new tilted perspective, but a true one. I can see all too clearly what’s happening to me.
Nikolai walks, pulling me along, moving us both toward the rectangular pool. He stops us at the steps, using his toes to kick off his shoes but doesn’t dare let go of me.
If he let go of me, I would crumble.
Everything in my body is telling me to fall, to crumple to the floor, curl up into a tiny ball, a tiny, nonexistent ball that evades all attention. I wish to be as small and unremarkable as a stone on a walkway, something Nikolai could walk right past and forget about.
Instead, I feel like a boulder he’s stubbed his toe on, the boulder he’s now kicking back at in useless frustration, as if kicking me will ease his annoyance.
Kicking me isn’t enough to satisfy him, though. He wants to roll me off the cliff’s edge, drop me into the ocean, and watch me sink heavily to the bottom.
He drags me to the stairs that descend into the shallow end of the pool and we both step down. My sneakers soak up the water, making my feet instantly feel heavier. He fists the railing with his free hand, using it to pull himself. His other hand pulls me, while I pull back.
I’m facing away from him, jerking in the opposite direction with all my might. His hand slips purposefully down my arm, falling to the rope that binds my wrists at my back and grasps it tightly, using it to keep a firm grip on me. I’m still fighting him on the second step down as he drops onto the pool floor. With one sharp tug, he heaves me backward and I slip into the water, nearly drifting onto my back as it catches my fall from the steps.
I right myself quickly, springing up to press my feet against the blue, mosaic-tiled floor. My hair is heavy at my back, dipped wet at the ends.
Every scream and shout I make in protest echoes off the walls, bouncing back in a haunting chant as if a dozen of me were yelling out their torment all at once.
Nikolai pulls me in front of him and our eyes catch. I beg him with mine, but his are unyielding. He’s intent on punishing me. I hardly even remember what for now.
It doesn’t matter.
He wants to hurt me and so he will.
My soggy clothes hang heavy on my body. The off-shoulder gray sweatshirt pulls me, drags me, encourages me to succumb to the water and sink to relieve the weight of it.
My whole body is trembling uncontrollably now. My bones feel like they’ve been wrapped in winter air and every part of me shakes.
Nikolai grips both of my shoulders painfully, his fingers bruising. His head snaps up to look behind me just before he spins me around, forcing me to face Ezra. He stands poolside above us with his arms secured to a towel bar on the wall that’s level with his chest.
I make a mistake.
I look at Ezra.
I see his horrified expression and I feel it inside my chest.
I feel his fear, his pain, his terror swirling with mine, and it’s more painful than any feeling of horror Nikolai has ever managed to pluck out of me himself.
“This is what you need to understand, Mr. Bell,” Nikolai’s voice bellows, echoing in the wide, open space. “Anya is mine. If you try to win her heart, play on her sympathies, you both will lose. This is what you will get.”
I feel the curl of his fingertips around my shoulders, the grip of his hands as he tightens his hold. My pulse quickens, knowing it’s happening before I can react to it consciously, logically. All reason slips my mind in fear as Nikolai’s weight shifts over my shoulders. I open my mouth to scream instead of taking a breath like I should have and then he’s pushing me down.
Ezra strangles out a horrified scream and then his sound fades into a whoosh, a rumbling void that soaks up our shouting and washes them away. Tepid water rushes into my nostrils and I snap my mouth shut to create a barrier the only way I can.
I’m buried beneath the surface now, only its water that holds me in my grave instead of soil.
I don’t immediately fight. Although I knew it was coming, it still takes me by surprise. The shift from air to water is entirely bewildering. It takes me a few seconds after the initial shock to remember what’s happening, where I am, who’s holding me down.
My knees are on the tile floor. All I want is to break free from Nikolai and get to the surface. I lean forward and drop my body down to the pool floor, using the way he pushes down on me as lev
erage to go deeper. I flatten my body and roll, facing the surface above me. Nikolai’s hands have lost their grip and fallen away.
I thrash and kick and rise above the break as Nikolai rushes for me. I manage to stand, but it’s only just long enough to take in a deep breath, only just long enough to hear the echoes of Ezra’s distress for me bouncing off the walls.
Nikolai wraps his arms around my midsection and my soaked, heavy hair whips around my face, strands covering my mouth and nose. He spins me fast in his hold, this time grabbing the ropes around my wrists with one hand and grasping the back of my neck painfully tight with the other.
He bends me forward at the waist, forcing my face into the water, pushing me down beneath the surface, drowning me again. I squirm, throwing every ounce of energy I have into fighting him.
But I’m failing.
He’s got a hold on me and no matter what I do, there is no getting away from him now.
The adrenaline in my body fights with my experience. It tells my brain to fight, though experience knows there is no point. Experience knows that Nikolai won’t let up. Experience knows that I’ve drowned in this pool before. Experience knows I’m going to die here again.
Going against every physical instinct, I force myself to still. I let him hold me under the water and I start to count.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
I know—because I’ve been here before—that I can make it to twelve counts of eight.
Nikolai’s grip on me hasn’t lessened, though I’ve essentially stopped fighting him. My body still ticks and thrashes every few moments, a natural physical reflex to get me out of harm’s way, but I’m aware that’s not possible.
I open my eyes as I continue to count. My hair floats and drifts around me in waves that look nearly black in their saturated state. As the water stills around me, I can almost make out the words being spoken and shouted above the surface, though not quite. I hear shouting, yelling. I think I hear a clanging sound, and I wonder if Ezra is strong enough to rip the towel bar out of the wall.