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“Why do you hurt her?” I whisper.
He keeps watching his son as he speaks, his voice clipped. “Because she denied me.”
“What?”
“I gave her a chance to leave Stepan when you were born.” My chest squeezes—so do my nails against my thighs. “She refused. She preferred to be a wife to a pauper than a lover to a king. She chose her fate, and for that, I will always resent her. And because she denied me, I’m driven by a need to possess her. To own her. To teach her that she can never run away from me.”
I tremble on the bench. Rage, fear, horror … It’s all mixed inside of me in a thorny ball. Mom’s words echo in my ear as I listen. Our monsters may wear different faces. But they’re the same.
No, I tell myself. Arsen isn’t like Yevgeniy at all. He can’t be. He’s better than him.
Is he? He murdered a child, Galina!
Yevgeniy faces me, studying me with a half-smile. “You think I’m a monster. I can see it on your face.”
“Because you are,” I hiss.
“Maybe.” His shrug lacks commitment. “But can you honestly say that your precious Arsen is so different from me?”
He reaches up and pushes back my hair, revealing the marks Arsen’s fingers left on me.
“See?” he whispers. “He’s capable of hurting you the same way that you accuse me of hurting my dear Katyusha. And what’s to say he hasn’t done to you what I’ve done to her?”
I bite back a gasp. Does he know about the pregnancy? I wish I could read his face the way he reads mine. Afraid I’ll reveal my secret, I remain silent. I don’t budge an inch. A childlike fancy enters me: if I stay still long enough, he’ll forget I’m here and go back to playing with Ruslan.
He tilts his head like an owl. “If you want to get your mother away from me, you’ll need to get yourself away from Arsen. This war is only going to get worse.” His eyebrows pucker. “It would be terrible to lose my daughter in the crossfire. I’ve lost one child to Arsen already. I do not wish to lose a second. And I have no desire to inflict that grief upon your mother.”
The edges of my vision crackle with red and black. Panic mixes with disbelief. He’s talking like he cares about her. Like he cares about me. I know it’s just another lie. But for some reason, I’m stuck on what he said. The war … it’s only going to get worse. That part is true, but why tell me that now?
Yevgeniy slips his phone out of his jacket. His mouth is in a faint frown. He’s reading something, and I guess he doesn’t like it. But then he smiles again as if whatever he saw wasn’t worth an afterthought.
“We’ll see each other soon,” he says to me without looking up. Standing, he shouts, “Ruslan! Idi suda! It’s time to go!”
I start to rise, but before I do, he turns to me. There’s something in his hand. “What—” I choke out, before he pushes the item into my palm.
“When the time comes, you’ll know what to do,” he says, backing away.
Opening my fingers, I stare at the tiny, hard square. It’s a SIM card.
“Why would I ever want to contact you?” I seethe.
Yevgeniy ignores me, but the cryptic smile doesn’t leave his face. Ruslan bounds toward us, his scarf looping through the air like a kite’s tail. Yevgeniy meets him halfway, taking his hand. He whispers something to Ruslan, who casts a longing look toward me. The sadness is unmistakable on his young face, but he follows after Yevgeniy obediently. They move quickly toward the car we arrived at the park in. Everything is happening suddenly, and my brain is barely able to keep up.
They’re leaving without me!
Jumping to my feet, I look on helplessly as Yevgeniy drives toward the nearby patch of trees. My heart is stampeding wildly. I’d be joyous, except that my mother is back at the house they’re returning to without me.
“Hey!” I call into the dead air, confusion leaching into my tone. “What’s happening?”
There’s a crunch as tires roll over the road. For a second, I stiffen, thinking Yevgeniy has realized his error and is coming back for me. But this is a new car, and it’s driving from the opposite direction.
The paint job makes it look like a chunk of midnight has broken from the sky. It stops right in front of my bench. The dark surface reflects everything around it, including my stunned expression. A familiar face appears in the crack when the door bursts open.
“Arsen?” I manage to whisper.
His intense eyes bring a familiar heat to my chest. The cut of his dark jacket fits him well, forcing me to remember how muscular and fit he is beneath. Just seeing him wakes my body up.
He’s a blur of motion, and suddenly I find myself in his warm embrace. The friction of his jacket is pressed against my cheek, and his arms cling, holding me to his body. It’s a tight embrace that steals the air from my lungs. Or maybe I’m simply too stunned to breathe.
