Her pulse stumbled. She didn’t know it well—had only heard it a handful of times through the thin walls of the barracks—but some voices didn’t require familiarity. Some voices you memorize on a cellular level because the fear soaks in and stays.
She’d heard it bark orders. Laugh.
Every muscle in her body screamed at her to turn and look, but she absolutely knew turning would get her killed.
“Zoya?”
The woman—Zoya—looked at the man, then at Harper.
Her face didn’t change. Whatever decision she’d made, Harper wasn’t invited into it.
“A moment, Ivan. I am with a customer.”
Zoya turned back to Harper. Her expression was entirely unbothered. But her eyes locked on Harper’s face with an intensity that said: stay still, stay quiet, do not move.
She reached beneath the counter and pulled out a small paper bag and placed it in front of Harper. She dropped two small boxes into the bag—painkillers, bandages. The mundane items of a mundane transaction.
“Two hundred rubles,” she said loudly. Her voice carried across the shop toward the man. “For cold medicine and gauze.”
Harper’s hands shook as she reached into her pocket and pulled out cash. She counted out what looked close to two hundred and pushed it across.
Zoya took the money and folded it into her cardigan pocket with thick fingers. Then her hand came back across the counter. A small paper twist pressed into Harper’s palm beneath the edge of the paper bag.
“Ivova kora,” the woman muttered under her breath. “For fever.”
Willow bark.
Harper’s fingers closed around it. “Spasibo.”Thank you.
Zoya’s hand stayed on hers. One heartbeat. Long enough for a brief squeeze before she let go.
Harper looked up. Zoya turned away, reaching for something on the shelf, her face closed, her posture already that of a woman who had forgotten the conversation she’d just had.
Harper picked up the paper bag and tucked the willow bark into her pocket with shaking fingers. Her spine was straight and her breathing was steady because she’d trained herself years ago in an ER to keep her body calm while her mind ran at full speed.
She nodded a thank you and turned toward the door, keeping her back to Ivan. She kept her eyes on the floor, her stride casual. Aimed for the door and moved past him with the unhurried pace of a woman going home.
She almost made it.
He turned as she passed. Her face was half-hidden by the hood of Pav’s jacket and the hat pulled low. Her English hair, her Harper Fox hair, was tucked away.
For one moment, his eyes held hers.
Her heart stopped.
Too long.
Certainly long enough.
A flash of something crossed his eyes—recognition searching for a landing. Then his gaze slid away.
He didn’t recognize her.
Why would he? He’d never looked at any of them long enough to see a person. To him, she’d only ever been inventory. A body in a room and a problem to move, not a face to remember.
Here, the light was dim, and she was an unremarkable woman in a town full of unremarkable people.
His attention was fully on the woman. “Zoya, I need something for my cough. The drops, the good ones?—”
