Page 6 of Cruel Demands

“I live two blocks away.”

“It is still late.”

“And you’re drunk.”

“So are you.”

“I’m less drunk.”

“You are smaller. It counts more.”

“Petyr.”

He sighs dramatically, like I have wounded him beyond repair. “Fine. Text me when you get home.”

I lift an eyebrow.

“As friend,” he says, placing a hand over his heart.

“As friend,” I repeat.

“Cold woman.”

“Persistent man.”

He smiles into his glass. “Goodnight, schoolgirl.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling when I turn away.

2

TAYLOR

The cold hits me the second I step outside.

It’s not even the worst Moscow has given me, not by far, but it still slips under my coat and bites through the thin fabric of my dress like it has teeth. The street glistens beneath the lamps, wet with old snow and dirty slush. Cars hiss past in streaks of red and white. Somewhere down the block, a man laughs too loudly, the sound bouncing off the stone faces of buildings that look older than my entire country.

I tuck my chin into my scarf and start walking.

Two blocks isn’t far at all. It only feels far because the vodka has put a little sway in the sidewalk and because my boots were chosen for looking cute, not surviving a Moscow winter. Every few steps, my heel catches in a crack or slips over a patch of ice, and I have to throw out one hand while my stomach hurls itself into my throat.

My phone buzzes in my coat pocket.

I pull it out with numb fingers, expecting Petyr to already be asking whether I’m home.

Instead, it’s my mother.

Mom: Just checking in, baby. How are classes?

I look at the message for a moment, the air biting my cheeks, my fingers hovering over the letters.

Then another appears.

Mom: Did you hear anything back from that government job?

My stomach tightens. There it is.

Not pressure, exactly. My mother would deny applying any if I accused her of it. She and my father have never once suggested that coming here was selfish or unnecessary.