Page 177 of Captive Ruin

“Yes.” There’s not even a flicker.

I hold out my hand. “Then give me that knife.”

He pauses for only a second, then places it into my palm, watching me warily.

It’s heavier than I expected.

I try to close the blade, but it doesn’t seem to want to move. It’s double-edged, and I don’t want to cut myself.

“There’s a button.” He points. “On the hilt.”

“Oh yeah, thanks.” I close the blade and drop it on the bed, the far side from him.

He lets out a shuddering sigh of relief. Did he think I was going to stab myself? I couldn’t do that. Not after what he’s just told me.

We watch each other for a while.

“I think you’re fucked in the head,” I say at last.

He blinks at me, then gives a soft chuckle and rubs a hand over his face. “I think you drink too much and you can’t be trusted with sleeping pills.”

“Okay, good. Communication. That’s important.” I’m so tired. My body is frail and my energy is low. But there are more pressing matters. “Did you mean what you said just now?”

“Which part?”

“Freedom. Will you… give me some?”

“Yes.”

I wait, but there are no qualifiers.

But what does it matter? He thinks freedom is a walk around the perimeter of my prison, or a shopping trip with escorts herding me everywhere. I want true freedom, and he won’t grant it to me, I know he won’t. The reasons remain: protection for my sister, if not for me. And for him too, as he told me once, so I can’t be used against him.

All this, and I’m still trapped.

“What are you thinking?” he asks softly.

“That nothing has changed,” I reply bitterly.

“Everything has changed,” he says, leaning forward.

Okay, then. Baby steps.

“I want to be able to go out.” God, a basic privilege, and I’m having to bargain for it. “I want to see my friends. My sister.”

“Of course you can.”

That was… easy. If he means it.

“Alone?” I ask tentatively.

“If that’s what you want. Or I could come with you… or not,” he adds hurriedly.

It’s more than an olive branch. It’s a complete one-eighty.

I don’t understand how it’s even possible.

“But what about the Volkovs? What about my safety?”