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6
Dmitry
“Don’t touch that goddamn dial,” I growled, shifting the car into fifth gear. I watched as the speedometer slowly climbed to match the humming of the engine.
My thoughts were a mass of anger and frustration, crawling red and spiraling black overlaying the scenery that flashed past the car. The pretty countryside was all but ruined by the worry that had amassed inside me at the first sound of spraying gravel back at the safe house. Manya sat quietly in the backseat, fidgeting with my shirt around her torso.
My father sat to my right, glaring as he readjusted in the seat once more, huffing at my insistence that he leave the radio alone.
I didn’t want to listen to music.
I didn’t want to listen to much of anything. That moment back at the shore, laying on top of Manya, had been as close to peace as either of us had been allowed to experience since coming back stateside. It had been yanked from us just as quickly as everything else though. We’d barely managed to throw our clothing back on, with me tossing her my shirt for extra coverage, before armed byki had swarmed the hill above us, calling out. It had been such a short warning, with the cars being loaded and my father being brought out only seconds before the spray of bullets had started.
The ping of metal against metal had been our backdrop as we loaded ourselves into the car, leaving the byki to deal with the aftermath. I didn’t even get a chance to return fire, focusing instead on removing Manya and my father from danger. It went against everything in me, sticking in the back of my throat like too-thick molasses.
I could still see the holes in the back windshield where several of the bullets had managed to come through, no doubt now rolling around Manya’s feet. Right now though, her attention was on the rearview mirror, where her black eyes burned into me.
“You knew it would be temporary,” my father grunted, sounding exasperated with my obvious frustration. “Matter of time before they found us. Wasn’t a bad run, making it that long. So why let your face be so long?”
My fingers stiffened around the cold metal of the gear shift as I bit back the acid I wanted to spew. “Nyet. Do not underplay it, Papa. We should have made it at least another week, if not two. That house was on none of the gridwork—never used for a hideout before. Them finding us so soon can only mean they were told where I am. . .”
“Who would do that?” Manya asked suddenly from the backseat.
“Ha,” my father wheezed. “You ask who would do that, da? Who wouldn’t? Better question. Our ranks are divided, some see prosperity and power in betrayal. They think we are crumbling because they are wet behind the ears and weak. They have never lived through power change before, so they are frightened like meowing puss babies.”
“Kittens,” I absentmindedly corrected, glancing up to see my father’s eye roll.
“I said what I said,” he muttered.
Manya shook her head, reaching forward to brush her fingers down my tight forearm. “You made a face,” she said softly, her eyes meeting mine frankly in the rearview mirror. I was at once impressed and upset that she had picked up on such a minute motion from me. “Do you have an idea who it could be?”
My jaw clenched further, bile filling my throat as I maneuvered the vehicle carefully, jerking my gaze from my wife’s to focus instead on the empty road ahead. I wanted to answer her question about as much as I had wanted to consider it in the first place. “I only told one person the exact location we would be in,” I finally, hesitantly answered.
“Da, but how many people did that person tell?” my father laughed without amusement.
Manya’s lips thinned, her eyes sharpening once more, and it was all I could do not to look too directly into the mirror again. She was asking the questions I didn’t want to answer, but did I dare keep it to myself, with everything against all of us in this vehicle?
“You told Shura,” Manya stated, hazarding a guess. When I looked back at her in the rearview, she was holding her lower lip between her teeth, worrying the skin there and looking over my face as if trying to see inside my skull.
“Da.” It was one word, but it carried in it more emotion than I liked to admit.I had told Shura my choice of house; he was the only one that knew.I hadn’t paused to consider doing it. Shura was my best friend, my confidant, and my father’s top byki partially because of that. There had never been even a shadow of a hint to his loyalty being anything but absolute.
Until now.
My father made a guttural noise in the back of his throat, drawing my gaze to him once more. He didn’t look quite as shell-shocked as Manya did, but disbelief still hung heavily over his features. “Not Shura,” he said decisively, despite how indecisive his watery eyes looked. “Shura is byki and family. He would sooner choke on own spit before let me die.”
My knuckles blanched from how tightly I gripped the steering wheel. He was repeating thoughts that had already occurred to me, but there was no escaping fact. Someone was telling the opposition where and when I moved, someone was providing my location, and that someone had to have access to our most private details.
Only one person fit that bill.
“Shura is your best friend,” Manya whispered, her fingers rubbing my arm comfortingly despite the argument that she clearly wanted to make. She didn’t even react to my father’s blatant scoff as she said it, ignoring him entirely to meet my eyes once more. “Never mind anything else, I can’t see it being him who betrayed you.”
I wanted to nod with those words, or to tell her that I knew, but I knew nothing of the sort. I only knew what facts I had already deduced, only what had been proven absolute. I wanted to believe what she said. She was right; Shura was my best friend. However. . .
The phone rang shrilly through the silence, flashing on the car radio’s display screen insistently. It wasn’t a number that I knew, but I flicked the button on the underside of the steering wheel regardless, clearing my throat as greeting.
“Dmitry,” Shura’s voice sounded suddenly through the vehicle’s speakers, echoing in the small interior until I adjusted the volume. “I found a new house. It is small, da, short time only I think, but it will work for now.” He sounded almost distant, his voice dying out and the sound of shuffling carrying through the connection.
I inhaled sharply, fighting my impulse to ask any questions about how we had been found and instead rapidly tapping my thumb against the steering wheel. “You have secured the location?” I asked instead, ignoring my father’s snort next to me.
