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“I’m going to make it slow when I kill her,” he says. He traces the burned skin on the inside of my arm. “Maybe show her what this feels like.”
Should I be upset by this? Tell him no? Not to do it?
I’m not, and I don’t.
Instead, I kiss him. I stand on my tiptoes and kiss his lips with mine, and I realize something at that moment. And maybe it should scare me, this thing. No, it should definitely scare me.
Lev and I are bound to one another. I feel like we were from that first meeting. But it’s more than that.
I think I love him.
“Stop crying, sweetheart,” he tells me, hugging me to him, then sliding his hand between us to that other scar, the good one. “Tell me about this. Tell me about the day my son was born.”
24
Kat
I wake up to little hands pushing the hair from my face.
“Hi, Mommy,” Josh’s smile is wide when I open my eyes, and he launches himself against me. I hug him tight, squeezing his little body. He smells like sleep and laundry detergent, and I can’t get enough.
This feeling, I think, this is joy. And I want to hold on to it for as long as I can because I know when I let him go, the fear will creep in again.
“Pasha made pancakes!”
“He did?” I ask. Sitting up, I scratch my head as I look at the clock beside the bed. It’s a little after seven in the morning, and I’m not sure when I came in here. Lev and I fell asleep on the smaller bed in what’s meant to be Josh’s room after making love for an eternity.
I warm at the memory. Last night, he’d made love to me. He’d kissed every inch of me, scars and all, and he’d loved me.
“With blueberries and even marshmallows inside them,” Josh continues, and I guess I had drifted off in the memory of last night because I must have missed part of his sentence.
“Pancakes with marshmallows in them?” I raise my eyebrows, and Josh’s huge smile makes his eyes sparkle.
He nods. “I taught him,” he says, and he knows he’s about to get away with it when I squeeze his cheeks, then pull him to me to hug him again.
When I touch his bare feet, I feel how cold they are. “Did you go downstairs all by yourself?”
He nods very proudly. “Don’t worry, I held on,” he says, trying to roll his eyes but just managing to tilt his head way back in the attempt. We don’t have stairs at our house in Colorado, and I guess they still make me nervous with him.
“Isn’t Lev here?” I ask, knowing he’s not because if he were, he’d have put socks on Josh’s feet.
“Pasha said he had to go to work. I’m going to get a toy from my room,” he says and disappears.
I get up, grab a hoodie and a pair of jeans out of our meager duffel, and quickly get dressed. I brush my teeth and comb my hair with my fingers—my brush is one of the things I forgot to pack in my haste. I don’t bother with makeup before making my way downstairs with Josh.
“Good morning,” I say to Pasha, looking around.
“Good morning, Katerina,” he says. He’s a nice guy, but having him here doesn’t make me feel as safe as when Lev is here.
“Where’s Lev?”
“He got a call earlier. Said he’ll be back as soon as he can.”
“Was it Vasily who called?”
Pasha glances at Josh and gives me a short nod before returning his attention to the pancakes.
I get myself a cup of coffee and find my phone, which is on the coffee table. It’s still strange not to have anyone’s numbers from school or from our lives in Colorado. It’s like none of that happened. Like those years didn’t exist.
When I touch the screen, I see I only have 1% battery left, but before I go searching for a charger, I see the message on the screen.
Lev: I’ll be back as soon as I can.
That’s all. Nothing else.
I consider texting him to ask where he is, but if he’s with Vasily, it’s probably best not to do that.
“Do you know where I can charge this?” I ask Pasha.
Pasha points at a drawer where I find odds and ends, including several different types of chargers. I wonder who else has used this house as a safe house. Who has been here before me, and how has it ended for them?
Finding the charger that fits my phone, I plug it into the wall and turn to watch Josh eat a marshmallow pancake.
“You know, marshmallow pancakes aren’t really a thing, right?” I say to Pasha with a smile.
He winks. “What do you mean? They’re delicious.” He plates a pancake and hands it to me.
