Day twenty-seven…

Three days left to go. But that number is meaningless without being able to take Helenka and Yuri. I could be here a hundred more days. A thousand.

Will he force me to leave without them? Throw me out on the street? Would he really be that cruel?

Of course he would. He’d do it and laugh. What a stupid question.

My pad of paper and pastels sit on my desk, gathering dust. I can’t bring myself to draw. Every day that goes by without seeing my cousins drains a little more strength from me.

I feel like a snake skin after it’s been shed – dried up, shriveled, empty.

I can’t believe Sergei is being this cruel for this long. It always ends. It’s supposed to be a cycle. Cruelty and then pleasure.

But this time, there’s no end. I’m coming to realize there never will be. I’m too tired, too sad even to cry any more.

I do get to see my aunt, as the nurse walks her through the halls. Sergei brought his doctor here to do surgery on her deformed rib. Why the hell did he even bother? Who knows why he does what he does?

Anastasia is starting to come out of her daze. She’s taking suboxone, which is supposed to wean her off her dependence on opiates. She’s taking an anti-depressant. Her body is healing. Her gaze is clearer, she talks without drooling. She’s still sad and quiet, though.

I am lying on my bed trying to get up the energy to go take a shower when there’s a rap on the bedroom door.

It opens, and Jon hurries through, and Helenka and Yuri are with him, eyes huge. My heart soars, and I leap to my feet.

He’s holding up a device.

“We don’t have long,” he says. “This is a signal dampener so they can’t listen in on our conversation. The security video is playing on a loop, but that won’t last long. Today was the first day Sergei and most of his men left the house. We’ve got to move fast.”

He has a black bag slung over his shoulder, and he jerks the strap. “Ten thousand dollars. From your uncle. We’re leaving now. I will be your bodyguard. This money will support us until he can smuggle you out.”

I grimace. When I envisioned escaping, I did not picture this. Jon watching over us, controlling our every move…it’s not freedom. It’s a different prison.

“You want us to go back to Vilyat. My uncle…he’s been beating my aunt.” Yuri’s eyes widen in dismay. Helenka just looks disgusted. Not surprised. She knew. Of course she knew. “And he abandoned me to Sergei.”

“What he did with your aunt is between him and her,” Jon says, with the prissy, self-righteous tone of male authorities who blame the victim, who act as if the victims had real choices. “And he did not abandon you to Sergei. He did what he had to do to buy some time.”

“What about announcing that five-million-dollar donation on TV? It’s pure luck that Sergei didn’t decide to start sending him my fingers and toes,” I say furiously.

Helenka and Yuri are staring at me in utter shock now, eyes as big as saucers. I’m dealing a death-blow to their innocence. They never knew that life could be like this.

Jon gestures impatiently. “Sergei did not leave your uncle with many choices. He is planning on having you killed at the end of the thirty days,” he says. “I heard him talking about it. Your only chance of survival is to come with me now.”

I know he’s lying about that.

I think he’s lying about that.

I don’t think Sergei is planning on killing me. Then again, he hasn’t come to see me in over a week, and he’s deliberately kept me from my Lukas and my cousins all that time. Maybe he will go back on his word. Maybe I never knew Sergei at all. Funny how much that thought hurts.

“You can’t keep a man from his children,” Jon said haughtily. “It’s not right.”

And I make my decision.

I don’t point out that Vilyat beats his son and offered to trade his daughter to Sergei for sex, or that he terrorized their mother to the point where she couldn’t function as a mother. I don’t try to argue that children have a right to be raised free from abuse.

I just nod.

“Let’s get Anastasia and go.”

Jon shakes his head. “No, he’s done with her. He just wants you and the kids.” My stomach churns in disgust. I could still be useful to Vilyat; he could trade me or sell me.

Yuri starts to cry, gulping in panic. “I want Mom,” he wails.

Helenka pats his arm reassuringly. “We’re not leaving without my mother,” she snaps at Jon.

He mutters a curse and takes a step toward her. I leap in front of him.

“We’re getting Anastasia, or we won’t leave. A mother has a right to her children. And you can’t force us to go with you.”

“Wanna bet?” His tone has turned nasty now.

He thinks he can scare me? I’ve lived through nearly a month of hell at Sergei’s hands. Nothing scares me anymore. “Please, go ahead and try. We will scream and go limp and draw so much attention to ourselves that you won’t make it out the front door.”

Jon’s eyes snap with impotent fury and the promise of retribution. “Fine. You want that drugged-up whore? Go get her.”

Helenka and Yuri gasp.

“Do not talk about their mother like that,” I hiss at him. “You go get her. Meet us back here.”

He starts to argue.

“I thought we didn’t have much time,” I say impatiently.

Cursing, he hurries out of the room.

“Come with me,” I say to them, and lead them into the closet. I quickly pull out my secret stash from under the carpet and stuff it into a purse.

We head toward Anastasia’s room. We meet Jon in the hallway; he’s dragging Anastasia by the arm. She’s cringing away from him, her eyes wide with panic.

But she’s also wearing slacks and a shirt, not pajamas, and she isn’t off in a fog somewhere. She’s barefoot, but I don’t want to take the time to get her a pair of shoes. We need to get out of here before Sergei comes back.

“Let go of her,” I snap at Jon as Helenka and Yuri run to her, crying. He releases her arm, and she hugs her children to her, kissing their hair.

“I missed you, I missed you.” Tears run down her pale cheeks. “I’m sorry I was gone. I’ll never leave you again.”

We carefully move through the house, through the kitchen, down a hall, and through the garage door. We get in a car, lying in the back, and Jon tosses blankets over us to hide us.

We drive away, and my heart is in my throat, but nobody stops us.

From the front seat, Jon yells at me, “You’re going to pay for that little stunt you pulled back there, you bitch. I’ll teach you some respect!”

Anastasia whimpers in fear.

“Don’t worry,” I say to her. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“You’ve got plenty to worry about!” Jon shouts, his voice rising in fury. “Your uncle knows what a whore you’ve been, and he told me I can do whatever the hell I want with your little slut ass!”

Now Helenka and Yuri are crying. And I’m furious. How dare he use that kind of language in front of the children?

I scrabble in my purse and find what I need. I wait until I feel the car stop at an intersection.

That’s when I pull out my taser, hidden in the closet all that time. I haven’t charged it in a month – since right before Sergei took me.

I sit up and zap Jon in the back of the neck. I’m praying it works.

And for once, luck is with me, and Jon gives out a strangled cry and convulses. I manage to hold on to the taser with one hand as I hurl myself forward, halfway over the front seat, legs in the air, and move the drive shaft into park.

We’re at an intersection. I stop zapping him so I can slide all the way into the front seat and quickly put my foot on the brake, then I turn the ignition off. Then I zap him again and count to ten, and his eyes roll back in his head.

I hurt another person. And I don’t feel the least bit badly about it. The Willow who is escaping from this car is a stranger, a terrible, heartless stranger.

I grab the bag of cash from the front seat. The light’s green now; cars are starting to honk behind us.

“Let’s go!” I yell, and we hurry across the street. We run for blocks and blocks, dodging down side streets, and finally stop to catch our breath. Jon’s probably recovered by now. He’s going to be driving around looking for us, and he’s going to be mad as hell.

“What now?” Helenka asks. Anastasia is holding her side where she recently had surgery to repair her shattered rib, and grimacing.

I look around and shake my head. Dread floods me. Jon will be after us, Sergei will realize we’re gone soon, if he hasn’t already. I have to get us the hell out of here, and fast - but how? “I don’t know. We need to find a way to get to Columbus, Ohio. My mother bought an apartment there a long time ago, that nobody knows about. I have fake ID. I can get a job and support us. I just don’t know how we can get there. We can’t take any public transportation without ID these days, and I don’t have ID for you guys.”

“I know how to hot-wire a car,” Yuri says.

We all stare at him.

“Seriously?” Helenka says, admiration in her voice.

“Easy-peasy. One of dad’s mechanics showed me. We just need to find a car that’s a mid-90s model or earlier. Those are the easiest.”

“Who are you?” I marvel as we start walking around. Fortunately we’re in the suburbs and it’s during the day, so everyone is at work.

After about ten minutes, we find a suitable car model. Yuri pulls his swiss army knife out of his pocket, and I watch in admiration as he goes to work. It takes him about five minutes.

I start driving. I drive into the night, and we stop to fill up with gas at tiny, out-of-the-way stations. In the middle of the night, we pause to switch license plates, using a car that’s parked on the street to steal a fresh plate from.

Once upon a time I’d have felt terrible about that. Now I’m in survival mode.

We keep driving and driving, with me and Anastasia switching off. We stop at gas stations to pee and buy food. I buy everyone some clean underwear, and I get Anastasia a pair of shoes at a Walmart. And we keep driving, as if the hounds of hell are snapping at our tires. Finally, we’re near Topeka, Kansas, and I’m dozing off in the back seat when I wake with a start because the car is swerving violently. It’s four a.m. Helenka and Yuri shriek, and Anastasia wakes up and cries out. The tires screech, and for a few seconds I think we’ll spin out of control, but she pulls over and starts crying.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she wails.

“It’s not your fault,” I say blearily. “You don’t need to think everything is your fault. We’re all exhausted. Let me drive us to a motel. I’ll use my ID to check us in.”

“You told me everything was my fault,” Anastasia says quietly when we start to drive again.

“Willow!” Helenka yells at me from the back seat, appalled. “Why would you say that to my mom?”

I wince. “I don’t think I said exactly that, but I was probably meaner than I needed to be. I’m sorry, Anastasia. I was under a huge amount of stress.”

“No, you were right.” Her voice is terribly weary. “I needed someone to wake me up and…and make me take some responsibility for my behavior.”

We get to a motel and go to pay the clerk, using my fake ID and the money from my uncle. The clerk, a round-faced older woman in a polyester uniform with a name-tag that says “Minerva,” looks at the bills I’m holding out and shakes her head.

“This is counterfeit.”

I go pale.

“What?” The world drops out from under my feet. Counterfeit? How? Did Jon do this on purpose? Or did Vilyat do it?

I pull out a few more bills and shove them at her. She looks at them closely, then shakes her head.

“Are you sure?” I plead.

She looks at us with sympathy. “Look. I see the circles under your eyes. You stink and your clothes are dirty and you look like you just saw a ghost. I can tell that you’re running from something bad, so I won’t call the cops. You didn’t know this money was fake?”

Holy Christ. We are so screwed.

“No,” I whisper.

I stand there and try to think about our options.

Up until now I’ve been dipping into my stash of $200 to pay for gas and food and Anastasia’s shoes, and the clean underwear. We’ve got about $40 left.

Yuri and Helenka are sitting on hard plastic chairs by the door, waiting for us. They don’t know yet.

My aunt looks at me, blank with shock. We don’t have enough money for gas to get ourselves to Columbus. We don’t have enough money for more than one night at a very cheap motel – cheaper than this place.

My heart sinks and slowly, with dread, I pull the burner phone out of my purse and I walk away. I call the landline number at my uncle’s house, hunching my shoulders against the brutal words Sergei will fling at me.

He answers on the third ring.

“I’m sorry,” I say to him. “I made a mistake. I want to come back.”

His voice is harsh. “Nope.”

Just one word. That’s all I’m worth.

I am stunned.

Why would he pass up a chance to punish me? He loves to punish me.

“I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll make it good.” I hate the pleading in my voice.

“I wanted you to fulfill your end of the bargain. Thirty days.” His words are thick with anger and scorn.

“Sergei,” I say. “It’s not just me. It’s my aunt and my cousins.”

“You should have thought about that before you left.”

“You said you cared about me!” I hiss into the phone.

“Did I? I say a lot of things.” He sounds so bored. Like he’d like to get back to whatever TV show he’s watching. Or whatever girl he’s screwing.

Every single thing he ever said to me was a lie. Every touch, every caress, every kiss…

Wait a minute. He never kissed me. Not on the mouth. Not once.

For some reason, realizing that terrible, humiliating fact, makes me want to weep.

He never cared about me. He’ll leave all of us out here to twist in the wind. To be found by my uncles or their people.

“What if I just come back?” I spit furiously. “It’s our house.”

“Then you will find out what I do to people who betray me.”

I go cold.

Does he mean it? Would he actually kill me?

My family needs me. I can’t afford to find out.

“Fine,” I say bitterly. “By the way, if you haven’t figured it out yet, Jon is my uncle’s man. So watch your back. And I’m not telling you that to help you, by the way, douchebag. He’s evil, you’re evil; I want to see all of you take each other out. I want to see you go up in a giant bonfire.”

I hang up the phone. I want to throw it across the room, I want to cry, I want to scream.

But I can’t. I won’t.

I have my aunt and cousins to think about, and I will not let them down. Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, we will survive this.