Chapter 7
There’s a soft sobbing noise, and I see a young blonde girl curled up alongside a thin mattress. She must be about six years old. She’s in a ragged dress.
I kneel down beside her. “It’s going to be all right,” I reassure her. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
She shakes her head. “They’re hurting me. I beg them to stop, and they won’t!”
I tenderly run a hand down her hair. “You’re stronger than they are.”
“No, I’m not!”
I gently tap her bruised arm. “Perhaps, right now, you aren’t stronger out here,” I explain to her. “But you’re stronger in here.”
My hand goes to rest tenderly on her head.
Her shining eyes turn to look up into mine.
They are like mirrors.
I say to her, “Do your best to remember their faces. Try to remember their names. Because soon they won’t be able to run. You are the one who will have the strength to get free. To set in motion their downfall. To make sure that everything which happens – to you and the others – is reconciled.”
Her voice is tight, and her hand moves to her chest. “After I find Alex.”
I nod in understanding. “After you find Alex.”
She wipes at her eyes. “I will do it. I’ll find a way.”
“Every new day is a new chance. You treasure those chances.”
Her eyes shine. “I will.”
Darkness shimmers in at the edges of my vision, and with it comes staggering, coursing pain. I twist against it, turn, breathe in, and deliberately block it out.
I delve within.
The scene tumbles. Time drifts.
The girl is sixteen now, and the black silk dress fits her with absolute precision. The handlers barely watch her, for three years prior they finally broke her. Since then the girl has been a model whore. The months of training and refinements have brought in a ten-fold increase in profits.
This party with the real estate tycoons will be the most lucrative one yet.
She’s standing by one of the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows overlooking the harbor. She’s holding a glass of Crystal in her perfectly manicured hand. She seems to barely see the beautiful scenery.
I murmur to her, “You’re ready.”
Her hand moves to her chest. “If I get this wrong, I fail in my promise. In my promise to save Alex. To bring people to justice.”
“You won’t fail. This is your chance. You’ve sacrificed all these years to reach this opportunity.”
“But I’ll be leaving vulnerable people behind. People who need my support to make it through a day.”
“They will find their own strength, until the day you are able to come and tear down the walls of this entire organization. But for now, you have to go.”
She nods.
She puts down the Champagne flute on an elegant mahogany table.
She turns to pick up the matching solid mahogany chair.
With all her strength, she flings it through the plate glass window.
A cascade of glass shards, screams of panic -
She leaps through.
Spinning. Whirling. Blackness. Pain.
Agonizing pain.
It goes on … on … on … through time immeasurable …
At long last my vision clears.
Sasha is younger, so much younger, and he holds me as I shake, shake, shake.
He groans. “You didn’t have to do this, Nadiya. God, I wish there was somehow I could help.”
“Your sister? She is safe?”
He nods, brushing back my hair from my damp face. “She got away. She’s starting a new life. Nobody will know where to find her. Not me, not anybody. She’ll be safer that way.”
My stomach feels as if it is consuming itself. As if my entire body is wrenching itself inside out.
He says, “There should have been another way. One which didn’t involve you getting yourself addicted.”
“But there wasn’t,” I say between gritted teeth. “Your sister is free. That’s all that matters.”
Fresh pain washes over me, and I groan in staggering agony.
He holds me close, rocking me, rocking me …
The world spins. Time has no meaning.
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
There is only pain, and pain, and pain.
I am lost.