He slides in. I feel instantly cold. Frightened. As though he is a threat. Is this how far I’ve strayed? That a priest should seem an enemy?
He says, “You are troubled.”
“More than you can imagine,” I say.
“Would confession help?”
“It would, Father. So much—”
He gestures over my shoulder. The other side. I look to see what he is gesturing toward. The confessional, perhaps?
A rustling sound behind me. Too late I turn. There’s a prick on my neck. And then darkness.
I awake alone on a cold floor in a dark room; if not for a sliver of light coming from the edges of a board over a high window, it would be completely dark.
He wasn’t a real priest, of course. The old Tanechka would’ve known. Novice Tanechka seems only able to sin and doubt herself.
My head pounds as I sit up. Thoughts muddy. I fight my way out of my stupor enough to go to the door, nearly tripping on my skirts. I run my hands over the coarse cloth and recognize the frock as a nun’s robe. Different from my old one. I wear the head scarf, too. But I’m not at the brothel; the brothel had a certain sound, a certain smell.
Somewhere else.
I try the door and find it locked. I step back unsteadily, mouth dry as a desert.
On instinct, I traverse the perimeter of the tiny room, inspecting the wall, the floor. I feel off balance. Drugged. I’ll need to get to the window. But how?
My senses tell me this place is in a basement, and that there are men in the hall to the right, and that’s also where the exit is. I begin to see it as a colorful cube in my mind’s eye, like the one Viktor put in my hands at the picnic by the lake. Rubik’s Cube, I think. Move one row and new possibilities open and close. Move this other and you’re surrounded. Viktor talked about that, wanting me so badly to remember. He said we used to solve them together. He said we’d solve standoffs the same way we solved Rubik’s Cubes. I try to force myself to remember how to be the old Tanechka. Not to fight, but to escape. Such a woman as Viktor described would be able to slip out like a ghost.
My body knows how to react, but I can’t seem to think ahead, to form a plan. I only react. Why can’t I think forward?
Footsteps. I spin. The door opens. The light blinds me.
He is there, face in the dark, light streaming in behind him. “Here she is, everybody’s favorite nun. Awake at last.”
It’s the man who pretended to be a priest. I can’t see his face, but I remember the voice. I know he’s dangerous. I was too emotional to see it before. I see it now.
He flicks on a light. Controls are outside the door. I blink. “This better?”
“Let me out.”
“Yeah. Maybe not.”
He walks in and shuts the door behind him. He has strange, severe looks—dark hair swept back and a nose like a beak, harsh eyes, harsh cheekbones. He might be handsome to other women in that way some severe men can be handsome, but he’s not handsome to me because I can feel his evil.
“Come here.” He goes to the corner table and spreads out a map. I can see from where I stand that it’s Chicago. “Come on.”
I cross my arms. “Will you take me back to that place? The brothel?”
“You say that almost like you want to go back,” he says. “Do you want to go back?”
A question with a question. Of course. This is a man who cannot be trusted. But I do want to go back. I don’t know what I can do for those women, but I know I’m all that they have. I can do this one good thing with my life.
Viktor says he’s trying to help them, but he’s powerful, and they’re still in there. His help is not helping.
The false priest puts a dot on the map.
I should have tried to break them out of there in the first place. I was bewildered by what I was then. So lost. “I just want to know,” I say simply. “Am I going back?”
“I can tell you that there’s one friend who is very eager to see you,” he says. “Can you guess who?”
I ball my fists. He’s speaking of Charles, the one I was forced to dine with. The man with a cockroach for a heart.
“Come, Tanechka. Can I call you Tanechka?”
I shrug.
“My name’s Lazarus.” He smiles.
I frown.
“You want to go back? You want to be a cheerleader for your little team there? Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell me where you’ve been staying. I want to know how the guard who took you got you out of there and want to know about anybody who helped him. Extra points for addresses, license plate numbers, and vehicle makes and models.”
I glare at him.
“You’ve been gone for days. Where’d he have you?”
“Bring me back to that place and I’ll tell you.”
His lips turn up at the sides. “That’s not how this works.”
I shrug. “I won’t tell you, then.”
He stands and advances, menace in his eyes. “The sister drives a hard bargain.” He comes right up to my face and adjusts my head scarf.
I flinch as five ways to kill him flash through my mind. I shut my eyes, praying for strength. I promised Jesus I wouldn’t kill.