Page 76 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

I helped Larisa wrap Dimitri’s hand in one of the kitchen towels—thin cotton decorated with fading strawberries.She’d dampened it with cold water, and now it clung to his skin, blooming pink where his blood soaked through.Her voice was still going, talking about how men never look where they’re going, always thinking about something else.

She wasn’t wrong.

Dimitri didn’t say much.Just a grunt of acknowledgment here and there.He didn’t look at me.Not even once.

And I was too scared to ask why.

“Alright, alright, back to the party!”someone shouted from the next room.The record had started up again—something brighter now, something jazzy and manic that didn’t match the mood in my chest.

I helped Dimitri to his feet, and we walked back into the main room like nothing had happened.Like we weren’t bleeding from places no one could see.

The room had turned rowdier in our absence.Anton was now serenading Oleg’s shoulder with a ridiculous ballad, and someone had spilled pickled tomatoes across the floor, making the air sharp with vinegar.The rest of the guys were too drunk to notice much.Or maybe they noticed everything and just pretended not to.That was the Soviet way, wasn’t it?

See nothing.Say nothing.Be nothing.

I glanced at Dimitri beside me.

His jaw was clenched, lips tight.His eyes weren’t angry anymore—they were worse than that.

They were cold.

Empty.

A door slowly closing.

I felt something inside me curl up in a panic.

Dimitri knew I wasn’t strong enough.

Not strong enough to ask what was wrong.Not strong enough to speak the truth.And worse, not strong enough to fight for us.

Because what could I say?In a room like this, surrounded by people who toasted the Party without a second thought?In a country where deviation was treated like disease?What would I do if someone caught us with a look too long, or a touch too soft?

They’d send me to a labor camp in Siberia with a number sewn into my coat.Dimitri too.Or worse, I’d vanish.We both would.And no one would say a word.

That’s how things worked.

And the worst part?

I understood, and I accepted it.

Because I was a coward.I’d memorized the rules and followed them so well I could pass for a model citizen.I’d laughed at the right jokes.Toasted the right lies.I’d hidden in plain sight my whole life.

But now I had something to lose.

And that made it worse.

I looked at Dimitri again.He was sitting stiffly on the arm of the sofa, his wounded hand cradled in the towel.Someone handed him a glass, and he nodded without looking at them.I saw it then—in his profile, in the hard line of his mouth.

Contempt.

For me.

And God help me, I couldn’t blame him.

I deserved it.

Because he was trying.Struggling.Fighting to feel something other than despair.And I was doing nothing but lying and watching and hoping no one noticed.

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