Page 97 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

His grip didn’t tighten, but it didn’t waver, either.

“You hear me?”he said.“Not tomorrow.Not next week.Never.”

“But I…” I blinked.“That’s my job.That’s…”

“I said you’re not going back,” he interrupted.“Let the Party send someone else to that miserable factory.Let Korovin rot with his green blankets and his vodka breath.You’re done.”

I opened my mouth.Closed it again.I didn’t even know what question to ask first.Why was he saying this?Did he know something?Had someone told him about Petyr and me?

ChapterTwenty-Nine

Petyr

The loom beside mine had been silent for a week.The cold steel frame, usually shuddering and wheezing like an old man with bronchitis, now just stood there like a coffin no one wanted to look at.

Dimitri’s name was still chalked on the clipboard clipped to the side.D.MOROZOV in smudged handwriting.Every time I glanced over I expected to see him there again, tall and silent, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, grimly feeding the warp threads through the tension rollers like he always did.A line between his brows and oil on his knuckles.That slight hitch in his breathing when he caught me watching.

But the seat stayed empty.

I kept waiting anyway, like a stray dog waiting outside the butcher’s, hoping for meat that wasn’t coming.

Where was he?

My stomach twisted for the hundredth time today.Did his father do something?Did the police take him again?Was I next?

Every day that passed without a word from him chipped away another piece of me.And there weren’t many pieces to start with.

I felt the pressure building behind my eyes again.Not now, and not here.Don’t cry in front of them.Not in front of Oleg, who already watched me like I was glass.Not in front of Anton, who made that crack about my limp yesterday, then acted surprised when I didn’t laugh.

They all saw the bruises.The split lip.The way I winced when I reached too far or breathed too deep.No one asked outright, but the questions were thick in the air.

No one dared to speak them aloud.

When Vera opened the door that night, she’d pulled me in so fast I nearly tripped.

“Shhh,” she hissed, finger to her lips as I stumbled over the threshold.“Pavel and Nina are home.”

I barely got the words out when she pulled me into our room and shut the door.

“We were walking by the church,” I whispered.“The police—” I swallowed.“They beat us.Bad.”

She stared for a moment, then her face crumpled.She sank down beside me on the edge of the bed and just cried.

Then she wiped her face with the heel of her hand and said in an icy voice: “I’ll take care of this.”

I never asked what that meant, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

I stayed home for the next two days, on her orders.She even brought me food like I was a child.She also told me Dimitri hadn’t called the factory.Hadn’t come in.Hadn’t even left a note.

Just vanished.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” she mumbled, not meeting my eyes.“You and him, it’s not safe anymore.Not now.Never.”

I wanted to punch something.Instead, I nodded.

But inside, I was sinking.Fast.

Not seeing Dimitri was tearing something open in me, but the idea of bringing more danger to his door kept my hands in my pockets.My mouth shut and my head down.

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