“I don’t know that man,” I told him quietly.
He shrugged. “You don’t know anybody.”
“That’s not true. I know...” My mind came up blank. “I know my mother.”
I latched on to the thought of her. Her smell, the way her hair felt tickling my nose as I hugged her.
The doctor ignored me.
I turned to the window, putting my hand to the door. I tried the handle as discreetly as I could.
“It’s locked. You think I’m falling for that twice?” The doctor sounded tired.
“Do we know each other?” I wondered.
He let out a short, frustrated breath. “Fucking hell,” he muttered. “What a mess we’ve all made of your head, Katarina. I’m starting to wonder how much will be left, when all is said and done.”
“Hopefully not a lot,” the guy in the front called back. “She’ll be a much more pleasant wife without all those irritating opinions of hers.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but what was the point? They were laughing at me. They were cruel... and I was stuck with them.
Alone.
You’re not alone. You have me.The voice inside my head was startling. I jumped. She sounded just like me.Great.I was hearing voices. I’d gone insane.
I stared out at the white city rushing past until the view blurred with tears.
We pulledup outside an apartment building a little while later. I had no clear concept of time. It was stretching and bunching like unruly fabric.
I was hauled out of the cab into the snowy night and then forced up cold stone stairs and into a small, shabby apartment. Inside was stuffy, the product of too-hot radiators and no air. It was old-fashioned, like it had last been decorated twenty years before, and the surfaces of tables and counters were cluttered with bottles and plates.
“Shit, Ivan, would it kill you to keep the place clean?” the doctor demanded, following us into the apartment.
“You clean it if it bothers you so much, Mr. Uptight, OCD,Can’t Take a Little Mess Lying Around. When I have a wife, I’ll have all the cleaners I want, and I won’t have to live in this shithole anymore.” The man, Ivan, pushed me down a short hall and into a dark room.
A small double bed stood in the middle of it covered with a hand-crocheted quilt, and a host of religious icons decorated the walls.
“You can go ahead and get ready for bed. I’ll be there soon.” He gave me a smirk that turned my blood cold and then left me alone.
A scraping sound came from the door. A lock turning on the other side.
I sank onto the bed, feeling sick.
Outside in the hall, they argued.
“What the fuck are you talking about? You can’t sleep with her before you’re married and you get approval, or you’re a dead man!”
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“It wasn’t what we agreed on, Ivan.”
Ivan let out a frustrated sigh. “You are such a fucking stick-in-the-mud, and you always have been.”
The sound of their voices moved away down the hall, and I glanced around the room. There was a window, but when I went to check it out, I saw a slender latticework in the shape of bars across it. There was no way out except the door. The locked door.
I sank down to the floor and took in the idols on the wall. I recognized most of them. The Madonna, and Saint Nicholas of Myra. Sitting directly over where I sat slumped was the most recognizable. An angel with gleaming wings and a golden sword. Archangel Michael. Defender against evil. I groped for the cross I always wore at my neck. A habit that apparently predated my confusion. My hands met cool metal disks. There was somethingelse on my necklace, but I couldn’t quite see what in the darkness. The only light fell through the window and onto the wall, illuminating the icons. I gripped the awkwardly shaped jumble on the chain and stared at the picture of Michael.
Please, please. Someone, somewhere . . . help me.