Anya all but ran back to the house, stumbling on the uneven road. One of the bags, heavy with milk and bread, smacked painfully against her knee, and Artem’s face still wouldn’t leave her mind—alive, bewildered, suspicious.
She flew onto the porch and feverishly shoved the key into the lock, with only one thought in her head: to get inside before the outside world finally crushed her.
The door swung open, and she almost ran straight into him.
Viktor was standing in the entryway. He didn’t move—he was simply waiting. His face was pale, and his gaze was heavy and fixed. He looked like someone who had already lived through a funeral and was now seeing a ghost. He was sure she had run. That it was over.
Anya stopped on the threshold, breathing hard. The bags rustled; the bottle of milk sloshed softly inside one of them.
“Viktor… you’re back…” she breathed, stepping inside.
He slowly closed the door behind her. Quietly. Carefully. The deliberateness of it chilled her to the bone.
“Where were you?” His voice was low, hoarse, like metal scraping glass.
“I went to get food,” she tried to speak evenly, but her voice trembled. “To the store. Like you said I could.”
“Where. Were. You?!” He suddenly closed the distance, pinning her to the wall. His hands clamped onto her shoulders, holding her there as he loomed over her, cold with fury. “Twenty minutes! What took you twenty minutes on an empty street? Who did you manage to contact? Who did you signal?”
Anya’s cold calculations crumbled like a house of cards. The shock of running into Artem crashed over her and wouldn’t let go. And now her kidnapper was blaming her for his own mistake.
“It’s been fifteen days!” she shouted, feeling rage boil up inside. “You promised ten, and it’s been fifteen! You left me a key and money! There was nothing left in the house to eat! I waited as long as I could!”
“Why didn’t you order delivery?!” he snarled in her face. “You went out into the street! You put yourself at risk!”
“What delivery?! I don’t have a phone!” she shouted, her voice rising into a scream. “Or the internet! I have nothing except what you give me! And you don’t allow outsiders into this house! I followed your rules exactly! I waited until the hunger cramps started!”
Viktor wasn’t hearing her. He was fixated on his failure, on his paranoia. He looked at her, and his face twisted into a contemptuous, crude grimace.
“You’re just like them,” he spat, his voice dripping with venom. “You’re not special. I built a world for you, you ungrateful nothing. A petty, pathetic creature. You don’t want to be happy—you want to be no one. A pretty, brainless, talentless doll!”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Something inside Anya snapped. All the cold calculation, all the months of restraint, all that “patience” collapsed into a single concentrated point of pain and fury. She didn’t think about consequences. At all.
SMACK!
The slap landed with such force the sound ricocheted off the ceiling. Anya’s hand went instantly numb; searing pain flashed through her fingers; her palm throbbed.
Viktor recoiled and froze. His head was turned to the side from the blow. Against his pale skin, the dark red print of her hand slowly bloomed, stark as a mark on white paper. One second, two, three… The silence in the entryway grew so dense it felt almost solid.
He slowly—very slowly—turned his head back. His gaze was empty. Absolutely stripped of human emotion.
Anya’s hand burned, her fingers throbbed from the impact. Suddenly a wave of primal terror washed over her.
What did I do? Oh God! I should’ve run when the gate was open, when there was the store… Now he’ll just kill me. Beat me to death like that cat, or grab a knife…
Images flickered: his face distorted with rage, the gleam of steel, darkness. Now every fraction of a second mattered. She watched his pupils widen as he slowly began to process what had happened.
And yet from the depths of her fear, pushing aside the panic, that same cold predator rose in her again—the one who knew how to survive at the epicenter of an explosion.
While Viktor was still stunned, Anya spoke. Her voice didn’t tremble—it was dry and sharp, like a scalpel.
“I came back, Viktor. Look at the floor. I came back with bags. On my own. With the key in my pocket. I walked back into this house of my own free will. I didn’t run. Because I have nowhere to go. And you’re standing here talking to me like I’m some pathetic thief.”
She stepped forward, closing the distance, forcing him to look into her eyes before he could come to his senses.
“Tell me right now: do you want a family, or a concentration camp where a week of starvation ends in an interrogation?”
Viktor flinched as if she had hit him again, but she didn’t give him a chance to get a word in.
“Do you know how scared I was out there? Do you know what it’s like to run into a former classmate when you already feel like someone else? I had to stand there, listen to him, lie, dodge, pretend. It disgusted me. I pretended to be someone I’m not anymore. I protected you—your legend, your peace. I chose you and your home, even though I could have just screamed, ‘Help!’”
She took a breath, feeling his aggression slowly turning into confusion.
“I trust you. I trust who I’m becoming. I trust us. How can you stand here and doubt your own success? I’m your result, aren’t I? So why are you acting like you don’t believe in it yourself?”
Viktor was silent. The mark of her hand on his cheek had turned a vivid crimson. He looked at the bottle of milk, at the bag of bread, at Anya—determined, angry, and terrifyingly his. A whole storm churned in his eyes—from shock and the urge to answer with force to a deep, corrosive doubt eating into his certainty.
He didn’t lunge at her. He simply hunched, as if all the air had gone out of him. Without a word he turned and slowly walked down the hallway, then up the stairs, vanishing into the darkness above. The door of his study closed quietly.
Anya was alone. She didn’t call after him, didn’t break down crying.
She slowly took off her coat and carefully hung it on a hanger. With icy calm she picked up the bags and carried them into the kitchen.
Ten minutes later, the house smelled of food. Anya stood at the stove, methodically slicing vegetables. Her hand still ached from the slap, but her mind was crystal clear. She had just done the impossible: turned his guilt into leverage.