Even with her mask in place, I cannot stop the dread that slinks into my gut.
Kat? Katarina? It can’t be.
I wobble unsteadily to my feet, walking in a trance towards the TV, ignoring the ache of my body. The camera stays pointed at her. She has a knife in her hands now.
“This is for me,” she says in a soft, steady tone, lifting the blade up to herself.
I can do nothing but watch as her shoulders harden. I know instinctively what is going to happen.
“Please, don’t,” I whisper the words to the TV screen.
Words she’ll never hear.
Katarina’s speaking again, and I stay silent. Even with her voice modulated, I recognize her, and her words solidify what I already know. “For my sister, for all the little girls you have found over the years and turned into empty vessels. Never again. May you rot in hell. Spaséñiye, sodélal.” She swipes the knife across her neck in one sure stroke, convulsing a few times as blood sprays everywhere.
The camera zooms in on her.
Katarina lays, spread on her back, breathing raspily for a few minutes, and then she is dead.
I watch on in frozen horror as the camera cuts to four men falling down.
The screen flashes for just a moment, showing their five faces without the masks, listing that they died because they were partners before it cuts back to the ongoing game. I don’t watch anymore. I’ve seen enough.
I already knew it would be Katarina’s face, but it doesn’t soften the blow, and the sight has me crashing to my knees. The four men that died with her? The family of men that held us captive. The family that promised she would be safe if I was an obedient girl for Stephan and Bryton.
The last words my sister said before she took her life echo around my mind as the realization that I have nothing to lose burrows into my brain.
Spaséñiye, sodélal.
Salvation is created.
She’s right.
It’s time for me to create my own.
Chapter 3
Katarina Isn't Safe
Ihavenothingtolive for. Nothing to lose.
Except I am trapped in this closet, waiting and biding my time. Planning my last moves.
I don’t care if my attempt to escape ends with my death. I no longer have anything to live for except for my revenge.
Except for the fury that pulses through my body—a body that is a map of pain and abuse. I had accepted it for my sister’s sake, but no longer.
I was lied to. Katarina isn’t safe.
Katarina isdead.
Stephan and Bryton don’t know that. They have zero idea who she is; they never met her. They know nothing about me, and they won’t know that my entire world has been shifted on its axis. They will think nothing is amiss. That I will be the same demure, obedient prisoner they are used to.
Lying on my pallet, the stuffed animal in my hands, I stare at the ceiling. Grief threatens to take hold—swells in my chest, trickles into my veins—but I push it away. There is no time for that. I focus all of my thoughts and my energy on my plan. On what I will be doing to my captors.
Stephan and Bryton think me an idiot whore.
That will be their demise.
