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“This isn’t about Aleksandr.” Leonid scowls. “Tell me how to separate Kristiana from her boyfriend so I can bring her here.”

Oh, shoot. “You may as well give up. Now that you’ve kidnapped me and Mirdza, nothing on earth will convince Aleksandr to let Kris out of his sight. That guy’s crazy.”

“That’s not good news for you.” Leonid drops into a crouch, his head not much higher than mine. “Because if you have nothing to offer, we have no reason to keep you around.”

“That’s true,” I say.

“You have one day to think of a way to be helpful to me,” he says. “If you don’t have any ideas for me tomorrow, good ideas, I’ll dispose of you and spare Boris any more of his time.”

With a threat like that, I have absolutely nothing to lose.

And that’s when I do my finest work.

3

At least I’m learning new things here.

For instance, today I’ve learned that there’s a delicate balance, when you’re eating under seven hundred calories a day, between how much poop to smear on yourself, and how much to spread around the room. If I spread too much around, I run the risk that Boris won’t hose me down at all. If I spread too much on myself, he may not need to clean the room. For my half-baked plan to have even the slightest possibility of working, Boris absolutely has to take me outside and leave me.

As I’m working on my plan, I realize that my life has reached an all-time low. It’s probably not surprising, though. I mean, I’m not a good person.

My twin’s a good person. She goes to church every week. She prays for people. She steps in when there’s danger, even when it means she’s at risk herself. She stands up for the little guy, even though she’s small herself. Even after she got injured, badly, she kept right on doing good things. She taught children to ride. She offered discounts to the people who couldn’t pay. She stood up for my mother, and she’s a stalwart and steadfast friend. If she were here, there would be loads of people who wanted to find her.

She’s probably the only person looking for me.

If she were to get down on her knees and pray, that prayer would probably come easy to her. She’d know just what to say, and God would probably see her as an old friend.

Meanwhile, I’m like the bad kid at school who’s getting ready to ask the principal for help. The whole idea of praying, for me, is cringey. I mean, I’ve never thought there was a God, because if there is, he’s done nothing but ignore me at best. Cackle while I squirm at worse. First, my dad died. Then I got Martinš. People all around me got great stuff, lucky breaks, and rich boyfriends.

And I get poop-smearing conundrums.

Even so, my plan’s so flimsy that a light breeze would snap it, so I need any edge I can get. I crouch down on my feet, and I close my eyes, and for the first time in at least a decade, I pray.

“Dear God. I have no idea whether that’s the right way to start a prayer, but that’s how I was told to write a letter, so you know. I’m only talking to you today because I’m in a bit of a mess. I know I’ve never really done anything for you. I haven’t been super grateful, and to be honest, I don’t like you very much. I haven’t had much luck, and I blame you for that. But I did try to help out my sister by coming in Kristiana’s place, even though that’s not what she wanted me to do.”

I sigh.

“Anyway, now I’m stuck here.”

My knees hurt. It’s stupid, since all I’m doing is kneeling on rough concrete, but my knees are bony, and they’re completely miserable right now. Maybe I’m supposed to be miserable. In the churches I’ve seen, their pews are always made of solid wood. They look really uncomfortable. It could be part of this. We suffer in payment for our request? Is that it? If so, I can highlight my suffering a little.

“Look, things are bad for me, okay? I’m starving, and I don’t know where I am, and if I were to give them a way to trap Kris, I’d probably get out of here, but I’d undo the tiny good thing I did that got me stuck here in the first place. Plus, they might just shoot me either way.” I groan. This prayer thing sucks. “So I guess here’s what I’m asking for. Rome wasn’t built overnight, and you already know that no matter how much I try, I’ll never be as good as my sister Mirdza. But, if you help me escape today, I promise that I’ll do three good things to make up for the help.”

That seems like a pretty good offer. I’m not even asking for some kind of credit for the good thing I did to get in here.

“What I need is this. First, I need that Boris guy to wash me off again, before he does the room. If Leonid comes with him, or if he just ignores the mess because his boss is going to kill me, I’m done for.” That’s item number one. “And second, and this is probably the biggest thing, I need to be washed off in the same place, and I need there to be an old clothespin there. Not one of those crappy, split wooden ones. It needs to have the little piece of wire that holds the two pieces of wood together. I need that little piece of metal, alright? Or you know, another small piece of metal like that.”

I sigh.

“And then, after that, if you could send someone—anyone—to drive past while Boris is cleaning down the room, that’d be great. I mean, I’m not sure how far I can get on foot, and I’m pretty sure Boris would just find me again, and then Leonid would probably incinerate me. So an escape truck or something would be ideal, but I’ll leave that up to you.”

I stop there, because I’m starting to feel like I have less of a plan, and more of a desperate hope. Do I really think every single thing needs to be done by God? Sheesh.

“Then again, I’m not asking for very much,” I say. “I mean, you’re God, right? And I’ve never asked for anything before. So, like, in the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty small stuff. And in return, I promise that the next three chances I have to help someone out, I’ll do it. No matter how hard it is for me, I’ll do the right thing when I have to choose. Alright?”

It seems fair. God helps me out of here, and I help him three times.

“Okay, so that’s my offer. If you help me with that stuff, I’ll assume you accepted it. And if not, well, maybe you’ll get to meet me sooner rather than later.” I look up then, and I open my eyes. “And if you can’t do those three little things for me, you should expect me to be pretty ticked off when we do meet. Brace yourself for that.”