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I lay my head back down, pulling the blanket up to my neck.
“You saw it?” I asked, shifting the focus.
He knew what I was referring to: the video. I wasn’t sure what had prompted me to ask, normally I wouldn’t care.
“Andrei played it long ago,” his voice confirmed. “I didn’t know it was you.”
“I was eighteen…”
Maxim nodded. I imagined he had been in a similar situation at that age.
His palm slid under the fluffy pillow I rested my head on. Our bodies remained close, though not as much as before.
Through it all, I didn’t think about how many rules I’d already broken with him, things I’d sworn off. Like cuddling after sex or sharing a bed. Or how vulnerable, both physically and mentally, I was around him. We’d only known each other briefly, but it felt right to be okay with these things, to allow myself to live a different life than the one I was leading.
For just tonight, I wasn’t Taya the assassin. I was Taya the woman. But I knew, there wasn’t one without the other. And when the morning came, they would become one once more.
***
The day hadtwenty-four hours, and if I managed to get two hours of sleep, I considered it a good one. Between language classes, combat, and target practice, I had no spare time. I couldn’t afford to waste a minute, being this late to the game. Besides, staying busy worked. It kept the second thoughts at bay.
Two months in, following the agreement with Ilya, Uncle and I became acquainted. An ex-member of a special Russian force called the Spetsnaz, he was a mean-looking motherfucker. A gash decorated his face from the forehead to the bottom lip. A bear fight, they whispered around the compound. I laughed, though it wouldn’t surprise me if the gossip was true.
Since I refused to leave the country, Ilya flew him in from Russia. The introduction was short-lived. A brief stare down, followed by a single-worded reply “Go,” and I had no choice but to follow. It’s safe to say I haven’t sat down since.
The demonstration of my skills went equally well. No acknowledgment meant I didn’t impress.
Not expecting anything else, I prepared for what was to come.
A helicopter dropped us off in a forest clearing deep in the Alaskan Range. October offered a damp feeling in the air. With nothing but trees and fields surrounding us, Uncle pushed basic supplies into my hands: a wooden bow and arrows, before he took off.
They instructed me not to follow. Left on my own again, the biggest test ofthem all.
Every morning, I woke at dawn and hiked up the mountain. Set up camp and slept. By the time a new day came, I repeated the process. Up and down, I ran until the skin peeled off my toes in bloody blisters and my mouth turned purple. Outdoor survival skills weren’t the only lesson I got. If I failed to provide for myself, I starved.
To stay covered, I built a temporary shelter, just in time. Nothing to be proud of, but as soon as the ground froze and I had hypothermia to worry about, the enclosed space served me well.
To avoid losing track of the time passed, I carved a line on a tree branch each day. I even learned how to spark a flame and keep the fire going.
The forest remained undisturbed, and I spent hours admiring its beauty. Beautiful but deadly. It was painfully obvious my fragile human body didn’t belong. A month in, I still hadn’t gotten used to the random noises nature produced. A crunch of branches, the wind echoing in the clearings, bird sounds at random times.
When the snowy night came, I stayed close to the small fire, staring ahead into the darkness. It wasn’t an animal I awaited.
He was out there, biding his time.
I was close to falling asleep on my tarp on the cold, rough ground when steady hands wrapped around my throat, forcing me to fight for my life with all I had.
After days of staying in these harsh conditions, combined with exhaustion and hunger, what I had wasn’t nearly enough.
In a chokehold, he brought me to the edge of consciousness. Misery and despair were feelings I tried so hard to be free of, yet at the moment, they overfilled me.
At least, as we rolled around, I hadn’t tapped out. Blackness greeted me, and I let the darkness take me under. The only sign of what had occurred was when I awoke on the ground, coughing my lungs out.
The cycle went on.
At random times, he would attack. There was no pattern, no logic to follow. You had to stay alert. Sleep was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
Forced to rely on my senses, over time, I got better at spotting him before he launched.