Page 170 of Enemy Within

Sergey followed him all the way back inside. He watched Sasha drop the wood, cut the ties with a knife, and place three logs into the hearth. While Sasha fanned the coals, sparking a roaring fire, Sergey emptied the bag Sasha had dropped on the table and unfurled the newspapers.

Him, again, on the front page.

A glass bottle of pills rolled across the newspaper, the prescription label handwritten in scratchy, old script. He reached for the bottle, frowning at the antiquity of it. They were Soviet-era medications.

Sasha snatched it away from him, throwing the bottle onto his mattress. As Sasha moved, he coughed, a wracking, heaving cough that rattled his bones. He didn’t turn around. Didn’t face Sergey again.

“You left for this? A shack in the woods? Working as a mechanic for a man who cheats you every day?” Sergey kept his voice soft. His thoughts wouldn’t add up. Had Sasha truly not wanted him? Had everything they shared all just been in his head? Was this Sasha’s escape? Did he bury himself in the woods, as far off the grid as he could get, because it was the only way he thought he could be free of Sergey?

Had he made a huge mistake tracking Sasha down?

“I left forthat.” Sasha nodded to his wall of Sergey, his pictures and the headlines that screamed Sergey’s accolades, his achievements, his work rebuilding Russia. “Everything you have done…” He broke off, a rib-cracking cough shaking his body again.

“What is wrong with you? Are you sick?” He stepped closer, or tried to. Sasha held out his arm, palm forward, holding him back.

“You may remember I have no spleen,” Sasha choked out, spitting a wad of phlegm to the rough cabin floor. He’d lost his spleen after the attack at Andreapol, when his fellow pilots had beat him so badly Dr. Voronov had to remove it before he bled to death internally. “I am always sick. The medicines I get are useless.” He glared at his mattress and the pill bottle he’d thrown there.

“Sasha, we have medicine in Moscow. Dr. Voronov can treat you—”

“I am not in Moscow.”

Sergey came up short, like he’d been slapped. “You could be,” he finally said, softly.

“Nyet.” Sasha threw out one hand, pointing to his wall. “I told you, Russia needs you. You are the best hope for our country. Our future. You cannot risk ruining that. Too many lives are at stake.”

Growling, Sergey turned away. “You would make the Politburo proud, Sasha. Everything for the might of the state. The state must always be right.”

“Stop being selfish, Sergey—”

“I am aman!” Sergey exploded. “Not a robot like you are! Ifeel!Idesire!Ilove!” He swallowed hard.

Silence filled the cabin, until Sasha finally spoke. “I feel, Sergey,” he grunted. “I love.”

“You love toleave.”

Sasha’s eyes slipped closed. “I told you I would not apologize for doing what was right. For what needs to be done. One day, you will see that I am doing this, all of this, for you.”

“Nyet, do not say these things,” Sergey snorted, disgust crawling through him. “Do not tell me breaking my heart was for my own good, Sasha. Do not lie to me. You have done that enough. You left because you do not want me or want what we could have had, or else you would have fought for it.”

“Sergey, that is not true—”

“I should not have come.” He turned to go.

“How did you find me?” Sasha followed him to the door, his voice suddenly different, softer, almost pleading. Almost desperate. “Whydidyou come?”

Sergey stopped on the second step. He stared at the forest, the snow-covered pine boughs and the frozen ground. It seemed, for a moment, like Siberia all over again. His aching heart, missing Sasha like a piece of his soul was missing. Snow that fell and tried to match his frozen hope. “I started looking for you the night you disappeared. I searched everywhere. Morgues. Hospitals. Traffic accidents.” He saw Sasha look down, stare at the wooden deck. “I finally found something. A picture from Lubyanka Prison. You flew back with the prison transports, not with Anton and Aleksey like you said you would. You hid from me.”

Sasha said nothing.

“I searched for reports of newcomers in rural areas. If you were going to run, you would want to disappear. I started outside of Moscow and searched in bigger circles, following the highways. Where would you go if you had to hitchhike? Eventually, a police report from Velsk gave me a clue.”

Cursing, Sasha shook his head. “Punks there figured I was military. They thought I was Moroshkin’s forces.” He finally looked up, into Sergey’s gaze. Pure misery hung in his eyes. “You are so popular,” he breathed. “Even punks in Velsk want to prove they love you.”

Sergey ignored him. “From Velsk, I tracked you here, and I called as if I were FSB. People were happy to tell me all about the man who had arrived a few days after you disappeared. He worked as a mechanic, and he lived outside of town. Your descriptions matched.”

“Ilya helped you?” Sasha scuffed his boot against a warped board.

“No. I found you myself.” Every night, when he couldn’t sleep, when he just wanted to scream, or cry, fall apart and beg for answers. When he needed to know why Sasha had left when they’d finally seemed to be on the same page.