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“I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Really?” I ask as I pull her food across the table to me. “A few minutes ago, you were starving.”
“I just don’t feel good,” she says, looking away from me. She’s crossing her arms again, but in a different way than before. It’s like she’s cradling herself, trying to be the mother and the baby at the same time.
I reach across the table and put my hand on her arm, feeling her softness even through the coarse wool of the coat she’s borrowed from me. “Do you need something? Maybe something to drink?”
“I’m just tired,” she replies quietly, refusing to meet my gaze.
Suddenly, I feel that awful, gnawing loneliness again. It’s the type that drives you into a frenzy late at night, the kind that you can’t get rid of, even when you chain-smoke until you’re puking up black tar. You poison yourself in hopes that you can kill it, but it persists.
“Let’s go back to the cabin and you can sleep,” I say, sliding out of the booth and taking her hand.
She allows me to, but she’s limp, like she’s lost the will to try to make a connection between us. The spark is gone, and my heart aches from the cold.
10
Lola
Idoubt I’ll ever be able to get through to Jasha the way that I want to. Every time I think he’s about to lead me deeper into his heart, it turns out that he’s really leading me to disappointment. He’s built his walls high, and I don’t have the strength to climb them.
It’s a difficult feeling to describe, losing the man you never had to begin with. It feels juvenile, like the crush every girl chased in high school, the guy who was two years older than her and broke all the rules.
She would do her hair up pretty and wear the kind of clothes he liked just to be seen by him, only to be passed by in the hallway so that he could hit on the girl she was bullied by. She’d go home and cry her eyes out, just to be strung along again the next day when he confided in her about his person troubles, something he’d never do with the popular girls.
I know all this so well, because that girl was me. I was the one who was used as the emotional dumping ground for the guy who constantly chased after some dumb bitch that wouldn’t take him seriously.
And now, I’m doing it again.
Except that dumb bitch isn’t a woman. It’s the Russian Bratva, and Jasha is the older guy I’m hopelessly in love with, even if I won’t admit it aloud.
Despite my concerns, I keep my chin up as Jasha leads me down the hall past his stoic goons in black. They’re not nearly as intimidating with Jasha behind me. In fact, knowing that the Italians would kill me without remorse, the presence of small army of heavily armed Bratva members is comforting. At least we won’t die without a fight.
But I do have to wonder just how angry these Italians are, and to what lengths they will go to get the train back from Jasha. Even he seemed concerned about them catching up to us, and that’s not something I would expect from a ruthless Bratva boss unless they really were a formidable enemy.
Jasha’s hand on my back distracts me from my fears a bit, but it doesn’t take the cold away as we arrive back in our private cabin. It just keeps getting colder as the night progresses, the inky black sky eating up every last ounce of warmth the sun had to offer during the day.
There wasn’t much of it to go around, anyway. The sky has been a frosted grey color the entire week, and the temperature dropped fast halfway through it. I was told to stop the train if it started snowing because of the high risk of a blizzard covering the tracks, but so far, we’ve managed to avoid that.
Until now.
“Um, that’s a lot of snow,” I say, placing my hand on the frozen window as white streaks fly by. I pull my hand back like the window is a scalding pan. The cold is similarly numbing, and considerably more dangerous when we’re soaring down toward a rarely used section of the railroad.
“Nothing like what we have in Russia,” Jasha comments as he slides the door shut.
“But still dangerous,” I say, turning to him and pulling my coat tighter. “If a tree falls or enough snow gets on the tracks, we’re not going to be in trouble. It’s safer to stop.”
He holds his hand up quite suddenly. “No. There is no stopping.”
“Look, I get that the Italians are a problem, but nobody is going to be able to get through the snow if it’s heavy enough. It’ll slow down them as well as us,” I reply, looking back toward the window. It appears as though the snow has doubled in the past ten seconds.
Jasha comes up behind me, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder and letting out an audible breath through his nostrils. “Maybesomethinglike we’ve had in Russia, but it’s not that bad. We can get through it.”
I have my doubts, but I won’t voice them when we’re this low on fuel. Stopping is a risk we can’t afford, and even if it’s dangerous to continue, we don’t have much of a choice.
“Just keep an eye on it,” I say, sitting down lengthwise on one side of the cabin. “I’m going to try to get some sleep. Let me know if it gets worse.”
Jasha rubs his chin, looking out the window with a slight frown. “That’s not good,” he mumbles. “I need to make a phone call. Try to sleep. I’ll turn the light off for you.”
