Die for Me (Killing Eve #3) - Luke Jennings Page 0,34

dreamed that the waiting was over and she was already dead. She looked so helpless, so vulnerable, and that made me angry too, because I knew that was not how things were supposed to be. She was supposed to look after me. She was supposed to teach me all the things I needed to know.

“There would often be whole days when she stayed in bed, and my father had to stay at home and make my meals. He was a military instructor, and he had no idea what to do with a little girl, so he taught me the things that he taught his men: how to fight and survive. My best memory with him is of going into the woods in the winter and trapping a rabbit. I must have been about six. He made me kill and skin the rabbit myself, and we cooked it on a fire in the snow. I was very proud of that.

“It wasn’t long afterward that my mother said she was feeling better, and took me on a day trip to the Kungur ice caves. It was a special treat, partly because of the outing itself, but mostly because I was getting my mother to myself for a whole day. I even got a new coat to wear. It was pink quilted nylon, with a hood, and a zip down the front.

“We caught a bus from the Central station in Perm. The journey took about two hours, and we had lunch at a café in Kungur. Hamburger and chips, with Coca-Cola to drink, a big treat. I didn’t know what to expect from the caves. I didn’t know what a cave was, and ice didn’t sound very interesting because we lived with it for half the year. So I wasn’t prepared when we actually went down inside the earth. There was a paved stone track, and it was like going into some secret fairy-tale kingdom. There were ice crystals hanging from the ceiling like spears, shining ice pillars and waterfalls, and rock pools as clear as glass. Everything was lit up with colored lights. ‘Is it magic?’ I asked my mother, and she told me that it was. Later, when we were on the bus going home, I asked if the magic would make her better, and she said that maybe, just maybe, it would.

“She died a few weeks later, and for years I wasn’t quite sure if I’d imagined or dreamed the whole thing. It was all so unlike anything else in my life. All I knew was that magic might work for some people—film stars, models, people like that—but it didn’t work for ordinary people like my family. I didn’t cry when my mother died. I couldn’t.”

Oxana falls silent for a heartbeat or two. “I never told anyone else that story.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes. At least I think it is. It was all so long ago. Now lean your head on my shoulder and sleep. It’s still three hours until Moscow.”

“Yesterday,” I whisper. “You were ready to die for me?”

“Go to sleep, pupsik.”

When I wake it’s dark and we are crawling through an industrial suburb in heavy traffic. The motorway is awash with churned-up slush. Anton follows an exit sign reading Ramenki.

“Feeling better?” Oxana asks me.

“I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“Good. We need to eat.” She kicks the back of the driver’s seat. “Hey assholes, we’re hungry. What are the plans for dinner?”

Richard and Anton look at each other.

“Anton, you toad-faced dildo, I’m talking to you. Which restaurant are you taking us to, because it fucking well better be good.”

“Is she always like this?” Richard asks Anton.

“She’s always been a degenerate, yes. There was a time she used to behave more respectfully.”

“Suck my dick, bitch. Those days are over. Tell me where we’re going.”

“Somewhere we can have a civilized, face-to-face conversation,” Richard says. “We’re going to have to work together here. We can’t have the project compromised by personality issues. It’s too important.”

We sit in silence as we wind through the suburbs. It’s snowing again, and I listen to the soft thump of the windscreen wipers and the hiss of the slush beneath our wheels. The city’s traffic is as chaotic as ever, and as we pass Moscow State University and cross the river, we’re forced to slow to a crawl. The last few hundred meters take almost half an hour, but finally we pull up in front of a massive Stalinist block. Its gray frontage, pierced with archways, extends the length of the