“As you say,” he smiled. He gave me a hard shove and I fell forward into the cell. Grigorii dusted his hands off on a crisp red handkerchief. “Luna, meet your Masha Sandovsky. I’m sure the two of you will become fast friends.” He turned his head. “Close sixteen.”
The door slammed shut and darkness closed over my head like cold water, but this time I peered into it, trying to see something, anything. I blinked and let my eyes shift, the silver tones jumping out at me, detailing a bench bed with no mattress, a steel toilet bolted to the floor and a hunched figure next to it, her forehead on her knees.
“Masha?” I whispered.
She raised her head a fraction. “Yeah, what of it?”
A swell of relief built in my chest and I inhaled and exhaled the stale air. “Your father sent me. He’s been looking for you for a while.”
Masha made a derisive sound in the back of her throat. “Dmitri?”
“Do you have another father?”
She blew out a breath. “The dude doesn’t show up for most of my life and then suddenly he’s all in my business. Whatever.”
“Listen,” I said. “You’re here because you made some shitty choices and your dad came after you. He’s trying, Masha—and I know for a fact that he is going to be really, really fucking glad you’re all right.”
“That’s nice and all,” she muttered. “But I’m not getting out of here.”
“Not true,” I said. “I’m going to take you back to your dad and he’s going to take you home.”
“You’re in this cell same as me,” she said. “So, good job there.”
I grimaced. “I wasn’t expecting Belikov to show up and ambush me.”
Masha sighed. “He does that. But hey, at least you know he won’t kill you. At least not until you’re not useful anymore.”
“Meaning what?” I asked her.
Masha lifted her head. “You’ll find out. Someone comes every day around this time and…” She sighed. “You’ll just find out, okay?”
The door clicked open again with a buzz, and I recognized the silhouette immediately. “Mikel,” I said. “It’s been too long. Threatened anyone who can’t fight back lately?”
“Get up,” he said. “The both of you.”
Masha got up and shuffled into the hall obediently. I followed her, keeping my eyes on Mikel. He smirked at me. “Locked up again. Bad habit with you.”
“Before I leave here, I’m going to punch you right in that smirk,” I told him.
Mikel led us down the corridor to a set of steel doors. “Through there,” he said. “You know what will happen if you misbehave.”
I looked to Masha. “What’s he insinuating?”
She sighed heavily as we were buzzed into a small steel hallway with doors at either end. The drains in the floor and the sprinklers overhead spoke to the chamber’s old purpose. I shivered. What exactly did we need to be decontaminated from?
“Just sit still and let the doctor examine you,” Masha said. “Otherwise, Mr. Belikov gets furious.” She touched a scar on her eyebrow. “I tried to fight back. Once.”
I thought of what Grigorii must have done to herand winced, my stomach rebelling with a boil of nausea.
The door at the other end of the chamber opened with a clang, and we stepped into a white space, white tiles and white floors, white lights beating down, sterilizing all of the color from the air.
A small dark-haired man with a full gray moustache stood behind a steel table. White lab coat, subdued blue shirt and tie, blue nitrile gloves. “Masha,” he said. “And a new girl, how nice.” He inclined his bald head at Mikel. “She is a genetic match?”
Mikel shrugged. “That’s for you to find out. Belikov just wants her here.”
“And you are?” I said to the doctor. Masha went behind a surgical screen and started to undress.
“I am Dr. Emil Gorshkov,” he said. “I work with Grigorii. What is your name?”
Mikel frowned. “Less talk, more testing.”
Gorshkov raised a hand. “Please. This is my laboratory space. What is your name, girl?”
“Joanne.” I didn’t want this ever-smiling, bald, cold-eyed doctor to know my real name for reasons I couldn’t quite bring clear even in my own head.
“Joanne. Common.” He sniffed, his moustache twitching. “Please, undress and put on a gown.”
Okay, Luna. Easy. Nothing to be gained by freaking out on the guy and causing a scene. I needed to figure out what was going on here and how the hell I was going to get Masha and me clear without Grigorii killing Dmitri.
“What kind of doctor are you?” I said, stepping behind the screen when Masha exited. White gowns hung in a row, the old kind that wrapped around your waist like in a black-and-white movie set in a mental asylum.
“That’s really not your concern,” Dr. Gorshkov said. “On the table, Masha. There’s a good girl.”
I peered around the screen, taking my sweet time getting undressed. Gorshkov turned his back to me, and he rolled an instrument tray over to Masha. “How are you feeling, my dear?”
My dear? He could be anyone’s family doctor, checking perfunctorily on his patient as he swabbed her arm with alcohol and grabbed a syringe. Everything was old in this place, like the set of a horror movie. Dawn of the Former Soviet Werewolf Dead. All we needed was a shopping mall.
“I’m tired all the time,” Masha said. “And I threw up this morning, before you brought that weirdo woman into my cell. I don’t like her.”
I curled my lip. Either she was trying to throw Belikov and the doctor off the scent, or she was a real brat, even in captivity.
“Gene therapy isn’t a walk in the park, Masha,” said the doctor. “You are becoming something so much stronger than what you are now. All of my patients were strong, and were rewarded. You must bear these ills with a good attitude or you won’t reap the rewards they did.”
“It’s taking so long,” Masha complained. “I feel sick all the time.”
“Masha,” the doctor sighed. “You are my special child, yes?”
“Yes,” she
