I was here again: in the small room with two stalls, where on the opposite side, above the sinks, stretched a long mirror. No one else was here. Only the unpleasant buzzing of the flickering ceiling lamp disturbed the silence, foreboding trouble. Nothing was happening, but a sense of dread echoed deep under my ribs, tightening everything in my chest.
What was going to happen was inevitable. It would happen whether I was ready or not.
At last, I gathered my courage and stepped up to the sink. I washed my hands for a long time, adding more and more lavender gel from the dispenser, hoping to break the endless Groundhog Day, to delay the inevitable, but deep down I knew — it wouldn't help, just like the last dozen times.
The skin on my hands had turned red, and my fingertips were wrinkled. There was no more room to retreat. Taking a deep breath, I reached for the faucet and noticed my hands were shaking. Clenching my teeth, I forced myself to turn off the water.
One step, two, three — I squeezed my eyes shut, but reality still crashed down on me like a heavy weight. I knew what I would see as soon as I dared to open my eyes again: the thin red plaid shirt, the hands already gripping my shoulders with a strong hold. I kicked out, trying to hit my captor, but only struck the tile. Gleb, as always, pressed the cloth tightly to my mouth and nose. I couldn't breathe, but worse than the suffocation was the helplessness: once again, the kidnapper would get away with it. With the last of my strength, I screamed and, to my surprise, I could hear my own voice, as if nothing were blocking it. How strange.
For some reason, Gleb started shaking. And with him, so did I.
"Asya! Asya, wake up!" The sound of a familiar voice reached my consciousness in a faint echo, but I couldn't remember whose it was.
"Asya, please! Wake up!" The sound grew louder.
A sharp slap burned my cheek, and I instinctively lurched forward, as if no one had been holding me. The scene changed abruptly, and before me was no longer the wall of a public restroom but my father's face. Not understanding anything, I stared at the pale Kostya with wide-open eyes. It took only a moment for my gaze to sweep the room and realize — I was home.
"Asya?" Dad called to me more softly now, as if testing whether I'd come to my senses. In response, I only nodded and reached my palms to my eyes to brush away the remnants of sleep.
The last few days I had spent at home, regaining my strength. Trying to distract myself from my problems, I threw myself into schoolwork, catching up on the lessons I'd missed, anything to push the thoughts of what had happened out of my mind. Studying at home was far more pleasant than within the hospital walls. My phone was silent, and even Dasha hadn't sent any messages.
"You were screaming in your sleep."
"I figured," my voice came out sharper than I intended, so I quickly added, "Thanks for waking me up. What time is it?"
"Almost seven."
Hearing his answer, I smiled wryly. Nothing dispelled the horror of a new reality better than laughing at what should never be laughed at. I was so exhausted and eager to shut out what was happening that now the nightmares had started to torment me even in my sleep. As if there weren't enough horrors in my waking life.
"Well. I slept longer than usual today."
Kostya didn't share my humor.
"Maybe your mother should have stayed here with us."
"She shouldn't have," I objected. "It's good she's not here. By the way, where is she?"
"At a friend's."
"Good. At least for a while you'll stop arguing and yelling at each other."
I stayed silent for a short while, staring at the ceiling and listening to my own feelings. It seemed there were none. Inside me, there was a black, all-consuming void. I had thought that once I learned the whole story, it would get easier, but the opposite had happened. I didn't want anything, and at the same time I was afraid of freezing in this state, of stopping breathing, stopping living. I needed to move forward, but it felt like I was standing in the middle of a Minesweeper field: one wrong click and the game would be over before it had really begun. There was no safe direction, no matter what final destination I chose. With no new plans, there was only one way forward: step onto familiar rails and see where the train would take me.
"I should go with the others to the open house this week. They're not planning any more this year."
My father averted his eyes and fell silent. I could guess what he was thinking. We'd been playing out the same dialogue every day since my normal life — and all the plans that went with it — had been shattered the moment Nik bit me.
"I've already told you, you don't have to enroll this year."
"I do," I cut him off mid-sentence, but he refused to give in.
"Let me finish," Kostya gave me a serious look. "We still don't know everything about your new nature. If Maria and I had known how it would all turn out, we never would have let you come back to Xerton."
Dad ran his hand through his hair, letting it rest at the back of his head.
"You couldn't have known, but you still managed to imagine the worst and wind yourselves up — and me along with you."
I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed, slowly rolling my shoulders. After such a damned realistic dream with fragments of the day Gleb grabbed me, waking up left my bones aching as if I were seventy-one, not seventeen.
"Wind ourselves up?" Kostya's lips curved into a sad smile. "Asya, nightmares for witches are no joke. Many have some degree of prophetic ability, so Maria's concern is understandable, no matter how angry I was with her at first. I thought she was afraid of my heritage. That the old coven dogmas had settled deeper inside her than I had imagined. But whatever disagreements we had, we tried to do what was best for you. To work together. Her dream has already become part of our reality. One day you'll understand that being a parent means acting, sometimes blindly, hoping to do right by your child."
My father hesitated and swallowed hard, as if afraid that saying the words aloud would make the situation irreversible.
"Have you ever thought that maybe Maria herself pulled the nightmare into reality? Kaandor is already here. I'm neither a werewolf nor anything I can clearly name."
Kostya's lips twitched, but he didn't dare say what was on his mind. He was probably about to ask again where I'd picked up that kind of phrasing.
"Has he appeared to you again?"
"No," I lied, trying to count how many times I'd seen Kaandor in my room over the past few days. He had been silent and seemed to feel perfectly comfortable within the apartment walls. Once, I caught him looking at the spines of books on the shelves. Kaandor stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his head tilted to the right, as if he really could read the titles and authors' names. Out of curiosity, I caught myself wondering if he actually could read, but I held back, deciding not to start a dialogue with the spirit anytime soon. I needed time for myself. Time to put my life back in order.
I rolled my eyes in exhaustion. I was sick of everyone treating me like I was made of glass. At seventeen, I felt more like a child talking to my parents than I had at five.
"Since I'm something I can't even name, it's my right to decide who I want to be. And today, I'm Asya — an ordinary high school senior at Xerton Gymnasium, who really needs to attend the university's open house."
Kostya snorted.
"You can't just start ignoring your power. My blood is in you!"
"So what? It's been in me since conception, but I haven't spent my life running around looking like a dog beaten down by life!"
The words burst from my lips in a raised tone before I could think. I just wanted to be left alone — was that really so hard? But no, they had to darken the sky and drag me back, every single minute of my existence, to the new reality I wasn't ready to accept. Not long ago, I had only just learned about vampires, struggling to believe in the secret life of mythical beings living next door. And now I was expected to, as if nothing had happened, leap higher than my own head and accept that I was not only an inseparable part of this insane, mysterious world but also a sort of freak who didn't belong anywhere. A black sheep. Just like being back in my Rostov school.
"So that's what you think about werewolves? One of those 'beaten dogs' ripped you out of Nick's hands that night, in case you've forgotten."
"And tore Galina to pieces," I added sharply. "And, as we both know, that wasn't necessary. You came too late and couldn't change anything — the venom was already in me."
"What did you expect? For me to just stand aside and watch those two destroy you? I had to step in while there was still any chance at all!"
"You yourself said that a vampire's venom couldn't turn me because of my heritage. So there was no point in interfering — and especially not in killing Nick's mother! Looks like Maria and Vladimir were the only ones who understood what was happening this whole time, unlike you. You only made it worse!"
"I was doing… everything… everything…" Kostya's breathing turned heavy, and his hand slid to the left side of his chest. Where his heart was. For a moment, something inside me snapped, and my stomach twisted into a tight knot.
"Dad?" my voice trembled. "Dad, are you okay?"
My father looked at me with a glazed stare and froze, as if his body had been pierced through by unbearable pain. His legs gave way, knees buckling. He searched for something to lean on, but his back pressed against the smooth wall without finding support. With a crash, Kostya collapsed to the floor, and I rushed to him. Frantically, I tried to feel for a pulse to understand what was happening. His chest rose with effort, as if breathing was a struggle. He gasped for air, trying to force out even a single word, but kept choking. When my father's eyes rolled back, I screamed in horror and helplessness.
Bolting upright, I ran to the phone and, without thinking, dialed Stas's number, not knowing who else to call.