“No, what are you doing to him?” I yelled, struggling to my feet. I tried to jump from the wagon, but Ilyich seized me before I could take a step. “Stop it. Stop!”

The trees’ shuddering intensified as Ilyich tackled me to the floor. I bruised my knees on the boards, his body pressing down on me, smothering me. Writhing beneath him, I fought to haul myself up. I kicked back blindly, hoping to land a blow or throw him off me, but only ended up striking crates and bags.

“Stop struggling,” he growled and shifted his grip to my neck.

“Vanya!” I shouted, lifting my head.

The trees had begun to still. It was too late. I could feel it in my chest, an oppressive weight pressing down on my heart.

Gone. He was gone.

“You bastards. You murderers, you—” Before I could finish, Ilyich folded his arm around my throat, hooking his elbow under my jaw. As I strained against his hold, woolly darkness enveloped my brain, and my eyelids grew heavy. I struggled to keep them open. It was a losing battle. The night sky descended rapidly, falling, plummeting, and then there was nothing but the dark.

33

I awoke on a hard, jostling surface, bruised and sore. My entire body ached, but the worst of the pain was in my neck and back, where it felt as though my spine had been stomped cruelly underfoot.

I looked around, my head swimming with nausea as I took in the sight of hemp sacks weeping buckwheat, stacked crates, worm-gnawed wagon boards.

Wadded fabric pressed down on my tongue. My gorge rose at the scent and taste of mildew. I bit into the rag, the muscles in my jaw and neck working desperately to expel the fabric. Useless. A rope had been tied across my cheeks, holding the gag in place.

More rope tightened around my ankles. Contorting my body, I twisted around to find Ilyich tying my feet together. Instead of acknowledging me, he rose to his feet and returned to his perch on a nearby crate.

Once Ilyich was seated, he took out his pocket watch to check the time, as if nothing significant had happened. His dark hair hung in oily strings over his brow. In the lantern light, the wiry scar that bisected his face appeared to writhe, as though it weren’t a scar at all but a tapeworm beneath his skin.

The sob that welled in my throat was smothered by the gag. I wanted to die so I’d never have to think of Vanya again. Maybe I could have helped save him had I done something differently. I should have fought back more. I should have screamed louder, trying to convince the soldiers that Vanya was a good person. All he wanted was to help people, but justice and human goodness meant nothing in this world.

Neither Ilyich nor Lieutenant Dronov would care how warm Vanya had been even to strangers, or that he always knew what to say, or that his voice changed when he spoke Strannitsky, deepening into a low, rumbling purr. To his killers, he hadn’t been an actual person, just an enemy.