The smell came first. It wasn’t the sea, not yet. Though, if she wanted to get out fro under this brute’s hand, she’d have to go to Varna and risk sailing the Black Sea.
The odor was of cheap, badly prepared stew gone sour in a cracked bowl. It was sweat that had soaked into blankets that had never been washed combined with the sour tang of old wine.
Anya’s eyes opened, but she did not move. She was still in an impossibly small room. It had a low, slanted ceiling. The walls were covered in plaster that was splitting like old skin. The single window was too small to climb through and too dirty to see anything beyond a smear of gray-tinged daylight. Or the gas streetlamps. It was hard to tell. The door hung crooked in its frame, sealed shut by a lock that bolted from the outside.
She’d been here three days, so far as she could tell. Or maybe this was the beginning of the third day. Either way, who she expected to see hadn’t arrived, but ‘he’ had...
She didn’t need to turn her head to know he was there. She could hear it… The uneven breath, the faint wet whistle through his nose. It had been broken long ago. A bar fight, if she remembered the story correctly, and set poorly. It made him sound like he was always laughing, even when he wasn’t.
A set of heavy metal keys clanking pulled her from her thoughts, which was exactly what he wanted.
Anya moved off the bed. She took up a kneeling position as if she were praying or begging, but she was doing neither. Instead, she was working on an old boot. Caked in dried mud and cracked. She worked the needle through it slowly, carefully, like she had all the time in the world.
There was a pile in the corner. Broken boots. Because when she wasn’t doing her “wifely duties” for her client, she needed to be working on something. Earning her keep. Her ‘prison’ guard was about to learn the price of holding her in a room smaller than a jail cell against her will.
The bowl hit the floor.
Tin rang sharp against wood, then spun, spilling its thin gray contents across the warped boards. It crept toward her knee.
He laughed. There it was. It was always the same, like he’d been waiting all day for that moment. He wanted her to flinch and beg. There was no chance she would. She hadn’t in the beginning, and she wouldn’t now.
“Clumsy thing,” he said, stepping closer. The keys chimed again as he moved. “You waste what I give you, you go hungry.”
Anya lowered her head.
Let her shoulders fold just enough as her hands stilled. She knew he liked his women and his prisoners small, quiet, afraid and obedient.
He stepped toward her, one boot-fall at a time.
He was soon close enough that she could smell the wine on his breath and to block out what little light the filthy window let in.
Her fingers slipped. The needle fell from the leather and clicked softly against the floor.
He made a sound that was half irritation and half amusement. He bent just slightly as if to pick up the needle she had dropped.
Anya knew differently. He was bending down to slap her backward.
“Useless—”
The knife was already in her hand as he said the word that meant he was about to punish her for being sloppy or lazy or whatever he decided to call her in the moment.
She didn’t draw the knife. She didn’t flash or brandish it to make him wary or scared. That would just give him the opportunity to try and disarm her.
Instead, she had drawn it from a place where he’d never think to look. It wasn’t he was lazy or sloppy. No. It was because he was too certain. He was certain she was weak. Just a woman. Just nothing. Nothing to him or anyone else.
Anya wasted no time. The motion she made with the knife was small and quick, but not like cutting meat. It was like finding a seam in something heavy and pulling it apart.
His breath stopped mid-word.
The sound that followed wasn’t a scream. It was softer than that. Confused. Like he was trying to understand what had happened and couldn’t quite reach it.
Warmth spilled over her hand. It was thick and immeidate. Almost startling, but she didn't pull away. She leaned closer and watched, because she had decided, long before this moment, that she would see the end of him.
His eyes found hers then. Really found them. For the first time, and she saw something she had never seen before. Fear.
She did not feel bad about it, because if the shoe were on the other foot, he would not have shown her any mercy. It was very likely that it’d cut her and leave her just enough alive to know she was being thrown from the roof of this building. Just enough alive to feel her bones smashing against the cobbles below.
His light didn’t go all at once. It dimmed, flickered and struggled as he tried to cling to whatever was left of his life.
She watched until there was nothing left of him. Until he slumped over on the floor that he’d kicked her across when she’d first arrived.
The room went very quiet. There was no more whistling nose. No more breath-laughing. There was nothing. Even the street beyond the window seemed to hold its breath.
The keys were at his belt.
She reached for them, her fingers slick, and pulled them free. They were heavier than she expected, and for a moment, she just held them while listening.
She didn’t hear any footsteps outside the door or voices. There was no one coming to check on why he was not walking back down the hall.
She stood and looked at the half-open door. Then, she quietly walked through it. There were other rooms in the hall. She counted three more doors, but didn't hear anyone moving behind them.
Anya shook her head. Even if there were other girls in them, she couldn’t help them. They’d likely panic if they saw any of the men, block her way and result in every single one of them getting recaptured and treated even worse than before.
She could not risk it, and if there were any doubt in her mind, it evaporated when she saw the door at the end of the hall.
Anya cursed under her breath. The bedrooms were bolted from the outside. The entire hall was locked with a double-sided bolt lock. Whoever entered this hall needed a key to enter and a key to leave. She guessed the punishment for leaving this door open was severe.
Anya slipped up to the door and placed her ear against it. There was no glass. No way to see what was on the other side. She had to listen.
Nothing. She heard nothing.
Anya stepped back. She looked at the lock and the set of keys. There was no way to tell which one would fit. She had to try each one. It was a slow process, and more than once, she thought she heard footsteps on the other side of the door.
It would help if she knew what time it was. This client typically had a particular schedule. She just hadn’t thought much of it when they were on better terms, or rather, before he got possessive. Nights tended to have the fewest people. Evenings had the most. Morning and afternoons were a toss-up.
Anya kept trying keys and listening. It didn’t help that the lock was squeaky. And stuck. Once she found the right key, she had to try twice before it turned. The metal ground as if it resented being moved, and when it finally gave, the sound felt too loud.
Anya held her breath and listened, waiting.
Nothing. She didn't understand this house, but she knew she had to get out.
Anya opened the door.
Stairs. She had almost stepped onto nothing. The door was flush with the top step. Anya grabbed the frame to steady herself, leaving a bloody hand print behind as she stepped down.
Her foot was met with creaky wood. She froze and listened. Still nothing. She could see red-tinged light entering the building from the first floor windows, so it was very early morning. What her jailor had brought her was probably meant to be breakfast.
When no one came running to see who was on the stairs, she carefully continued down. One step. Then another. And another.
Anya kept listening for voices or footsteps or kitchen sounds, since anyone in the house would need to eat by now, but there was still nothing.
She stopped three steps from the bottom. She did not trust this. It felt like a trap, even though there was no way anyone could know her escape plans. It wasn’t like there was anyone to tell or any paper to make notes.
She stepped off the last step and peered as far around the corner as she could. Still nothing. This silence was starting to bother her. It was unnatural. Had a card game gone bad and one of the players stabbed everyone? She would have considered a pistol, but she hadn’t heard any sharp booms.
Anya peeked around to what she thought was the front parlor. Couches, chairs, tables, a small stand with spirits, and shoes.
Anya breathed. She stepped into the doorway and almost slipped. Looking down, she realized she’d stepped into a dark red puddle that was half-dried. Her stomach heaved. As she looked farther into the room, she realized the shoes were on feet, and those feet were connected to an almost headless body.
What stood out was that nothing had been disturbed. There was no sign of a fight. No overturned chairs or tables. Even the decanters were still in their places.
“Who in god’s name did they piss off.” It looked like the worst knife attack she’d ever seen, except for the fact that it looked like the fight was entirely one-sided. Like all the victims were struck down faster than they could respond.
Anya ran then. She didn’t want to meet up with whoever had caused this carnage. She found the side door that led into a wide alley, yanked it open and ran outside, slamming that same door behind her. The sound echoed across the bricks and cobbles.
Once outside, the air hit her like a blow. It was cold, damp and real.
She staggered a step. The alley stretched ahead in mud and stone, gray sky pressing low overhead.
She clutched the keys in her hand without thinking, their edges biting into her palm.
The word didn’t feel real yet, not after what she’d just seen and experienced.
She started walking as her mind tried to make sense of that house. How had her jailor escaped the carnage? Anya shook her head. It didn’t matter. She was free, and now she had to get to Varna as quickly as possible.
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