Chapter 13: The List and the Promise
The silence after her question was thick enough to feel. Alexsi crossed the room slowly, the floorboards creaking under his weight. He set the water glass down on the nightstand with a soft click and lowered himself to sit on the edge of the mattress, careful not to jostle her. The bed dipped under him.
“No,” he said, the word solid as a stone. He looked at her, his blue eyes holding hers. “We’re not angry.”
Andrey shifted in the chair, the leather sighing. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, which brought his massive frame down to a more human level. “We were scared,” he rumbled, his voice softening the edges of the admission. “Thought you were bleeding out from some wound we couldn’t see. That was… not a good feeling.”
Mila’s eyes darted between them, searching for the lie, the hidden fury. She found only exhaustion and a residual tightness around their eyes that spoke of genuine fear. Her gaze fell to the IV line taped to her arm, the clear tubing, the bag hanging from the lamp. “I’m… sticky,” she whispered, a faint note of disgust in her voice. She could feel the dried salt of sweat and the ghost of blood on her skin, under the clean shirt.
Alexsi nodded, understanding immediately. “Okay.” He looked at Andrey. “We can fix that.”
It was a logistical operation. They moved with a quiet, coordinated efficiency that had none of the morning’s panic. Andrey went to the ensuite bathroom and started the water in the deep, claw-foot tub. Alexsi found a stack of the softest towels and a clean, heavy wool blanket. They didn’t ask her if she was sure, or if she felt strong enough. They simply prepared, accepting her request as an order to fulfill.
“Can you sit?” Alexsi asked, his hand hovering near her shoulder.
She nodded, trying to push herself up. Her arms trembled violently, and a dull, deep ache clenched in her abdomen. She winced, falling back against the pillows with a small gasp.
“Right. Okay,” Alexsi said, more to himself. “New plan.” He looked at the IV. “We’ll have to disconnect this for a minute. Andrey.”
Andrey came over. While Alexsi supported Mila’s arm, Andrey, with surprising delicacy for fingers so large, peeled back the tape and slid the catheter out. He pressed a square of gauze over the tiny puncture and held it. “Keep pressure here,” he instructed her, guiding her own hand to it. His touch was brief, impersonal.
“Arms around my neck,” Alexsi said, bending over her. It wasn’t a question.
She hesitated for a heartbeat, then complied, looping her arms weakly over his shoulders. In one smooth motion, he slid one arm under her knees and the other behind her back and lifted her from the bed, blanket and all. She was shockingly light, a bundle of fragile bird bones and linen. He carried her the short distance to the bathroom, where steam was beginning to fog the mirrored cabinet.
The tub was half-filled with warm, not hot, water. Andrey had already set a stool beside it and laid out soap, a washcloth, and a cup for rinsing.
“We’ll keep you covered,” Alexsi said, his tone matter-of-fact. “You’re just getting clean. Nothing else.”
They worked like that. Alexsi sat on the stool with Mila cradled in his lap, the wool blanket wrapped around her like a cocoon, only her head and neck exposed. Andrey knelt by the tub, his sleeves rolled up over his thick forearms. He wetted the washcloth, soaped it, and handed it to Alexsi.
Alexsi wiped her face first, gently swiping the cloth over her forehead, her cheeks, her neck. The water was warm and smelled faintly of lavender from a bar of soap someone’s mother had sent from home years ago. He rinsed the cloth, handed it back to Andrey, who soaped it again.
“Arm,” Alexsi said. Mila, her eyes wide and watchful, slid one arm out from the blanket. He washed it carefully, from shoulder to fingertips, paying attention to the lines of her palm, the delicate knuckles. He did the same with the other arm. Then he re-wrapped her in the blanket, tucking the edges securely.
“Turn,” he murmured. She leaned forward slightly against his chest, and he managed to wash her back through the blanket, the fabric becoming damp and warm. It was modest, clinical, and intensely caring. They said little. The only sounds were the slosh of water, the drip from the tap, their breathing.
For her legs and feet, Andrey helped. Mila kept the blanket tucked around her torso as Alexsi supported her, while Andrey, with a tenderness that belied his appearance, washed her legs. He was especially careful with her feet, washing between the toes, avoiding direct pressure on the thick, pink scars that crisscrossed her soles. He didn’t comment on them. He just cleaned them, as if restoring a damaged but precious artifact.
They didn’t wash her hair—that was a bridge too far, too intimate, too complicated with her sitting in a blanket. But they got the worst of it. The sweat, the lingering metallic scent, the sticky fear was gone. When they were done, Alexsi carried her, now wrapped in a fresh, dry blanket, back to the bed. Andrey had already changed the sheets again. They settled her in, propping her up with pillows.
“The IV,” she said quietly, looking at the gauze on her arm. “Please. It helped before. I feel… hollow.”
Alexsi nodded. “Good idea.” He prepped a new line, a new bag. Andrey found a better spot, a vein on the back of her other hand. His touch was sure, the needle a quick sting. The fluid began to flow, a slow, steady drip of hydration and electrolytes. They piled more blankets on her, until only her face and her IV hand were visible.
The room settled. The wood stove popped. Andrey dragged the armchair closer. Alexsi pulled a straight-backed wooden chair from the desk and sat.
The quiet stretched, comfortable now, filled with the simple, accomplished fact of her cleanliness and warmth.
“In the capital,” Mila began, her voice still thin but clearer, “with my uncle… a request was a test. To see how much you would take. To find a weakness.” She looked at Alexsi, then at Andrey. “You just… did it.”
Alexsi leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He studied his own hands, scarred and calloused. “My father’s ministry… the capital… it’s a machine. It uses people. It talks about duty, alliance, purity. It’s just trafficking with better words.” He looked up at her. “Being here, with us, in this battalion… it doesn’t have to be the same machine.”
“What is it, then?” she asked, not challenging, but truly wanting to know.
Andrey answered, his voice a low vibration. “It’s a place. With a fence. And guys who follow orders, mostly. But it’s also just a bunch of buildings. We can make the inside of these buildings… different.”
Alexsi nodded. “I can’t promise you a life without rules. Or that bad things won’t happen. This world is what it is. But I can promise I will always try to make the choice that lets you breathe. The choice that gives you a say. You are not a political token in this room. You are Mila. And what you want matters.”
The words hung in the air, so foreign to her experience they seemed to glow. What you want matters.
She was silent for a long time, absorbing it. The IV fluid traced a warm path up her vein. The ache in her body was a distant thrum. For the first time since she’d been dragged from her village, her mind wasn’t screaming how do I survive or how do I escape. It tentatively, hesitantly, began to whisper what if…
“I want to not be weak,” she said finally.
“You’re not weak,” Andrey said immediately. “You’re recovering from a trauma and a medical event. There’s a difference.”
A ghost of something like a smile touched her lips. “I want to be strong, then. I want… to do things.”
“Like what?” Alexsi asked.
She looked past him, out the window at the grey afternoon. “I used to ride. My cousin had a little mare, a dirty white thing with a devil’s streak. I want to feel a horse under me again, and go somewhere, not just in a circle.” She looked at Andrey, at the sheer wall of his chest and shoulders. “I want to lift weights. Not to look like you,” she added quickly, and a real, small smile appeared. “But to be able to carry something. To know my body can do something I tell it to.”
Alexsi’s own mouth quirked. “We have a stable. And a gym the men use. It’s loud and smells like sweat and desperation, but it has what you need.”
“I want to read books that aren’t approved by the ministry commissar. I want to cook something that isn’t grey stew. I want to walk without… without my feet feeling like they’re on fire.” She took a shaky breath. “I want to get strong again. All the way through.”
“Then we’ll do that,” Alexsi said, simply. “All of it. In time. One thing at a time.”
The simple affirmation seemed to unlock something. The list had made it real. It was a future, sketched in faint but tangible lines. She looked at them, these two strange, large, gentle men who had seen her at her most broken and had not looked away. A lump formed in her throat. There was one more thing. The biggest thing.
Her fingers plucked at the wool blanket. “There is… someone else.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “My cousin. Anya. She’s fifteen.”
Alexsi went very still. Andrey’s breathing seemed to stop.
“My uncle… he has promised her to a man. A friend of his from the eastern district. He is… not good.” Mila’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “The wedding is to be in the spring, after the thaw. He beats his dogs. He laughs when they yelp.” She swallowed. “She wrote to me, before I was sent here. She is so frightened. She asked me what it was like.” Mila looked directly at Alexsi, her gaze sharpening with a desperate intensity. “I was the… practice run. She is the real prize. Younger. More… manageable.”
The air in the room grew heavy. The crackle of the fire was the only sound.
Alexsi and Andrey exchanged a look. It was a long, silent conversation. It traveled through years of shared duty, understood risks, and a slowly calcifying disgust for the machinery they served. It weighed the sheer, suicidal madness of what she was asking against the image of a fifteen-year-old girl being handed to a man who enjoyed the sound of animal pain.
Alexsi looked back at Mila. Her face was pale but set, a quiet defiance there. She had asked for a bath and an IV. She had asked for a horse and a weight. Now she was asking for a miracle.
He nodded once, a slow, definitive movement.
“We’ll see what we can do,” he said.
It wasn’t a promise. It was something harder and more real. A commitment to try. To look at the impossible and start calculating the first, fatal step.
A tear finally escaped, tracing a clean path down Mila’s cheek. She didn’t sob. She just let it fall. “Thank you.”
Andrey stood up, the chair groaning in relief. “First thing’s first. Food. You need to eat something that isn’t from a bag.” He headed for the small kitchenette attached to the quarters. “I’m making blini. My mother’s recipe. You will eat three. And you will like them.”
It was a declaration of normalcy, a blunt instrument against the enormity of what had just been discussed.
They didn’t always get it right. This was difficult for the two soldiers. They had good hearts but not a lot of experience. They leaned on each other and what they thought their moms would have done. They did what they could for this girl dropped on them like this. Adjusting as they went and learned.
Alexsi stayed by the bed. He watched as Andrey, in the narrow kitchen, began mixing batter with a fierce concentration, his huge hands surprisingly competent with a whisk. He looked back at Mila. Her eyes were closing, the adrenaline of the conversation and the warmth of the blankets pulling her back toward sleep.
“Rest,” he said softly. “The blini will be ready soon. And after that, we’ll make a list. A proper one. With steps.”
She nodded, her eyelids fluttering. “A list,” she murmured, as if it were a magical incantation.
Alexsi sat back in his chair, listening to the rhythmic clatter from the kitchen and the soft, steady sound of her breathing. The room was warm, clean, and for now, safe. Outside, the short winter day was dying, and the problems of the world—the ministry, the border wars, the fate of a fifteen-year-old girl—lay waiting beyond the velvet curtains. But in here, there was the smell of batter in a hot pan, the promise of a list, and the immense, fragile weight of a promise that began with we’ll see. It was enough. For today, it was more than enough.