Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(90)

Back before she was taken, she hadn’t had breasts at all, Sveti thought. Months ago, she could hardly wait to get them. Breasts would mean that she was finally starting to grow up, and if she could do that fast enough, she might be able to catch up with Arkady, and he could marry her. Take her to America to live with him, where she would be happy forever. What a stupid little girl she’d been. Stupid little girl daydreams. Hah.

Now she had breasts, and she wished they would go away. They were big enough to jiggle under her shirt. She had begged Sasha for a strip of his T-shirt, which was so large it hung halfway down his legs.

Sasha had understood perfectly, even though he would not speak. He’d torn off a strip from the bottom, and helped her tie it around her ribs as tight as they could pull it, even though it itched and chafed.

And still, Yuri’s eyes followed her everywhere.

The doctor had noticed the port wine birthmark on her neck. She lifted Sveti’s hair to examine it, mouth pursed, eyes squinted, and murmured again into the recorder, speaking louder over Rachel’s incessant whimpering. Sveti tried one of the words Arkady had taught her.

“Birthmark,” she said. “Just birthmark. No hurt.”

The lady blinked, as if a plastic doll had just come to life and spoken to her, and continued on with her examination. Listening, poking, prodding, palpating. The lungs, the heart, the throat, her belly. Then the blood taking. The hot, dark blood snaking through the plastic tube. So hot, it felt like it burned the bluish white, goose-pimpled skin of her arm. Sveti wished she could put her shirt back on. She felt so exposed, with her hair twisted back and those hateful breasts sticking out.

The doctor lady would not meet her eyes. Would not acknowledge that she was there. It made Sveti want to scream with frustration to see the woman talking away into the stupid shiny rod, ignoring her. While evil gathered around her like a wave, rising. When it broke they would all be crushed, all of them. She stared at Rachel on the floor, playing listlessly with her tiny toes, gray with dirt.

Her desperation swelled up until she couldn’t contain it. She grabbed the woman’s silk clad arm. “Help me,” she pleaded. “Help us. They do something bad to us. You got to help us. Please.”

The doctor jerked her arm back, but Sveti wouldn’t let go. Her blackened nails dug into the fine fabric as she pleaded incoherently in her broken English. The doctor lady said something sharp and tried to shake her off. She clung harder. She remembered no more English, it was coming out in Ukrainian now, pouring out in a garbled rush that she had no power to stop. How afraid she was, how alone, how the little children needed her too much. She was breaking inside, something horrible waited, something evil—

The lady was screaming now, mouth distorted, eyes wild, clawing and slapping to get free. Rachel was screaming, Sveti was screaming, everyone was screaming. Sveti flung herself off the table at the woman as she tried to get away, clasping her around the waist, and the doctor slapped at her face, and they were both crying, yelling—

The door burst open. “What the f*ck is this?”

Marina and Yuri dragged them apart. Marina helped the sobbing, babbling lady doctor out of the room and cast a slit-eyed, malevolent glance back as Sveti as she slammed the door shut behind her.

Leaving her with Yuri. Fear exploded inside her.

He smacked her in the face. She hit the wall. The world spun, tipped and settled itself sideways. Then the tip of his boot smashed into her thigh. The pain made her shriek. He undid his belt, yanked it out, doubled it. “Idiot girl,” he raged. “The doctor came here to help you. And how do you thank her? You attack her! You are an animal! Filthy…dumb…animal!” The blows rained down. He shouted hoarse insults that she couldn’t understand. She cringed in the corner, making herself small as possible. Rachel shrieked her shrill, tea-kettle wail.

Slowly, Sveti became aware that the blows had stopped. She tasted blood in her mouth. Yuri was no longer bellowing.

She peered up from behind the hands she’d clasped over her face to protect it. He was staring down at her body, panting. Face red. His thick mouth slack and wet. He had that look on his face. That look that froze her blood, made her belly turn over with a greasy flop of dread.

At the same time, she realized she still had on no T-shirt. Not even Sasha’s strip tied around her ribs. Just those dirty cotton pants that hung down low over her bony hip bones.

Oh, no, no, no. Rachel’s tiny, tear-streaked face was scarlet, mouth huge, the sound huge, the sound of terror and utter despair—

The door sprang open again. “Yuri. Come,” Marina snapped.

“Later,” he rasped, his eyes still fixed on Sveti. “Close that f*cking door. Later.”

“Now.” Marina’s voice had the iron ring of command. “You have to take this stupid American bitch back to the hotel. The worthless cunt is falling apart. I don’t want to watch. Get away from that girl.”

“She can wait,” Yuri snarled. “Close that door.”

“No! Do not touch her. Go buy it outside if you want it, pig. Go to that truck stop on the interstate.”

“Why not?” Yuri sounded petulant. “What difference does it make? They won’t know. What do they care?”

“You could give her a disease,” Marina hissed. “Remember? What happened with the other one?”

Yuri wiped his scummy wet lips with the back of his hand. Sveti could smell the foulness of his breath even from where she lay on the floor. “I don’t have any diseases,” he said, his voice sullen.