Dzyuba must have a reason to suddenly wear gloves, mustn’t he?

I shift my gaze away from the light and direct it at Dzyuba. I wonder if he will grow wary of me for simply looking at his fingers. I know him to be the distrustful type.

“Did you hear anything from that old rascal Smolnikov?” he asks.

“No, Sir.”

His eyebrows narrow. A bloody shade of red washes through his otherwise sickly skin, and his eyes stretch as though they’re about to burst.

“That old rascal . . .” He grits his teeth. “He abandoned us loyal fools and fled. Imagine how our boys will react if they find out about this?”

“Maybe he didn’t, Sir. Maybe he fought until he couldn’t fight any longer.”

“He’s a leader, son. There’s no way the rascal’s gonna die before we do. They have millions of ways to hide, trust me. If he’s dead, he’s faked his death. Even if he really is deceased, do you seriously expect soldiers to be more thrilled hearing that than learning about his pathetic scampering?”

“Am I correct, Sir, that you only summoned me today to hand me death notices?” I hold back a frown. I don’t particularly enjoy what Dzyuba said. You’re not supposed to talk shit about Supreme Leaders behind their backs; I’m pretty sure that’s in the code. If he wants to fix something, he can try actually fixing it instead of blaming others.

“Yes, Vronsky. You are correct,” Dzyuba replies.

“Thank you for your concern, Sir.” I hate these meaningless kiss-ass phrases that have become customary around superiors. “Perhaps, Sir, you should’ve delegated such tasks to Colonel Maksim, if working on them means working such late hours.”

“Thank you for your concern, Vronsky, but we know how to run things around here.”

Like hell you do. “Of course, Sir.”

Dzyuba knits his fingers together and places his chin on top of them, staring straight into my eyes. Don’t stare back; don’t avert your eyes; don’t do anything. He keeps at it for another solid minute; each passing second sends me under more scrutiny. Is my act not convincing enough? It has to be. I’ve been trained to deceive.

In the end, his expression softens. I’m off the hook. For now.

“Off you go.” He waves me off.

I bow at him, expecting at least a nod of acknowledgment for the respect I show him, but none is given. As I walk out, I hear him mumbling, “Oh, I have so much to tell. Oh, so much to tell, but nobody to tell it to . . .”

A vodka-bottle-breaking kind of shatter resounds after I step outside. Somebody is losing his shit.

I quicken my pace, hoping he won’t remember to ask me about the stolen bread.

Why was I so stupid? The last thing I want is to attract attention to myself. I shouldn’t have stolen some dumb bread. Alice can surely survive a couple of days without food, can’t she?

Argggggghhhh! I can’t do such a thing. I don’t want to starve her. What a dumbass I am to keep on worrying about a person I met a week ago. This would have been a non-issue if I had just hauled her ass out of my room.

I lay eyes on the name ‘Nikolai Pavlovsky’ printed on the death notice on my hands. I can recall the last word he said to himself.

“May Great Russia be with me.”

He had gasped the words as he pressed his own pistol barrel to his head. His pupils were bloodshot, the corner of his mouth twitched a little. Showers of bullets fleeted past him, but none had barely touched the hems of his uniform.

He was fortunate, too fortunate.

That might be why he killed himself.

I was the only one there to witness his final act, and he didn’t notice me. I didn’t report his suicide so he would be confirmed killed in action. That was the more honorable way out.

At least ten soldiers have killed themselves within this encircled fort. And I don’t want to be another statistic.

The air around me reeks of death. That odor has always chiseled itself into every corner of the wall, under every sewer pipe, inside every rifle nuzzle. But today, it smells like everybody who has ever died in front of my eyes is decaying all around me, and at once.

I need to crawl out of this hellhole, and I have two days left to do it.

Two days left.

This inner countdown clock has become a part of me. I’ve always been counting towards the last day, a means to find closure. Closure—that’s the one thing I have never had.

When I turned seventeen, I rowed upstream on the Kotui river with my old friend Vasiliy Kovalenko. We were out fishing for a rare taimen fish. I remember wrestling with the flouncing fish in my hands; its glistening scales fell from my hands as I tried to drag it back. I remembered fighting a good fight. But I can’t remember if I won that battle.

When I turned twenty-two, I stabbed a man to death inside the dark alleys of a remote Central Russian town. I can’t remember how I got there; who the man I killed was; why I killed him; and what happened next. I only remember killing him.

I remember the last time I yearned for death. I’m not sure if ‘remember’ is the right word, or if ‘I’ was the one wanting death, since those foggy visions seem to not even be mine. It was someone else’s memory, and in that memory, I’m always the observer. Through that person’s eyes, I saw another man putting a knee on his neck as that person pushed him to the ground.

“Please, please, please! End me.” The man on the ground begged. His voice was breathy and exhausted, but I was sure it was my voice.

Maybe the guy on the ground was me all along.

The person putting a knee on my neck was turning away from me, and his shadow was big enough to shroud his whole body. I couldn’t see his face. I couldn’t fathom how his shadow could be so overwhelming.

He screamed, “Do you think you can be a normal person? Look at yourself! We’re monstrosities!”

Lights out. The memory would always stop there.

At first, I had refused to believe what I envisioned was the truth. Nobody has ever wrestled me to the ground and put his knee on me. I have never been a pathetic loser who had to plead for my life.

Then the memory returned. Once. Twice. Hundreds of times.

I probably started counting days after seeing that vision for the hundredth time. I wasn’t languishing for anything in particular. I was just seeking closure for everything I had done. I just wanted to remember all the things I did.

And today, I’m adding one more thing to the list of events I hope I will remember.

The day I take that stolen ring away from Artem Dzyuba.