The room I’m to share with Maks contains a double bed, a couple of nightstands, and a dresser. He closes the door, locks it, then runs his eyes up and down the length of my body. Whatever I’m expected to do isn’t going to happen, so I turn my back on him, take off my robe, and stuff it into the trash can. “Anything else you’d like to take off?” The floor creaks, and when I wheel around, he’s so close, his breath is warm against my forehead. “You don’t have to be frightened,” he says. He pushes my hair away from my face, and I shudder. I don’t want him near me. I push him back and try to look tougher than I feel.
I do a quick scan of the room in case there’s anything I could use as a weapon, and hone in on a clock with a stone base. If he tries anything, he’ll get it to the back of his head. “Stay on that side of the room,” I say, pointing. He rubs his mouth, and before I can get anywhere near the clock, he grabs the back of my head and pulls my face close to his.
“You think I’m going to pop your cherry without permission?” he says. With his free hand, he untucks his shirt from his pants.
Is it that obvious I’m a virgin? I stay very still. “I don’t want you,” I say. Regardless of how scared I am, I mustn’t let him see it.
“Oh, come on. I’ve noticed the way you look at me.”
I hold his stare. “Where’s Jo?” I ask.
He licks his top teeth and sucks on them. “You heard Vanya. She’s a benefactor now.”
“Her and your baby?”
He releases me, goes to the window, and throws it open, breathing in the night air like I never have. “You think you’ve got us figured out. Well, you don’t. If anything, you’ve got us all wrong.” When he looks back at me his eyes are watery, but I don’t buy it. I saw him manhandling Jo. And Silas and I saw his lackeys burying a body. It’s impossible we’ve got them wrong.
“I’m sleeping on the floor,” I say.
“Fine,” he says. “Jo did that for a year. Eventually she jumped into bed with me, and it had nothing to do with the cold.” He pulls his shirt over his head and reveals his chest. Maybe he thinks I’ll be won over by his body. I look away and lie down on the floor.
We should never have come here.
And the only thing to do now is to get back to the pod and make it the home it might have always been.