Staropramenná 2, Prague, Czech Republic
November 30
Eva came back to life as the pale light came through the windows and crept across her face. She rolled to her side, the blankets soft against her skin, the room still warm as the heaters clicked off. Slowly, her head started to ache, a dull pain right behind her eyes, and with it, the cold got to her. She slipped on her clothes, let the mask hang loose around her neck, and ripped open a food packet from the depot the night before.
“Pyotr? You gone to get the stuff?” she asked the open air.
No one replied.
The sky outside was clear for a change, a soulless white and grey, and she wiped the sleep from her eyes, trying to think straight. She thought she heard water running, but the kitchen was empty. She shook her head, went back to the living room, stared out the windows at the street below.
There were no footprints in the snow today, no trace how she and Pyotr had arrived. A gust of wind blew some trash from the long pile in front of the building. A yellow plastic biohazard bag, emptied of its deadly burden, floated ominously down the street.
“Eva,” said a voice, and it wasn’t Pyotr’s. She got to her feet, turned around quickly, backed to the empty window.
“Who’s there?” she called.
Still, no one replied.
She edged to the kitchen, found a knife in a drawer, and moved back to the window, keeping her back to the wall at all times. She swore she heard scratching from the far end of the room, but it was impossible… there was no one there. She could see no one was there.
She checked out the window, back to the clean snow, shuddering.
“Pyotr… please come back… please…”
When she turned back, Rhodri was standing before her.
“Eva,” he said, his eyes raw, skin pale. “You left me…”
She shrieked, held the knife out at him, backed further, but there was nowhere to go.
“Stay back!” she shouted. “Don’t come any closer!”
He didn’t move his feet, but he reached a poor, wretched hand out to her.
“Why did you leave me, Eva? Why would you leave me there?”
“You’re a monster!” she shouted.
“But we’re in love! You love me!”
“No!” she shouted, swinging the knife at the open air between them, covering her eyes. “You’re a monster! Just leave me alone!”
When she looked back, the room was empty. Her heart skipped a beat, and she lowered the knife, eyes darting left and right. The wind blew snow into the room, cold blades on her face, and she flinched.
“Eva,” said Rhodri from right beside her.
She screamed, swung the knife out, missing by an inch, and scuttled backwards, into the wall, and then ran full-tilt back to the stairs, slipping and tumbling down them until she crashed to the floor, the knife sliding away. She made a mad scramble towards it, grabbing it with her sprained hand, quickly scraping to her knees, and up, down the hall.
She heard a thump from above, and a scrape, and the light down the stairs was blocked by a tottering form.
“Eva…” called Rhodri, ghostly. “Eva, we need to talk…”
She raced around the corner, into a back part of the house, and slipped onto her face at something slick on the floor. Blood. She got to her feet, bracing against the walls, ran faster, down to a small closet at the end of the hall, pushed inside and curled into the corner, knife pointing up and out, trembling, fighting off hysteria.
“Go away… go away…” she cursed. “Leave me alone, please leave me alone…”
The only light came from a crack in the door, pale yellow, right across her eye. She reached back into the darkness, found a blanket on the ground, covered herself, trying to make herself invisible. While she struggled, something fell out of the blanket, hit the ground with a thump.
She froze, knife pointed at the crack in the door, looked down, up, and down again. It was a small laptop, lying on the floor, its soft blue sleep light pulsing. She reached a nervous hand out, turned it over right side up, and lifted the lid.
No sound from the hallway as the computer resumed its previous state. It took a moment, hummed to itself, and then began showing a flickering video feed, distorted and grainy. She stared at it a full minute before she realized what she saw…
The room upstairs.
The window, the snow-covered streets, the sofa, the sheets where she’d made love, the wrapper she dropped on the floor…
Into the shot, stiff and awkward, walked Rhodri. He looked round the room, to the window, then back to the stairs. And then, very deliberately, he looked straight at her. She shuddered, threw the computer back against the wall, covered her eyes. When she looked back, he was gone, but the computer had switched programs, bringing another to the front.
A browser window, showing a discussion forum. She recognized the colours instantly, read the banner with a gaping mouth: The University of Paris Alumni Association. She reached out, pulled the computer closer, touched the trackpad and scrolled down the page, up again. Notices of births, weddings, so many deaths. “Have you seen Fréderick?” or “Remembering my dear sweet Anabelle”.
She clicked on one, saw a photo of a girl she’d never known, smiling in her school colours, with an accounting of her death at the hands of the one of the western plagues. The smile didn’t fit the words, and Eva closed it quickly to avoid the sight.
And there, at the top of the page, she saw something that tore at her eyes.
RHODRI TENANT READ THIS NOW!
Checking the crack in the door, she clicked through, read the short message: “Rhodri: Loving your girl for you. Love Pytor @ Prague XOXO”. Below was a video clip on a loop, and she bit back a gasp as she saw herself, naked on the sheets upstairs, Pyotr over her, moving back and forth in the dim light. She began to shake, tears in her eyes, hand covering her mouth.
“I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” said Pyotr from the doorway, hands in his pockets and his face solemn and cold.
“I… I don’t understand…” Eva gasped. “W-why?”
He pushed the door open, further, and she re-gripped the knife, the tip aimed straight at his heart.
“They’re after Rhodri, Eva. Not you. It was never you. You were just—”
“Bait? You used me as bait?”
“I had to,” he said, not pleading.
“Bullshit,” she spat.
“They gave me no choice! They said if I didn’t get Rhodri to Prague, they’d send me back!”
“Send you back where?”
“Prison,” he said, dodging her glare. She pulled further back into the closet, kept darting looks to the hall beside him. “I’ve been locked up since Maselle died. I almost beat her doctor to death.”
Eva blinked, stunned.
“So all that about… about finding new places to live… you being at the police station… that was all lies?”
Pyotr nodded meekly, ashamed.
“It was a set-up. They left the door unlocked so we could run into each other, escape together. Sobotka’s been taking care of us. The pills were her idea.”
“Like throwing me onto my head?”
“Listen, we both freaked out about that. The last thing either of us wanted to do is have you die over this. Hell, she gave me the gun when she found out about the university. Hurting you is not what we’re about, Eva.”
“Yeah, not until you get what you want.”
He shook his head, sighed.
“I know this won’t count for much, but I… I’m ready to run away with you for real. They can trace me, but I bet they won’t if we move fast. I got the stuff ready. I was coming back to get you, to take you away. I was going to get out of here. With you. And you’d never have to know about any of this.”
She aimed the knife at him, breathing deeply.
“You lied to me. You’re lying to me now. All you want is Rhodri. I’m bait, and that’s it.”
“Eva, that’s not true! I’d take care of you! Not like Rhodri did. From what I hear, he’s done some twisted shit, and he’s put you in the middle of it. I’d never risk you. I wouldn’t launch a major virus strike into my girlfriend’s hometown.”
She narrowed her eyes, got to her feet, back against the wall. Pyotr did the same.
“Rhodri’s behind Prague-1?” she asked, weak.
Pyotr nodded, solemn.
“They think if they can get him here, he won’t launch the strike, and they can arrest him.”
“So why not just ask me? Ask me to lure him? Why all this?”
He shrugged.
“Frankly, Eva, they’re not sure you’re not working with him. They couldn’t risk it.”
“And you? What do you think?”
He smiled at her, and it was almost like his old self was back again.
“I heard you last night. I know how you feel about all this. I know you’d never kill innocent people.”
The knife lowered gently, then shot back up. Pyotr kept a safe distance, eyeing her carefully.
“I just want my mother back,” Eva cried. “I want my mom and I want to get out of this town and never come back!” Her eyes cleared suddenly, and she stepped forward, jutting. “What did they do to my mother? Where is she?”
“They don’t know, Eva, I swear. They planted her coat upstairs with Rhodri’s number to make you call, but they are as much in the dark about that as you. I swear, none of us know where she is.
“Now listen, please. Your plan to escape was a good one. I’m ready to go, and I know it’ll take time before you really trust me again. But we have to go now, before Sobotka catches on…”
She didn’t lower the knife, kept checking for Rhodri around the corner. Pyotr sighed.
“But Eva, really, if you’re not on board for this, I’m still going,” he said, and pulled the gun from his belt, aiming it squarely at her chest. “So you’re going to have to make a pretty big choice right now.”
He flicked the safety, shook his head slightly at her. She watched the weapon anxiously, the knife swaying downward, but not out.
“What’s it going to be?” he said.
Just then, a second gun slid in, pointed at Pyotr’s temple, turned a bit to the side. Eva gasped when she saw the face beside Pyotr, grim and unflinching.
“Put the gun down,” said Dmitri. “or I paint that wall a nice shade of fucked-up.”
