Anya's scream aborted as the air exploded from her lungs on impact with the ground.
Her right shoulder took the brunt of the force as she tucked her body into a ball and tumbled haphazardly down an incline. She squeezed her eyes shut, vertigo triggering wave upon wave of nausea before she came to a merciful stop face-down at the tree line.
She couldn't move, her arms and legs splayed at odd angles. Chunks of packed snow had bruised her face like rocks. Ice crammed into her mouth and coat during her violent tumble and had melted on contact, numbing her to the bone.
What if she was paralyzed? What if this was the very spot she was to die in, no closer to her destiny than when she'd begun her journey?
Terror seized her, stopping her breath altogether until she began shivering so hard her teeth chattered. She went limp with relief. At least her body was still in one piece.
Sucking in a deep breath, she quickly performed an assessment for damage, first wiggling her fingers and toes, then gingerly bending her arms and legs. She was stiff, but there were no sprains, no broken bones. She rolled over with a groan and came face to face with a pine tree, its snow-laden branches sagging low enough for the thin leaves to brush her cheeks.
She slapped the branch away and struggled to her feet against the throbbing pain in her shoulder.
"I hate trains. Remind me never to get on a train again."
Red washed across her thoughts as she registered the distant voice, diluting the pain. She stumbled blindly toward the source, hand clutching her shoulder, snow crunching angrily beneath the punishing tread of her boots.
Dimitri was standing several yards away, grinning as he helped pull Vladimir to a stand.
"Hey, Vlad, where's the train case - WHOA!"
Unfortunately for Anya, Dimitri reacted more quickly than she would have liked, jerking out of the way so that her knuckles barely grazed his nose when she swung at him. The reflex threw him off balance and he tumbled backwards to land on his backside, just as bear-like arms grabbed Anya around her midsection and gently swung her away from him.
Vladimir was speaking calmly to her now, squeezing her shoulders with his meaty hands and forcing her to walk back the way she'd come, away from Dimitri. She hardly noticed him, rage making everything hazy, like she was watching the scene through red-tinted fog.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dimitri yelled as he jumped up, pants wet in patches from the snow, his face pinched in confusion and anger.
"Are you kidding? What's wrong with me?" Incredulous, she hollered back at him with enough force to hurt her throat, still trying to push past the wall that was Vladimir to get at Dimitri. "You called a truce and then you pushed me out of a goddamn train!"
"So?" Now it was Dimitri who was advancing, chest heaving and steam bursting from his nostrils. He swiped his hair out of his eyes and barked, "You're not locked up and you're alive, aren't you? I saved your ass!"
Anya could only gape at him in disgust, her hands on her hips. Her breath came faster and faster, her lungs and throat burning with every inhale of freezing air. "Let me get this right: you conduct some back-alley shit with our tickets that almost gets us thrown off the train...and I'm supposed to be grateful?"
"You better!" Dimitri shot back. "We're the only reason you could get on a train at all, and if it wasn't for you going back to get that stupid dog, we wouldn't be in this situation!"
The smug look on his face pushed Anya over the edge.
"God, I hate you!" she screeched, but Vladimir was ready for her when she lunged at Dimitri this time. With a long-suffering groan, he picked her up and deposited her wriggling form next to a rotting log several feet away.
"You stay here," he said simply, his voice demanding obedience, its gruffness a stark contrast to the gentle hands he placed on her shoulders.
"But I - he -" Anya protested, far too upset to be intelligible.
"Yes." Vladimir gave her a small, knowing smile. "I will talk to him."
"Don't bother!" Anya violently shrugged him off and stepped away, so livid now that she was shaking. Aside from the fact that Dimitri had callously shoved her out of a train with no thought for her safety, knowing Paris and its possibilities had slipped through her fingers again was almost more than she could bear. Eyes burning, she stubbornly swallowed back the tears that threatened the corners of her eyes. "I'm not dealing with him anymore! You two do whatever the hell you want; I'm done!"
Vladimir started to object, but Anya only threw up her hands. She meant what she'd said. She was done with all of it.
When Vladimir reached for her hand, she brushed him off and turned her focus to looking for Pooka. The poor thing was probably terrified; she'd lost her grip on him in when she'd hit the ground and there was no telling how far he'd been thrown.
"Pooka! Pooka!"
A happy bark sounded from somewhere within the treeline behind her, and she whirled to see Pooka running toward her feet. Smiling as she picked him up, Anya held him close as the snowflakes caught in his fur melted on her cheeks.
She could hear Vladimir trying to talk Dimitri down from his tantrum, but Anya couldn't care less about what was being said. Her focus was on the train tracks that disappeared around a curve a few miles ahead.
"Hey!" Dimitri called after her as she turned to follow the tracks. "Where do you think you're going?"
Anya pulled her coat lapels in tighter around she and Pooka and walked faster.
"Anya!"
"Kiss my ass, Dimitri!" she yelled over her shoulder, refusing to look back.
After a moment Anya could hear quick footsteps behind her. Dimitri ran up next her and then moved to stand in her path. Ignoring him, Anya side-stepped to move around him.
"I'm sorry, do you have some grand plan here you'd like to let us in on?" he taunted, trying to get a rise out of her.
It was working. But Anya bristled and didn't respond.
Dimitri kept at it, first dogging her steps, then stepping in front of her every time she would brush past him. "What are you going to do without money? What happens when the train track forks and you don't have a map?"
"I'll figure it out!"
"Please, Anya, you'll never make it without us and you know it!"
The sting of that simple statement and nothing else made Anya stop. It didn't really matter how callous or infuriating Dimitri was, or how much she hated him. What he'd said was true. She could keep recognizing it, then refusing to believe it, but it didn't change anything. If she had any small reason to believe it was possible to make it across the continent on her own, she would have kept walking until she passed out. But she was in the middle of nowhere, no food, no map, with only what could hardly be called a coat on her back for warmth. She could die out here.
So what now? As far as she was concerned, her little enterprise with Vladimir and Dimitri was over. But Dimitri still had two things she needed to make it alone. She'd simply find a way to relieve him of both.
When Anya finally turned around, Dimitri was still standing there with his arms crossed, a wry smile on his lips. "Have we finally come to our senses?"
"How much money do you have exactly?" Anya asked bluntly, her face carefully blank.
Dimitri seemed thrown by the abrupt question and narrowed his eyes. "Enough. Nothing to concern yourself with." His gaze grew penetrative and suspicious.
Rethinking things, Anya decided she was above petty thievery and abandoned the plan to rob Dimitri and Vladimir and leave them destitute in the wilderness. But she was not above snatching the map. They seemed to be well-traveled men; they'd find their way. This, however, was Anya's maiden voyage. "Where's the map, then?"
"In the suitcase." Dimitri seemed tense. His shoulders were drawn up but Anya knew is was from more than just the cold.
"Well? Can I see it? Don't I deserve that much after you tried to kill me?" She hoped she looked innocent enough.
Dimitri seemed to mull it over before deciding her request was as benign as Anya had intended for him to believe.
"I guess it can't hurt." He began walking back to where Vladimir stood with the suitcases and Anya followed him.
Anya immediately noticed the tension in the usually relaxed Vladimir as they approached.
"God, Vlad, what's wrong now?" Dimitri must have noticed as well.
"That," Vladimir said tightly as he pointed at the ground, "is not your suitcase."
And Dimitri went so pale, so quickly, Anya thought he was literally going to faint where he stood. She thought she heard him praying as he dropped to his knees and ripped open the black case, releasing a profusion of silk and lace in black, beige and white. A woman's underthings.
If Dimitri hadn't looked so devastated Anya probably would have laughed in his face.
Though she already knew the answer, she couldn't stop herself asking pointedly, "So, Dimitri, where's the map?"
When he mumbled something under his breath, Anya prodded him further. "I'm sorry, what did you say? I couldn't hear you over just 'how much I need you'."
"It's on the train," he said, snarling. He stood up, slapping snow off his knees.
"And the money?" Vladimir's voice was strained and slightly higher than usual.
Dimitri briefly hung his head before looking out in the distance, back toward St. Petersburg, no doubt wishing he had never left. "There's 80 rubles in my coat pocket. The rest I left in the case for safekeeping."
So it seemed Dimitri did not have everything under control after all, and it took everything in Anya's being not to gloat like a schoolyard bully. In the end, she couldn't help it. She was downright giddy.
"Well," she said, shifting Pooka to her other arm and taking a seat on one of the suitcases, "since we're all in the same pickle, I guess I'll stick around for a while longer." She smiled brightly at Dimitri. "At least with you two around the wolves will have something to snack on before they get to me."