⧗ CHAPTER SIX ⧗

The Red Room's library was Dmitri's new sanctuary.

It took up nearly an entire wing of the estate; two floors of books, tall windows on either side that let in the cool, wintry landscape. Shelves upon shelves of books so high one needed a rolling ladder to reach them, lining either side of the long hall, with an aisle in the center devoted to desks and seating. Plush couches, desks with antique green lamps, and a great thick registry for taking out books.

It was beautiful, much like the rest of the Red Room. Perhaps one of the most comprehensive libraries Dmitri's ever seen, much less visited.

The only thing more notable than its content was perhaps the way it was organized. Dmitri was familiar with the Dewey decimal system, but had never seen it utilized in this particular way — he'd never seen such a large collection devoted to the method and history of dance. Or a section just for the study of poisons and venom. It's books on animal biology had a focus on spiders and their many species, slightly smaller than the one devoted to human behavior and sexuality; and last but not least of all, a massive section on death and all its nuances. From means and methods to funerary practices and rituals across the world.

As morbid as it was, Dmitri found it surprisingly refreshing. Having entered what was essentially, to him, a girl's finishing school, Dmitri had feared that perhaps the things he would be learning would be… tame. Sheltered. Father said this school would teach Dmitri to protect himself, to prepare him for a hostile, dangerous world. And while his classes so far were difficult but not unusual, Dmitri was starting to see where it all might lead him.

If he'd ever get there, of course.

All these books were lovely, but Dmitri wasn't reading them for pleasure. Wasn't even reading any of the books from all those unique sections. No, he was just studying for his Mandarin test. And his chemistry test. And history. None of the classes had the same students, but Dmitri was convinced there was some cruel plot at play to all arrange tests at the same time.

Just keeping up with the study load had Dmitri already retreating to the library every evening just to keep up. Two weeks in and he felt like he was up to his neck, barely treading water. But he was doing it. He wasn't drowning. Yet.

Progress was being made. Dmitri was starting to understand some of the Mandarin being spoken in class, and his pronunciation was improving, by leaps and bounds. The science wasn't so hard, but it was difficult not to think back to the tutoring sessions he had with Mia over similar topics.

The only area he was still frustrated in was regarding his arm. Physical therapy was helping, he had a bit more movement and less pain in his shoulder and elbow — but his hand remained infuriatingly useless. Dmitri's weak hand still ached from having to write, even if his penmanship was improving. But the fingers of his right hand had little strength in them. Slow, stiff movements was all he was capable of. He despaired, unable to believe he'll ever recover fast or strong enough to dance again, as the Madame promised would happen.

"Hello, Dmitri,"

He didn't hear Sabina and Oksana's approach until they were right in front of him. Sabina's voice jolted Dmitri out of his studying fugue, looking up at them in surprise. The girls giggled apologetically.

"Sorry," Oksana said, holding up her hands and wincing slightly. "Didn't mean to startle you. We're not interrupting, are we?"

"It's fine," Dmitri shook his head. He'd already had a headache building for the past hour, three textbooks laid out before him, all those words swimming in front of his eyes. "Did you two need something?"

"We just wanted to see how you were doing," Sabina said, as the two of them sat down in chairs on the opposite side of the table. She gestured to all the work before him. "You've been working so hard we never get to talk much. You just dived right in before we had a chance to reconnect."

Reconnect? Oh, right. Dmitri often forgot he'd been here before; the Red Room still felt so new. It was disconcerting to hear how Sabina talked about them, like they used to be old friends. "I'm… doing alright. My arm's been killing me, though. My hand is completely useless."

"Hm," Oksana frowned as Dmitri demonstrated his lack of ability, placing his right hand on the table, palm-side up, and the weak flexing of his fingers. "Nurse Blatova hasn't been helping?"

"She works on my arm. It just feels like its going so slow."

"Just give it time, Dmitri," Sabina said softly, a motherly tone that had Dmitri flushing. He hated how whiny he sounded. "You were very badly hurt. It'll come slower than what you're learning."

"I guess," Dmitri made a face, unconvinced. He was learning faster than he was recovering, sure, but that didn't make it a guarantee. "Just hoping I can pass those tests next week."

And not find out what it's like to fail. That, more than anything, struck an inexplicable, almost unfounded fear into Dmitri's heart like nothing else.

"I'm sure you'll do great," Sabina smiled. "You've already done these tests before."

"I-I have?" Dmitri tensed automatically. Every once and a while he'd experience a visceral sense of deja vu, but he'd never know exactly what triggered it. Each time a snippet, a piece of memory appeared, it slipped away before he could grab it. Were they really memories? Or was he just imagining things?

Oksana, noticing Dmitri's reaction, elbowed the other girl, throwing her a look. Sabina closed her eyes and sighed, "Right, right, you still don't remember, do you?"

Dmitri only shook his head, unable to look either of them in the eye. He couldn't stand the way they looked so hurt over that. Strangers offended by his forgetfulness, of memories that weren't there. That probably never existed.

But he had been here before, hadn't he?

"How long was I gone?' Dmitri asked, at length. His voice sounded a little choked, and he coughed, trying to clear it. To get rid of the shakiness he hated. "I mean, you know. When did I leave?"

"Oh, how many years ago was it?" Oksana said to Sabina, as she looked up at the ceiling in thought.

"We were thirteen, the last time you left," Sabina said, frowning in thought. "The Madame said you'd gotten sick again, but this time you never came back."

"Sick?" Again? Last time? Dmitri was utterly baffled.

"Yeah, every year or so you'd come down with the flu," Oksana agreed. "They'd take you to the infirmary and we weren't allowed to even visit in case we got sick, too. Then you'd come back, a little off, but then it was back to normal quick enough. Never so long that you fell behind."

"Wait, so you mean," Dmitri suddenly felt very sick. His hands gripped the sides of the table, knuckles going white. "I've been here since I was five years old?"

Sabina and Oksana nodded in unison, and Sabina said, "That's as old as the Madame will accept. Our training is too intense to start when girls — kids — are older. They'd never catch up. But look, Dmitri, you've only been gone for four years, but you still remember, see? You're already conjugating Mandarin perfectly. You finished at the top of our class years ago."

"I — what?" Dmitri's mind was going a mile a minute before he looked down at his work again, frowning at the sheet he was filling in. He'd done this before? He already knew Mandarin? "But I don't remember. Those aren't the memories I have."

Sabina's smile flickered a bit, sharing a glance with Oksana. There was a slight pause, before Oksana leaned in and, in an undertone, asked, "What do you remember, Dmitri?"

"I-I grew up in St. Petersburg." Dmitri said. He knew that snowy city like the back of his hand. The streets and the bridges, the streetlamps that glowed warm on a hazy winter night, the music that played from the storefronts during the holiday season. The smell of street food that he always bought on his way home from school, the savory salmon blini. Laughing with his friends Alexei and Galina. "They have this-this wonderful dance school, that's where I spent all my time. My father, he was a banker, he has an estate there, I've lived there since — since I was…"

Five. That was how old he was when his parents got divorced, and Father gained sole custody. He only saw his mother once or twice a year, if that. No more than a week at a time.

A cold realization fell over Dmitri like a blanket of snow.

He could feel Oksana and Sabina's gazes upon him, long and pitying. Dmitri's voice felt so very small. "…None of that was real, was it?"

Very slowly, they shook their heads.

"No," Oksana said, softly. "I'm sorry, Dmitri. I'm sure maybe some of it was, but… no. You were with us, the entire time."

Dmitri knew his home had been real. Father's. That place would forever be embedded in his memory — not his bedroom, with the signed poster of Mikhail Baryshnikov, his Red Guardian action figure punching out Captain America on his desk, the collection of worn out dance shoes displayed on a shelf — but his father's office. The place where he watched a man's brains splatter across the walls, the same man who had been assigned his protective detail for half his life. Right before that gun was turned on Dmitri himself. The one he put himself in front of, to protect his father.

The one Mia stood behind. His friend, his crush. Her eyes, cold and lifeless when she pulled the trigger.

That. That had been real.

But everything else? Dmitri's heart was crushed. He could still taste those warm, wonderful blinis, could feel the slick ice beneath his feet when skating in the park. Alexei and Galina. They had been his best friends. Had they just… were they just figments of his imagination?

"Why?" It was all Dmitri could think to say, his voice broken.

Why did he have these memories if they weren't real? Why couldn't he remember Sabina and Oksana, the Red Room?

Oksana could only shrug. "I imagine it's by design. As all things are here. The Madame must have her reasons. I'm sure it was only to protect you, Dmitri."

"The things here are very… sensitive," Sabina added, and they were still speaking in whispers. Dmitri wasn't sure why, no one else was in the library. But it did feel like they were speaking in code. "The Madame has lost students before. We don't really know what's happened to them, only that they might have been taken. And that's besides all the things they teach us here. The Red Room, its location, everything — it's a secret. And there are people who want those secrets."

That much, Dmitri could understand. Now that he knew who his father was, the business he dealt with. It sure as hell wasn't banking like Dmitri had been told. He could only swallow thickly and nod. "How can the Red Room do that? I didn't know such a thing was possible."

"The Madame has her ways," was all Sabina said.

How horribly vague. Dmitri should've expected it by now. "But — but how?"

"It's not for us to know," Sabina only shook her head, like Dmitri was asking the wrong questions. "That's the choice we made when we came here, Dmitri. We trust the Madame. We don't ask questions. That's the price that keeps us safe, makes us strong."

"It's best if you try to forget all of that," Oksana suggested, her tone sympathetic. "Now that you're here, none of it matters. And to be honest…" She made a face. "It's not good to talk about that sort of stuff. You know, around the other girls."

"Especially about your parents, it's not…" Sabina tilted her head from side to side. "It'll make them uncomfortable."

"We're not allowed to talk about our parents?" Dmitri asked. That seemed rather bizarre. And that's on top of his warped memories.

"We all came here so young," Sabina said, with a shrug. "None of us got to leave like you did and see our parents again. Some of us were given away. Some of us lost, taken, or rescued. I was already an orphan when the Red Room found me."

"My mother couldn't afford to keep me," Oksana added, with a sad smile. "The state offered to take me in, so that's what they did. I barely remember them at all, it was so long ago. The only mother I have now is the Madame."

"Some girls don't remember. Others don't want to," Sabina concluded, with a helpless shrug. "It's kinder not to remind them what they don't have. What they don't know won't hurt them."

Dmitri wasn't sure if he believed that, but he understood the sentiment. The jealousy, the resentment that might arrive. The Red Room was part boarding school, part orphanage, and something in between. And Dmitri had so few friends here already, he didn't want to start making enemies. Regarding Ksenia, Dmitri figured that ship had already sailed.

Not wanting to make a big deal out of it, Dmitri decided to change the subject. "So, then… if I was here for so long, does that mean we were friends?"

At last, Sabina and Oksana deliver him beautiful smiles, all white teeth, perfectly aligned. They must have really good dentists here. They looked so thrilled, his heart squeezed.

"We practically all grew up together," Oksana said, reaching a hand towards him across the table. Dmitri couldn't help but notice the scar on her wrist. Was reminded of the red ring around his own arm, where the cuffs had started to rub uncomfortably. "We always called you братишка — little brother."

The face Dmitri made at that must have been funny, because they both laughed. Between giggles, Sabina explained, "You were a lot smaller back then."

"I bet," Dmitri muttered, but felt a smile put at his lips. Bratiška — it sounded soft, familiar. "I always thought I was an only child."

"Not in the Red Room," Sabina told him, and her hand reached out to join Oksana's, a gesture of solidarity. "We're a family. A sisterhood."

"And now we have our brother back," Oksana grinned.

Dmitri smiled.