SHE CALLS JULIAN

TATIANA

The phone is a negotiation I didn't expect to win.

I'd been mapping out how to ask for it for two days. Building an argument. Listing precedents, because that's what you do when you want something you can't just take. 

Monitored contact with the outside world poses no security risk he isn't already managing. He's already tracking everything. Giving me the call costs him nothing except the discomfort of watching me want something.

I presented the argument at breakfast.

He listened without interrupting me. When I finished, he said nothing for a moment, and then he got up and left the kitchen, and I thought I'd miscalculated. But ten minutes later Dmitri appeared in the doorway and handed me a phone.

"Monitored," Dmitri said, like he thought I might not have figured that out myself.

"Obviously," I said.

I took the phone to my room. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the screen for a minute before I dialed, and I don't know why that felt strange. 

I've talked to Julian a hundred times. More than five hundred times. 

I know the way he sounds when he picks up, that easy warmth that makes you feel like you're the person he was waiting for, specifically.

He picks up on the second ring.

“Julian.” I say. My voice barely above a whisper.

"Tatiana." His voice slips through the phone's speaker, and I feel my shoulders drop half an inch even though I'm sitting in a room I was dragged to against my will. "Thank God. Are you okay? I've been going insane. I got your letter. I called your phone a hundred times."

"I'm fine," I say, and my voice starts to sound normal, which surprises me a little.

“Your parents, Tatiana, my love. I'm so sorry.” He makes a sound like he’s holding back a sob and tears blurs my vision. “Where are you?”

 "I'm in a house somewhere on the coast. I don't know exactly where. They took my phone."

"Who has you? Do you know who they are?"

I look at the wall. Outside the window, clouds are moving across the cliff face in slow grey bands. "His name is Kain Morozov. He’s my missing step-brother"

Silence occupies the space on his end for a short time. Then he asks.

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Are you safe?"

I think about that for a second. It’s a strange thing to have to think about. "I think so. For now."

"Okay." His voice has shifted into something measured and purposeful, the way it gets when he's working out a problem. "Okay, listen. I'm going to find you. I have contacts. Just don't do anything that would give them reason to hurt you, all right? Stay calm. Keep your head down."

Keep your head down. I almost laugh, but I don't, because Julian would take that the wrong way and right now I need him to think I'm following his advice.

"I know," I say instead.

"I love you," he says, and his voice goes soft in a way that always used to make me feel held. "I'm going to fix this."

"I know you will," I tell him.

We stay on the line for another two minutes while he tells me to remember details, to notice things, to look for patterns in the guard rotation. 

All of which I am already doing, and have been doing since the first morning I woke up here. But I let him explain it, because there's something comforting in being given instructions even when you don't need them. 

Someone outside this house is thinking about me. Someone cares enough to make plans for my safety.

When we hang up I sit with the phone in my hands and look at the wall.

I don't know why I feel slightly hollow. I love Julian. I've loved Julian for two years. He's warm and steady and he calls me his best thing. That's actually quite a lot.

The room is very quiet.

Kain appears in the doorway.

He doesn't knock. I've noticed it's a consistent pattern and I've decided to address it more loudly at some point. He leans against the frame, hands in his pockets, watching me. I can't tell if he's looking at me or through me.

He says. "The call is done."

He already knows. He was listening. 

"Yes," I say.

He looks at me for one more second, something moving behind his eyes that I can't read, and then he pushes off the doorframe and his footsteps disappear down the hall.

I turn the phone over in my hands.

I could call someone else. I could try to pass vital information through. But I did not foresee my whole family being murdered at dinner. If I did, I'd have been better prepared.