Page 114 of Hate You Most

“No,” she whispered, fought to keep her voice even, and then she pulled the phone away from her ear and ended the call.

The silence that followed was abrupt.

For a second she simply stood there with the dark screen in her hand, breathing too fast. Her chest rose and fell in uneven, painful waves. A small and broken sound escaped Viktoriya's lips. She turned around and looked at her wife. Whatever composure she still had left dissolved completely.

She swore in Russian and fell into Dakota's arms.

“It was my idea,” she said, her accent so thick she had to cough once and try again. “He said it was my idea.”

“What was your idea?”

“The accident,” she said. “The car crash—It was my own idea. The other crashes were their own ideas too.”

Anger moved across Dakota's face. “No, that's not true. It is not consent if you were pressured, and it is not your fault if he used fear to get you to agree.”

Viktoriya’s breath broke entirely then, the tears spilling over before she could stop them. Dakota pulled her into her arms and held her close in the simplest way, one hand moving slowly over her back in steady circles.

“You did not choose this freely,” Dakota whispered. “You did not choose it, if the choice was losing your skating. That is coercion, Viktoriya. That is not consent.”

Viktoriya shook in her arms, her hands clutching at Dakota’s shirt as the full weight of it hit her all over again.

“It was my choice,” she choked out. “My choice.”

“It wasn't," Dakota said, and there was no doubt in her voice, none at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

April 28th, 2023.

— Dakota Sanchez apartment. Detroit, Michigan. Time fractured completely.

Her memory returned in broken fragments.

The pouring rain turned the windshield into a smear of greys and blues and bright red taillights. Viktoriya's hands were locked so tightly around the steering wheel that her knuckles had turned white beneath the glow from the dashboard. The wipers scraped across the glass in tired, uneven strokes. The sound reminded her of a failing heartbeat.

She sat for a moment with the engine still running, the rain drumming against the roof of the car. She stared at her phone, at the last message she had sent to her father.

Viktoriya

Get it done.

An awful certainty settled fully into her chest, like dirty floodwater or blood filled ice. She needed to tear out the part of herself that still returned to Dakota, every time she closed her eyes.

She remembered the fear more than the choice. The fear of returning to America with rumors clinging to her like dirty cigarette smoke. Fear of being too well known and not known enough. The fear of losing her skating, losing Russia, losing the thin thread that kept her life from splintering completely.

Her pulse throbbed in her throat. For one strange, dizzying second, she thought she would turn the car around and drive somewhere else, do anything else—but her father’s voice pressed against the inside of her skull. She needed to do this, she needed to free herself from temptations. Her life needed to get back on track.

The rain became heavier, battering against the roof of her car. Viktoriya drew in a sharp breath and for one impossible second, the white glare over the windshield shifted, and she was somewhere else entirely.

Viktoriya stood just outside her father’s office in the heart of Moscow. Rainwater dripped from her soaked hair and formed a small puddle on the floor. She moved nervously toward the door.

The air smelled faintly of paper and leather and cold open windows. She was younger than she was now, or possibly just less broken.

The door was opened for her.

Her father sat behind a desk with his fingers folded over a stack of papers. She remembered the way her pulse had pounded in her head as he'd told her how much attention was on her now, and how dangerous it all was becoming.

“Dakota Sanchez is a distraction to you,” he had said. “You need to remain focused. You need to stay on the right track.”