THE DEVIL’S ON CALL

Atoms Of panic

This was the exact same, recurring sensation Zoya had been violently suffocating under for days. the hollow, paralyzing certainty that someone was standing directly behind her in the dark, waiting for the perfect micro second to strike.

She stood pressed flat against the rough, freezing bark of a towering pine tree, her spine rigid as she desperately tried to shrink her frame into the narrow shadows. She slammed one of her hands brutally over her mouth, her fingers digging into her own cheeks as she fought to keep her frantic, rattling breaths perfectly steady. Don't breathe. Don't make a sound. She closed her eyes for a brief, terrifying moment, her mind racing at a catastrophic velocity as she tried to process the sheer madness of what was unfolding in the grey mist around her.

She had been insanely, profoundly suspicious the absolute second Lev had walked into her medical clinic this morning. She was certain he was orchestrating some kind of trap, this was the exact same Lev who usually went out of his way to avoid her presence entirely. Yet, despite every single instinct screaming at her to resist, she had willingly let him drive her out into the wilderness to execute her like an animal.

She should have refused. She should have feigned a shred of pride, stood her ground behind her examination desk, and forced him to drag her out by her hair. But who the hell was she kidding? She was utterly terrified. She was so profoundly terrified of the Starkov twins that the fear had begun to alter her genetic makeup. Ever since that harrowing night out with Ivan, she had been operating on the absolute precipice of a psychological break. She was always looking behind her in the corridors, always jumping at the sound of a closing door, always desperately messaging Kirill every single chance she got just to remind herself that a world outside this estate still existed.

For the past three days, Zoya had felt like she was living under the cold, magnification lens of a stethoscope. She was being watched, evaluated, and tracked like an alien commodity. Her clinical sanctuary, the empty hallways, the heavy door to her bedroom, the kitchen counters, even taking a brief, suffocating breath of fresh air on the stone terrace not a single square inch of her existence had been spared from their omnipresent surveillance.

The sharp, devastating sound of a twig snapping bare yards away made her violently shudder. Her fingers, slick with sweat and cold rain, firmly clamped around the heavy steel handle of the Glock Lev had tossed her. She pressed the weapon hard against her thigh, using the physical pain of the metal to keep herself from collapsing onto the damp earth.

She was hyperventilating. Even with the boundless, open air of the forest swirling around her, she felt incredibly small. She felt the heavy, suffocating constriction of a prey animal whose territory had been completely surrounded by a predator.

Slowly, her hands trembling so violently her knuckles clicked, she released her grip from her mouth and peeked around the rough edge of the bark, looking back toward the direction of the sound.

Nothing. Only the drifting, pale tendrils of the morning fog weaving through the trunks.

She finally forced her stiff legs to step out of her hiding spot, her heart hammering against her ribs as she tried to convince herself that she had put a safe, permanent distance between their frames. She took a ragged, uneven breath, a hot stream of fresh tears instantly spilling over her lower lids and running down her dirty cheeks. Why? Why the hell is this happening to me? With the heavy gun still clutched in her right hand, she used the sleeve of her knit jacket to frantically wipe the moisture from her face. Was she really going to die today? Was her entire existence going to end out here in the damp woods, hunted down like some worthless piece of meat for a man’s amusement?

Snap. The sharp, explosive crack of another branch breaking directly to her left drew her attention like a physical blow. Her head snapped toward the noise, her vision blurring as she looked around the dense brush for the source. Before her mind could even register the trajectory, a blinding flash of gunpowder tore through the mist, and a heavy supersonic boom shattered the silence. A bullet hissed through the air, violently clipping the leaves bare inches above her ponytail.

This time, she didn't freeze. She didn't wait to find out if the lead had torn through her flesh. She ran.

She sprinted faster, deeper, and more erratically than she ever had in her life, her movements completely distorted by an overwhelming, pure mortification. The high grounds she had abandoned left her bare feet to violently collide with sharp stones, rotting thorns, and freezing mud, but she felt absolutely nothing. The adrenaline running through her veins was a toxic, numbing current.

He was going to kill her. He was really, truly going to murder her out here.

"Keep running, Zoya! Your survival only makes the chase better!" Lev’s voice rang out through the trees behind her. It wasn't his usual calm, calculated tone; it was a roaring, booming sound filled with a deep, serial enjoyment that made her stomach violently turn.

Zoya had always known Lev to be the cold, hyper calculating twin. During the lonely nights when she caught herself thinking about him, she realized that his silence was the only attribute she truly understood. Unlike Ivan, who was always dangerously creative at making himself, his violent theatricality, and his dark intentions known, Lev was distant. Indifferent. Cold.

She had foolishly categorized his indifference as a good thing. She had genuinely convinced herself that having at least one less Starkov to worry about was a blessing.

But she had been wrong. She had been so catastrophically wrong. Now, she was being hunted down like a feral dog by the very twin she had assumed was indifferent to her existence. And what was infinitely worse was the fact that she couldn't tell if this was all a calculated game to him, or if he was simply executing her for her defiance.

Zoya realized with a sickening wave of clarity how entirely badly she had misread this entire family. The twins... both of them... they were both absolute psychopaths. There was no distinct, moral difference between them other than the simple fact that one showed his crazy to the world while the other kept his locked beneath a pristine, terrifying compliance.

She kept moving forward, her lungs burning like they were filled with crushed glass as a deep, structural exhaustion began to gnaw at her muscles. But she couldn't stop. If she stopped, she died.

She cast a frantic look over her shoulder every few strides. Through the shifting grey curtains of fog, she could see his silhouette. He wasn't sprinting. He wasn't rushing. He was merely maintaining a steady, athletic jog, trailing behind her with the loose, flexible grace of a wolf that knew its prey was already running on a finite amount of time.

Her bare foot caught the edge of a hidden root, and she went flying forward, her body crashing violently onto the damp earth. She scrambled on her hands and knees, dragging herself behind the massive trunk of a large, fallen birch tree.

Breathing in short, frantic gasps, she quickly examined her ankle, her fingers shaking as she prayed the joint wasn't shattered. Luckily, the wood had only deeply grazed her skin, leaving a long, bleeding scratch across her flesh. She looked back through the brush, wondering how much longer her body could sustain this sprint before her heart literally exploded in her chest. If she could just find the main road... if she could just find a perimeter fence...

Her mind began to mentally calculate the parameters of the chase. Lev had shot at her exactly five times now. And every single time, the bullet had missed her vital organs by bare inches. Either she was the most ridiculously lucky human being alive on earth ... or he was intentionally toying with her.

Zoya was tired. She was completely wasted, broken, and out of breath. The physical exertion was colliding violently with the accumulated exhaustion of the past three days, the complete lack of sleep, the suffocating paranoia, the constant fear of Ivan's touch and words.

She was so incredibly tired. She wiped the fresh tears from her eyes once more, her head dropping against the damp wood of the fallen tree. She couldn't take another second of this. She was physically, mentally, and spiritually drained to the absolute dregs of her soul.

All year round, she had been subjected to an endless cycle of suffering. From losing her medical license in the city, to working degrading, random odd jobs just to buy groceries, to risking her life starting a dangerous black market clinic just to ensure that the people she cared about survived and now this. Her, here, on the absolute verge of being shot in the back of the head by a mad mafia enforcer .

She was burned out. She was completely empty. Her entire life of struggle, sacrifice, and survival had led her to this final, pathetic moment in the dirt. Zoya closed her eyes tightly, the tears pouring out uncontrollably over her cheeks. I didn't even get to say goodbye to Leo, she thought, a devastating wave of grief ripping through her chest. He's going to think I just abandoned him.

She ran her muddy hands through her disheveled hair, over her wet face, and down her throat, forcing her trembling legs to stand up. She slowly turned around, abandoning the shelter of the fallen log.

Her eyes landed directly on Lev. He was still a short distance away, walking down the overgrown path with a slow, deliberate stride, his gun held loosely at his side. He looked like a man who had all the time in the world.

She could have tried to run a little further into the brush, but her body was spent. She was fatigued beyond moments of recovery. She looked up at the grey, weeping sky, drawing a long, ragged breath of cold air as her vision turned hazy from the salt of her tears. She felt freezing cold. Even with all the blood pumping through her muscles from the sprint, violent shivers were wracking her spine. She closed her eyes, letting her arms drop to her sides, finally forcing herself to accept her fate.

In no time at all, the ambient temperature shifted. She could feel Lev’s massive, towering presence standing directly in front of her frame, blocking out the pale morning light.

The terrifying, freezing sensation of cold metal pressed firmly against the center of her forehead made a fresh batch of tears stream down her face. This was it. The final boundary.

One second passed. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Nothing happened. No explosion of pain. No darkness.

Mustering the absolute last shred of her courage, Zoya opened her eyes halfway through the blur of her lashes. Lev’s face came into perfect focus bare inches from her own. His features were cold, hard, and completely sinister. The exact moment he registered that she was looking at him, a wicked, triumphant grin stretched across his lips, and his index finger deliberately pulled the trigger.

BANG!

The deafening explosion and the violent echo of the gunshot blasted through her ears, the thick, acrid smell of spent gunpowder instantly overcoming her senses. Her central nervous system completely short-circuited, and she fell straight to the ground, her body going entirely limp against the wet leaves.

Heat. Zoya felt an immense, burning heat blooming across the skin of her face. Her hands were shaking so violently they looked like a blur, her heart forcing itself to beat faster and faster against her ribs like a trapped bird.

Slowly, her fingers trembling, she raised her palm to her forehead, expecting to feel the wet, gaping ruin of a bullet wound. She brought her hand back down to her face to inspect the damage.

Ash.

There was no blood. No crimson fluid. Just a thick, black smear of powdery carbon ash across her skin. She frantically rubbed both of her hands over her forehead, her temples, and her hair, her brain completely unable to comprehend the lack of pain and darkness. Nothing was broken.

She slowly turned her head toward Lev, her entire frame visibly shaking as a volatile mixture of tears and snot ran down her face.

He was now casually sitting on the large fallen tree beside her prone body, his long legs crossed at the ankles. He lazily waved the heavy Glock through the air, his voice dropping into a flat, mocking tone as he uttered a single word:

"Blanks."

Her vision went completely hazy all over again as a fresh, burning batch of tears poured out of her eyes. She looked down at the muddy ground, her knees sinking into the earth as she collapsed on all fours like a broken creature.

She cried out loud this time, completely abandoning whatever fragile layers of professional pride or medical detachment she had left. She didn't bother to hide her emotions from him anymore. She let out a loud, shattering scream of pure, unadulterated frustration that echoed through the empty trees.

She had been so incredibly close to dying. She had actively gone through the psychological process of accepting her own demise. And now, she just felt entirely empty, as if a massive, crushing weight had been violently lifted off her chest, leaving nothing but hollow space behind. Maybe it was true what they say…that near death experiences make you fully realize how truly you’ve lived your life.

Zoya had been so entirely caught up in protecting her family, so consumed by preserving all she had left of her brother, that she hadn't realized it until this exact moment: she had truly never lived a single day for herself. Her childhood, her teenage years, her twenties, even the moments ago when she had accepted her fate to die. she realized she had been completely, utterly alone. Her entire existence revolved around the survival of others, and she didn't possess a single person, a single memory, or a single thing that belonged exclusively to her.

The realization filled her with a sudden, toxic wave of anger. She had been so deeply bothered about everything and everyone else, and it had led her straight to this pathetic point in the dirt.

A huge, volatile surge of madness and lividness enveloped her chest all at once. She snapped her head back, her eyes locking onto Lev, who just sat on the log and watched her quietly, his dark eyes observing her breakdown as if he were basking in the beauty of her suffering and pain. All of it made her furiously angry. How dare they? How dare these brothers play with her mind like this? How dare they make her feel so incredibly small, worthless, and fragile just for their own twisted recreation? Even now, Lev had known the entire time that he wasn't going to pull a real trigger. He had toyed with her feelings, her survival instincts, and her emotions like a helpless bunny trapped in a wire cage.

A profound, wrath settled over Zoya's soul, unlike anything she had ever experienced. She clenched her fists, her fingernails digging deep into the wet dirt until the mud lodged beneath her nails.

In a swift, violent motion, she reached out and snatched the fallen Glock from the leaves, aiming the barrel directly at Lev’s chest. Without a single second of thought, driven by pure, murderous intent, she pulled the trigger.

Pop. A faint rush of white smoke hissed out of the barrel, but Lev remained sitting on the log, completely unmoved, his expression entirely bored. She pulled the trigger again. Pop. Nothing.

A sickening realization hit her brain. Of course. The unhinged son of a b***h had given her a gun filled entirely with blanks, too.

In a frenzy of pure, unadulterated rage, Zoya stood up and emptied the entire remaining clip directly into his frame. Pop! Pop! Pop! The clearing filled with a haze of white carbon smoke, the fake reports echoing off the wood. After a few dry, empty clicks, the slide locked back. Zoya dropped the useless piece of metal onto the ground, her strength completely evaporating as she fell back onto her knees, burying her palms into her face as she sobbed uncontrollably.

She felt a sudden, warm presence closing in on her space. She slowly looked up through her fingers.

It was him. He had stepped off the log and was now kneeling directly in front of her in the mud. From this low angle, with the grey mist swirling around his broad shoulders, he looked terrifyingly godly, dark, dangerous, and absolute. Before she could pull away, he reached out and cupped her wet face firmly in his large, heavy hands, his thumbs pressing into her cheekbones to force her to look at him.

"You see, dushka," he said, his voice dropping into a low, menacing rasp that vibrated with a very real, simmering anger. "I absolutely despise people who pretend. People who lie, cheat, and deceive to protect their little sorry lives. And you..." He paused, his grip tightening just enough to let her feel the structural strength of his fingers. "I see right through you, Zoya. I see every single inch of you…both inside and out."

He leaned in closer, his dark eyes boring into her pupils. "You pride yourself so much on the fact that you’ve survived alone for so long, that you’ve become completely oblivious to the fact that something can simply be given to you. All you truly care about is the selfish, martyrdom satisfaction you gain from taking care of your family. Let me ask you something, doctor: even if you had actually died out here today, do you honestly believe their lives wouldn't go on without you?"

He used his other hand to gently brush a loose, muddy strand of hair away from her eyes, his touch a terrifying contrast of gentleness and threat. "You were willing to work with all kinds of despicable devils in the criminal underworld just so your family wouldn’t go hungry. Hell, even back in college, you were perfectly willing to become a stripper just so your little brother could pay his tuition."

Zoya’s breath hitched, her heart freezing at the mention of one of the things she preferred was never spoken of.

"And all that grueling work for what?" Lev continued, his voice dripping with an analytical disdain. "You make yourself look so strong, so unbreakable, and so defiant on the outside... but deep down in your soul, Zoya, you are absolutely dying to let go of the reins. Just like you accepted death a few moments ago. So I’ll ask you this: if you are perfectly willing to die out here with absolutely nothing and no one around you... what the hell is so wrong about us keeping you here?"

Zoya, even through the torrential downpour of her tears, looked directly into his stormy eyes. She could feel the immense, radiant warmth of his skin pressing against her freezing, shivering face. Lev was right. The realization was a bitter pill to swallow. She had fought so incredibly hard in this brutal life, yet if she had died today, she would have left next to nothing behind. Just a disgraced, struck off doctor who went missing in the woods.

"So what...?" her voice came out incredibly shaky, her lips trembling against his thumb. "I just... I just let you keep me inside your estate? Locked up like some f*****g puppet on a string?" she asked, her voice cracking with a final, desperate remnant of her resistance.

"No, dushka," he whispered, using the term for the third time today, his tone turning dark, heavy, and deeply ominous. "You won't just be a f*****g puppet. You’ll be ours, our puppet.”

The word hung in the damp air like a death sentence. Ours. The sheer implication of the word meaning both him and Ivan was a boundary of crazy she refused to comprehend. Not wanting to register the terror of it, Zoya used the absolute last remnant of her physical strength to violently push against his chest, breaking his grip as she yelled at his face.

"f**k you! f**k the both of you!"

She scrambled to her feet, turning her back on him as she began to march forward through the brush, hoping to walk away from this absolute madness, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into the estate and hide beneath the warmth of her bed.

Before she could take three paces, a heavy, gloved hand clamped around her shoulder, violently spinning her around and shoving her back against the solid trunk of a pine tree.

Lev’s cold, dark gaze landed squarely on her face, pinning her in place as she glared back at him with pure hatred.

"You don't get to just walk away from us, doc," he said, his voice dropping into a low, vibrating register that simulated the rumble of an engine. "You walked into our lives, and you are going absolutely nowhere." His breath was hot against her freezing lips, his massive, heavy body pressing close to provide a temporary, intoxicating warmth against the autumn chill.

What the hell did he mean she came into their lives? They were the ones who had hijacked her life , and turned her entire existence completely upside down.

"So when I say jump, Zoya... you look me in the eyes and you ask how f*****g high," Lev said, his voice entirely low and absolute. He pushed his hips closer into her frame, completely trapping her against the bark as he really, truly looked at her. "Or next time... I promise you, those bullets will be real."

She tried to raise her arms to push his heavy chest off her, but she was completely out of strength. She was entirely out of fight. She just slumped against the tree, looking up at him, waiting for the next blow to fall.

Lev slowly lifted his large hand to the back of her head, his fingers moving with a strange, deliberate gentleness as he ripped the elastic rubber band from her ponytail, letting the thick, dark waves of her hair fall backwards over her bare shoulders.

He looked down at her, something intensely dark, possessive, and feral flashing across his grey eyes.

He traced his long fingers slowly across the sensitive skin of her neck, his touch burning. "You truly are something special, Zoya. Please... try to survive this place, just like you always do."

The cold, detached demeanor he usually wore like armor was entirely gone, his voice now dangerously warm and laced with an explicit promise. Lev lowered his heavy head, placing a soft, lingering kiss against her forehead, then against her trembling temples, before his lips moved to the shell of her ear, whispering into the dark.

"Because if you don't survive us... we all might not. And that includes your precious family."

In a fraction of a second, before she could even process the threat, his lips shifted, grazing against hers. With one final, intense look into her eyes, he kissed her.

The kiss was deep, passionate, and incredibly domineering, cutting off her ability to think. It felt like everything that had just transpired in the woods…the chase, the gunshots, the blanks, the terror was suddenly reduced to background noise. Zoya wasn't frozen. She wasn't entirely unresponsive. She was operating under the utter, devastating realization that she was permanently caught in the center of a web spun by two absolute maniacs who happened to be brothers.

Driven by a sudden, desperate impulse, Zoya reached up and grabbed the thick lapels of his wool coat, putting every single ounce of strength she had left into the kiss. Because that was all she truly had left to give.

When he finally broke the contact, Zoya looked up at him hazily, her head spinning with thousands of chaotic thoughts. Why was she so docile under his touch? Why was her body responding so intensely to both of these monsters? Was she truly caught between two brothers?

Zoya tilted her head back, looking past his shoulder at the sky. She wondered briefly why the forest was getting dark so fast. The morning light was completely evaporating into a black void. In an instant, her knees buckled, her muscles turned to water, and her entire body went completely limp as the massive, accumulated exhaustion of the past three days finally claimed her consciousness, plunging her into darkness.