Story
StoryI don’t know how many hours it is before Ravil gets a text from an unknown number, but it comes. There’s a wild scramble of activity.
Oleg’s alive. On a plane flying back to Chicago.
I cry more tears—this time of relief. And then there’s more waiting.
As I wait, my grief morphs into anxiety. A gnawing, itching anxiety. The kind that’s plagued me my whole life. I consider it to be my gut instinct telling me when something’s not right.
When it’s time to bail.
And the longer the minutes stretch until Oleg is back, the stronger the feeling grows.
I get bundled into the back of Oleg’s Denali with Nikolai and Dima in front, and we leave, along with two other vehicles, for some private airstrip I’ve never heard of.
It’s snowing. Thick, wet flakes that hit the windshield and mel
