Together in Paris

8.

His eyes widened, he jumped on his train seat, startled.

The faint sunlight that filtered through the window on which he had leaned his head dimly illuminated the inside of the silent compartment. He raised his head, a faint crunch emerged from his aching neck, he quickly massaged it. He had fallen asleep.
He didn't know well how or when, but it was clear that he had had little resistance to fatigue. He remembered watching Anya as she sipped her tea, listening to Popov's complaints and enduring Vassilisa Gorlinskaya's fleeting glances during the whole travel. She had seemed not to take her eyes off him.
And it was quite unnerving.

He must have had then yielded to sleep, because his memory betrayed him at that point.

He glanced out of the window and rubbed his right eye, still sleepy: the landscape was beginning to populate with snowy buildings, streets and trees hidden by human civilization. Where were they?

"We're in Kiev." a familiar voice answered his silent question. He turned away from the window to look at the elegant figure of Gorlinsky's wife, who looked at him with a sly smirk, leaning against the window with one arm.

"You're quite handsome without that scarf on." the woman said.

"You have beautiful features."

Gleb jumped on his seat, panic encircled his soul: he put a hand to his neck, where the woollen scarf had fallen, and quickly raised it to cover his nose and mouth again, worried. The woman giggled.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Gleb Sergeevič Vaganov." she greeted "Long time no see."
Hearing his name, he stiffened.

"Oh, don't look at me like that. I didn't tell them. Nor did they notice, anyway." Vassilisa continued with an amused grin painted on her lips. He shook his head, nervous. His plan was totally shattering.

Great way of carrying out a mission, congratulations, Vaganov.

And if that Gorlinskaya pest was going to communicate everything to her husband, he would have been in serious trouble: he would have been accused of treason, ripped off of his grades from his uniform and, much worse, shot in the middle of the courtyard of the headquarters. Or maybe they would have sent him in a gulag, just to be sure to eliminate him completely.
He rubbed his temple, glancing at the rest of the empty seats.

Congratulations!
You've invented a new kind of stupid.

"Where did they go?" he asked, more to himself that to someone really.

"They went out just a few moments ago." Gorlinskaya explained, bored "They slammed the door and you woke up."
This explained the abrupt noise that had made his heart lose a beat.

"Do you know why they exited the compartment?" Gleb asked again, this time directly addressing the woman. She smiled slyly.

"Ah, you really care about the girl, don't you, lover boy?" she mocked "She and the men seem good people to me, quite annoying sometimes, but oh well. So what pushes you to follow 'em this way, uh?"
A laugh escaped her lips.

"Jealousy, perhaps?"

At those words, Gleb frowned nervously. Why couldn't that woman just get a big shred of her own business?!
He stood up. And so did Vassilisa, approaching him to stop him. Gleb looked down at her, his nerves ready to snap if she dared take another step nearer.

"Let me pass." he said firmly.

"Why should I?"
The woman challenged him with a smile.

"It's clear you won't be able to save her, and if you keep walking this way, you won't be able to save yourself either."
He saw her reach out to him and dust his coat lasciviously letting her fingers rest more than just a few seconds on his body; she then lifted her greenish eyes, a frightful seriousness illuminated them with a dark, murky light.