“Tell me, Nina, if there wasn’t this deal between us, would you have come when I nodded?” he asks. “Nope.”
I don’t expect him to ask me to elaborate, but he does, and his question surprises me. “Why not? Is it because of the wheelchair?”
He says it conversationally, but there is a hidden undertone I can’t quite define. I abandon watching the crowd and look him right in the eyes. “It’s because I’m not a poodle, Mr. Petrov.”
―
Neva Altaj,
Painted Scars