Igor jerked as if from a blow, but not physical.

“‘A lot’ is not an answer,” Renat snapped, but without the previous pressure.

The siren stopped abruptly, as if someone had turned it off. The silence that followed was almost deafening. Somewhere below, a car door slammed, and footsteps were heard—alien, confident, the sound of those accustomed to arriving at the end without knowing the beginning.

Vera inhaled slowly. The air felt thick as water.

“We’ll figure it all out,” she said quietly. “But not like this.”

She turned to Renat, and there was something new in her gaze—not a request, not fear, but the calm determination of a person who had already made a choice and was not going to explain it.

– Let him go.

Renat looked at her for a long time. Not as an obstacle, not as a hindrance—as a task he hadn’t yet fully figured out.

“Do you understand what you’re getting yourself into?” he asked finally.

“No,” Vera answered honestly. “But that doesn’t change anything.”

Footsteps were already heard on the stairs, closer, more distinct.

Igor suddenly said quietly:

– I’ll go myself.

Everyone turned to face him.

He stood up straight, though his knees still seemed to be giving way. But there was more strength in that unsteady uprightness than in any resistance.

“Only…” he paused and looked at Vera. “You… will come?”

The question was almost inaudible. But there was no impudence or the usual sarcasm in it—only a cautious, almost childish hope, which he himself seemed ashamed of.

Vera didn’t answer right away. She simply stepped closer and gently, almost weightlessly, touched his shoulder—as if testing whether he would disappear at the touch.

“I’ll come,” she said.

And at that moment the entrance door opened.

Silhouettes appeared in the doorway—dark, blurry against the cold light of the entryway. They moved with restraint, without fuss, like people accustomed to entering other people’s lives not as guests, but as an inevitability. The air in the hallway changed: it became drier, more austere, as if the house itself had straightened up, preparing for an inspection.

Renat retreated slightly, not out of fear—more out of calculation, like a chess player spotting a new move he couldn’t ignore. His fingers still touched Igor’s collar, but they weren’t holding him back anymore—they simply registered his presence.

“Well then,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “Now the words will be written down.”

Vera realized she no longer felt the same panic. The fear that had risen in her throat just an hour ago had now settled deep, giving way to a strange clarity. Everything that was happening suddenly felt not like chaos, but like a coherent sequence—harsh, yet understandable.

Igor stepped forward himself. The movement was uneven but decisive, like the first step after a long illness. He didn’t look at the newcomers or the men in the cloak—only straight ahead, as if the boy for whom it all had begun already existed there, beyond the walls.

“I’m with you,” he said quietly.

One of the men nodded briefly, without further ado. The other glanced around the hallway—his gaze slid over Vera, the wet footprints on the floor, and the old clock, which continued to tick away the seconds with indifferent precision.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said matter-of-factly.

And this “we’ll sort it out” sounded not like a threat, but like a verdict on the ordinary: everything will be laid out on shelves, stripped of nuances, reduced to formulations.

Renat suddenly smiled – with the corner of his lips, almost imperceptibly.

“Sort it out,” he said. “Just don’t be surprised later.”

He released Igor completely and stepped back, disappearing into the shadows of the hallway, as if his role in this scene had been exhausted. The second man followed him, casting a brief glance at Vera—not hostile, but heavy, as if he’d memorized her.

The door didn’t slam behind them—it closed softly, almost delicately. And that made it even quieter.

Igor now stood next to strangers, slightly apart from Vera. A distance lay between them—not in meters, but in experiences. But this distance no longer seemed insurmountable.

He suddenly turned around.

“Don’t forget,” he said.

Vera didn’t ask what exactly. She simply nodded—the way one nods not to words, but to the meaning behind them.

He was led away. The footsteps gradually faded, vanishing into the stairwell, and only the clock continued ticking—steadily, stubbornly, as if nothing had happened.

Vera was left alone.