“I’m telling you, look for yourself,” another prisoner said.
From the back of the car, a figure rose slowly, with the deliberate calm of a man who was used to being obeyed. They called him Crutch. An old-school thief, one of the kind who had survived every system thrown at him.
His face was lined with scars, and his eyes looked faded, like an old photograph. One leg dragged behind him, which explained the nickname. He moved through the car, and men made room.
Even the roughest younger inmates knew better than to tangle with Crutch. He stopped three steps from Anna. He studied her for a long moment, and she did not look away.
“Name?” he asked in a rough, hoarse voice. “Anna,” she said. “What are you in for?” “Article 58.”
“Political, then. So why are you in a men’s car?” he asked. Anna paused for a second, knowing the answer mattered.
If she told the whole truth about Melnikov, it might sound like pleading. If she lied, they would know. “The convoy commander wanted to break me. I refused. This is his answer.”
Crutch gave the faintest half-smile. Then he turned to the rest of the car. “Everybody listen up. She’s under my protection.”
“Anybody touches her answers to me. Clear enough?” he said loudly. From the far corner came a laugh—young, cocky, challenging.
A man of about twenty-five with gold teeth stood up from the bunks. They called him Jackal, leader of a younger crew that had no use for old rules. “Crutch, you finally lose your mind?”
“A woman in a men’s car belongs to everybody. What protection? Or you planning to be first in line yourself?” The pause that followed was so sharp the sound of the wheels outside seemed to get louder.
Crutch turned slowly toward Jackal. And in that moment Anna saw why this old cripple could keep two hundred men in line. Something came into his eyes that made even her uneasy.
“Say that again. Loud enough for everybody,” the old thief said. Jackal knew he had gone too far, but backing down in front of his own crew would cost him standing.
“I said a woman in a men’s car is—” He never finished. Crutch moved fast, shockingly fast for a man with a bad leg. A sharpened piece of metal appeared in his hand as if from nowhere.
The jab under the ribs was precise—not fatal, but painful. Jackal gasped, grabbed his side, and blood seeped through his fingers. “Next time I won’t be so careful,” Crutch said.
“Now listen close, kid. In this car, I decide what goes. If I said she’s under protection, then she’s under protection. You understand?” Jackal nodded and slid down onto the floor.
His crew froze, not ready to step in. Crutch turned back to Anna. “You said you can help the sick. Here’s your first patient. Take a look.”
It was a test, and Anna knew it. Show weakness now and it was over. She walked over to Jackal, crouched beside him, and examined the wound with steady hands.
It was shallow, but in a dangerous spot. “I need clean cloth for a bandage,” she said. The car broke into laughter. “Clean cloth? In this place?”
Then Anna did something they would remember for years. She took off her undershirt—the last clean thing she had. Under the eyes of two hundred men, she tore it into strips.
She bandaged the wound quickly and neatly. “He’ll live. But if it gets infected in this filth, there’s only so much I can do,” she said. Crutch nodded with approval, then announced to the whole car:
“She sleeps here.” He pointed to the corner near his bunk. “My space. My ground. Anybody comes near her is asking for trouble.”
“And here are the new rules:
