After more than twenty-four hours of travel to Sochi, including two flights, a train ride, and an unexpected stop for doping control, Katarina and Heath finally arrive at their hotel exhausted. Instead of finding the reservation Bella had booked and reconfirmed, they learn from the clerk, Boris, that no room is available under Lin. Heath argues in Russian, but the only option Boris offers is one very small remaining room.

Katarina and Heath drag their own luggage down the dim hallway and discover that the room is filthy, cramped, and barely finished, with fresh paint fumes, exposed construction problems, and only one small bed. Katarina carefully hangs both of their costumes, especially protecting her delicate free dance dress from the room’s grime. Their shared frustration turns into exhausted joking as they mock the hotel’s terrible conditions, from the portrait of Putin to the light fixture with dead flies inside.

Their laughter becomes nearly hysterical when the light burns out, and they collapse together on the bed. In the dark, both Katarina and Heath become aware of how physically close they are, and when they try to pull apart, they only end up closer. The moment suggests lingering intimacy between them, but it is abruptly broken by a heavy thump at the door.

Katarina opens the door and finds a vase of red roses outside. At first she wonders if Heath sent them, especially because it is Valentine’s Day, but he denies it. When red liquid from the vase begins dripping onto Katarina’s shoes and hands, she drops the flowers, shattering the vase and revealing a card hidden inside the mess.

The liquid smells like blood, not dye or paint. Heath reads the Cyrillic message and tells Katarina it means, in effect, welcome back. The threatening gift turns their miserable arrival into something more ominous, making it clear that Katarina’s return to this place has already been noticed.