Just before noon, Lev, Harvard, and Devi sat in the tent, shoulder to shoulder, putting on their boots and getting ready to leave. Devi was next to Lev, sipping hot cocoa. Suddenly, she asked him to take her pulse. Then she said, “I’m going to die.”

The next morning, the soldiers came back into the cellar. “We’re taking you to the Chechens,” one of them said. “They like the ones who aren’t talkative.” The Chechens were based in another house whose owners had left Izyum at the start of the war. One of them poked Dzhos’s broken rib, then told another soldier to “bring out the spider.” The spider, Dzhos soon saw, was a box that contained a hand crank and some electrical wires. The Chechen fastened the wires around Dzhos’s ankles. Flashes of pain raced through his limbs like a lightning storm. “Either speak up or die,” the Chechen said. “Your heart won’t last.” He added, “You won’t be the only one we’ve buried.” The torture continued for several hours.