“Dimitri!” I call out. I don’t know why. I know it’s no use. “What did you do to him?”
Yuri bends down at the side of the bed, bringing his face closer to mine. His eyes are glassed over, and I have no doubt he’s drunk and maybe even stoned.
“Don’t you worry,” he laughs. “I didn’t kill him. Yet.”
His accent is stronger than it was when he showed up in Sammy’s room. And he’s slurring his words. “He’s unconscious. When my friends are done tying him up, they’ll bring him in here to join us. I’m sure he’ll like a good view of the show. And when we’re done with you, I’ll put a bullet right in that thick skull of his so you can see what happens when you disobey me.”
“Fuck you!” I shout back at him.
“Da. I intend to.”
The rope around my wrist and ankles is biting into my skin. I don’t care. I fight. I’m not going to give in and go down willingly.
Yuri steps out of his boxers and climbs on the bed. As he lowers himself, I ball my free hand up into a fist and hit him square in the jaw with all my might. He sounds off with a string of Russian words I’ve never heard before.
“Stupid bitch!” he yells before bringing his fist down on my cheekbone, right below my eye. Pain screams through my head, almost as loud and shrill as the scream sounding in my mouth. I suck in a large breath, but it does no good.
My free hand is no longer free. He has a hold of it and is reaching for the rope with the other. I manage to rip it free from his hand, only for him to retake it again.
“No! Stop!” I scream, pulling and thrashing at my bindings frantically. “Dimitri! Help me! Please!” I know it will do no good, but I’m unable to just lie here and let this happen.
“Shut the fuck up!” Yuri covers my mouth with his hand. I can’t breathe. I try to bite him, but his hand is cupped enough that I am unable to sink my teeth into his skin. Tears blur my eyes, clouding my vision. With his other hand, Yuri reaches between my legs, gathers my underwear, and shoves them to the side, making room to enter me.
I wriggle beneath him, buying myself some time. I hold my breath and pray. I pray for Dimitri. And for me. I pray that he is still alive and that this part of the nightmare will end quickly for me. I close my eyes and try to conjure the image of Dimitri and the gentle, loving way he looked at me. The way his hands and mouth moved over my body. It’s no use. It isn’t working.
Luckily, neither is Yuri’s dick, and it’s pissing him off.
He grabs a handful of my hair and yanks hard, for no other reason than he wants to hurt me. I’m sure that’s how he gets hard. I scream again, calling out for Dimitri, yelling, screaming for the animal on top of me to stop.
And then he does.
His weight on me grows lighter. I open my eyes to see Dimitri squeezing a cord tight around his neck. Yuri struggles against Dimitri until he loses consciousness. Once he does, Dimitri lets his body fall to the floor. He killed him. I just watched Dimitri kill someone with his bare hands.
A raw, guttural scream starts at my toes and tests the strength and volume of my vocal cords.
“Kiera,” Dimitri’s voice breaks through my hysteria. Bossy. Commanding. It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. “Come on!” Using a knife dripping with blood, he cuts me out of the ropes keeping me tied to the bed. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
I look down at my bloodied t-shirt. The sight keeps me frozen in place.
He tosses me my pants. “Put these on.”
“I can’t…I can’t go like this.”
Dimitri curses under his breath and grabs my hand. “We need to go now! Right now! So either you put on your pants or you’re going like that.”
With my body trembling in fear, I do as I’m told. Once they’re on, I look up. That’s when I see the open wound on his right shoulder and reach out for him.
“Dimitri!” I shriek. “You’ve been shot.”
I heard the shot go off. I knew he’d been hit or Yuri would never have made it in here, but still, seeing it with my own eyes makes it real. It brings the danger surrounding us to a whole new level. I can’t move. I can’t breathe.
“Not now,” he says, holding his good hand up to keep me at a distance. “Just take my hand and don’t look down.”
In the other room, two men lie on the floor, motionless, blood all around them. One looks as if his throat has been sliced open. The other is facedown on the floor, still as a rock. I can’t help but let fear take over as I stare and stand frozen in place.
The man that owns my heart is a cold-blooded killer. And I know he did it for me. I’m the reason all three of those men are dead. I feel bile rise up in the back of my throat and swallow down hard.
“Talk to me,” he says, tugging on my hand, reminding me that he’s here with me.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Anything. Are you okay?”
I sniffle and nod. My throat’s sore and dry. It’s difficult to speak, but I manage to get out a single word. “Yes.”
“Good. Just keep going and don’t look back.”
I follow him out of the room and discover we’ve been holed up in the back of a warehouse. It must have been some sort of employee bunk area. The lighting in the main area is poor, dim. I’m afraid a rat is going to jump out of the shadows. Stacks of crates are piled up on either side of the large windowless room.
“What is this place?”
“Not now!” Dimitri snaps, quickening our pace.
I slow down once we’re out in the open as the bright sunlight blinds me.
“We can’t slow down. We need to get out of here!”
I nod in understanding. It doesn’t pay to protest. The farther we get from here, the easier I’ll be able to breathe. I allow the adrenaline rushing through my bloodstream to propel me forward. A lone car sits in the corner of the employee parking lot.
“Get in,” he orders.
“What if it’s locked?”
“It’s not. Just get your ass in the car!”
I do as I’m told and buckle my seat belt. The tires screech in protest as we speed out of the lot and onto a main road. He steps so hard on the gas, the force of the speed pushes me back against the car seat. After about a minute, he turns onto the highway. There aren’t many cars on this road, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or if it makes us easier to spot.
“Take the wheel,” Dimitri orders as he pulls his phone from his pocket with his good hand. He presses a button and speaks in rapid-fire Russian. I try to keep my eyes on the road and not on him or his wounded shoulder.
After a few intense minutes, Dimitri hangs up. He takes control of the car once again, and with a painful wince, rests his right hand on top of mine. My heart flutters.
“It’s almost over, Kiera. Just a little bit longer.”
I’m not sure if he means the nightmare, or us. Or are we so connected and entangled in the nightmare that if one exists, the other does too? I don’t ask, because I’m not sure I want to know the answer. One thing I know for sure is I’m not ready to say goodbye to him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Wh…where are we going?”
“Far away from here. Far away from all the bad memories you have.”
I should be scared, afraid of where we are going. Instead, those words wrap around me and offer the comfort of a big warm hug.
Dimitri turns off the highway and onto a busy street again. I recognize where we are. We’re in the vicinity of the hospital. To my surprise, Dimitri doesn’t turn towards the hospital. Instead, we’re headed in the opposite direction.
“I need you to listen to me,” he says. “In a minute, we’re going to park and get out of the car. We’re transferring vehicles. We need to do it as quickly as possible. That means no questions. No hesitation. No matter what happens, you need to go. Understand?”
“Yes,” I answer as we pull into an underground parking garage of a medical building. Dimitri heads into an empty spot in the far cor
ner. It’s dark. All the lights in a twenty-foot radius are out.
“Come on,” he says, shutting the engine and getting out.
Before I even close the car door, an ambulance pulls up and the back doors open.
“Let’s go,” Dimitri grabs my hand with his good arm and pulls me forward.
I climb in, followed close behind by Dimitri. The doors aren’t even closed before we start moving.
Worried about Dimitri and the blood still dripping from his open wound, I don’t bother to look around. He needs attention. In the last five minutes, his coloring has changed from normal to a pale, grayish tone.
“Kiera.” I’m surprised by the voice behind me. It’s soft and weak, but it’s his voice. My entire body reacts to the joy and excitement of hearing my brother. I spin around and rush to Sammy’s side. He’s not on the stretcher in the middle of the ambulance, he’s sitting upright in a seat against the wall.
“Sammy!” I say, throwing my arms around him. “Thank God! Are you okay?”
“Better now,” he answers, pushing me away gingerly. “I have some broken ribs,” he explains. “And some bruising, but other than that I’m fine.”
“”I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hug you so hard.”
“It’s fine,” he smiles. “I’ve never been happier to see you.” His face is still swollen and discolored, although much of the purple has lightened up and turned yellow and greenish. All in all, he looks much better than he did days ago when I last saw him. Maybe it’s just the fact that he’s upright wearing scrubs instead of a hospital gown, and he’s off that awful machine.
“Dimitri,” a female voice calls from the front. “Why aren’t you up here yet?”
A funny feeling churns in my stomach. Who is she? And why didn’t he mention her? I turn to see who’s calling him, but I’m not able to get a good look at her.
“I’m going to lay down for a few minutes,” he calls back, adjusting himself on the stretcher. I move away from Sammy, closer to Dimitri. I run my hand over his forehead, evaluating his condition. His skin is damp, clammy.
“I need to close my eyes for a minute,” he says, trying but failing to calm my nerves.
“He needs help,” I call up to whoever is driving the vehicle. “Are we stocked with medical supplies?”
“Of course. What’s wrong? What happened?”
“He was shot in the shoulder.”
“Dimitri!” she calls back, panic tingeing her voice.
“I’m fine,” he says, trying to calm the woman’s nerves, then repeats it in a softer tone for me. “I’m fine, Kiera. Just let me rest.” He winces in pain, and I know he’s lying.
Dimitri’s eyes close.
“Please. Come take a look at him. He had to fight them off and he’s lost blood,” I call to our driver, hoping she has some medical skills.
“Don’t die, Dante,” I whisper, half-panicked.
“Dante?” His lips turn up a bit at the corners. “You called me Dante.”
“Whatever.” My eyes well up with tears as I grip his hand tight and squeeze. “I just got you back. Don’t you dare think of leaving me.”
It doesn’t matter how angry I might be with him or how much who he’s turned into frightens me, I love him. I need to separate him from his family. And whatever he did back at the warehouse, he did out of necessity. He did it to save me. It’s a deed I can never repay.
“I’m not going to die, slatkaya. I’m just in pain.”
We come to a stop, and the woman driving the ambulance makes her way back to us.
“One to ten, how bad is the pain?” she asks in a no-nonsense tone.
“Seven, maybe eight.”
She nods and starts pulling materials from the compartments up above and along the sides and places them next to Dimitri.
“Do what I tell you,” she says, pinning her blue eyes on me while preparing an injection of something. “Wipe the area clean.” She tilts her head toward the supplies she gathered and placed on the stretcher.
I find the alcohol swab and do as I’m told, making sure I don’t look at his face. I need to remain calm and detached. If I see I’m hurting him, I might not be able to do what needs to be done.
“Lidocaine,” she explains to Dimitri. “To numb the area.” She injects him, pulls the needle out, and moves it to several other spots around the wound. Next, she reaches for a white folded paper. It reminds me of the bib the dentist uses, only it has a hole in the middle. She places the hole over the wound.
“Couldn’t get out of this one without getting yourself shot?” she teases as she continues to bark out orders at me.
“I had nothing better to do.”
She starts speaking in Russian as she digs into his arm with a tool that looks like a scissor on top and tweezers on the bottom.
“In English,” he says, his eyes darting to me. “No more secrets.”
“Yuri?” she asks.
“I’m not sure, but I think he’s dead,” Dimitri answers.
“Good,” she deadpans, pulling the bloodied round out of his shoulder. “He can rot in hell right along with his father.”
“Ana.”
“What? I hate them.”
“At least allow yourself the opportunity to mourn. They are your family. And the plan was never to kill them, just put them out of commission long enough for us to escape.”
“Their deaths are a blessing for us both. Did Yuri do this to you?” She stops what she’s doing and looks at Dimitri, waiting for an answer.
“Yes.”
“He would’ve killed you, you know. That’s all he knew,” she says, no longer looking at Dimitri, but back to work stitching up his wound. “I’ve been trained to heal people, he’s been trained to kill them. Now there are two less killers in the world.”
Four less if you count the other two Dimitri finished off, I think to myself. Maybe what he did was make the world a better and safer place. Maybe he isn’t just my hero. Maybe he’s a hero to dozens of other people that will never know how lucky they are.
“We’ve been still too long,” Dimitri changes the subject. “We need to get moving again.”
“Don’t worry. We’re at a rest stop at the state border. I’ll change the plates again and we’ll be out of New Jersey and in Pennsylvania before you know it.”
I hand her the gauze and tape before she has a chance to ask for it.
Chapter 12
The ambulance rocks back and forth, hitting a bump every now and then. Otherwise, the ride is smooth, steady, hypnotic. After resting for a few hours, Dimitri moved up to the front of the ambulance. He’s driving now so Ana can sleep. We still stop every now and then in deserted spots off the highway to change license plates.
At every stop, Ana checks Sammy’s vital signs. We’ve been driving for almost two hours straight since our last bathroom break, so I know we’ll be stopping soon. My lids are heavy. All I want to do is sleep. Sammy is off the stretcher again, sitting with his head back, mouth open. His snoring is so loud he keeps waking himself up.
“Go lay down,” I nudge him. “You need rest.”
“I’m fine,” he lies. “You go sleep there for a bit.”
“Maybe just for a few minutes, if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” He smiles at me and squeezes my hand. Sammy doesn’t let go as I stand. He turns my hand so it’s palm-side up. His brows furrow together as he traces the red cuts and burn marks on my wrist from the rope. “Motherfucker.”
I try to pull my hand from his grip, but it’s no use. Even in his weakened state, he’s able to keep his hold on me.
“That lying sack of shit. He tied you up?” Sammy’s voice is low and conspiratorial.
I glance to the front at Dimitri. “You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do. He promised he wouldn’t hurt you, and I trusted him.”
“He didn’t. He did the best he could, but Sammy, when he told me what was going on and why, I freaked out. He was afraid I’d do something
stupid that would end up hurting us both.”
“He told you?”
I nod. “I still have so many questions. Like where they hell are we going? And what happens now?”
“I don’t know,” Sammy brushes my hair back. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. Dimitri promised we could start over. New names. New lives. He convinced me if this went well, no one would bother either of us again. Even as I agreed, I wasn’t sure if I could trust him.” He takes my other hand and examines my wrist.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I never would’ve let you risk your life.”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you. I wanted to protect you, Kiera. But then we just kept losing more and more money. And they were using the diner for all sorts of illegal shit, like dealing drugs and selling hot shit in the back alley. They knew they could do anything and I’d take the fall as long as they threatened me with you.”
“Maybe there was some way before it got so out of hand…”
He shrugs. “You were just a kid. I wanted you to be a kid for as long as possible. I thought if I kept paying them, I’d keep them happy and you didn’t have to be the wiser.”
“How long have you known?”
He lets out a long sigh. “Right after Mom and Dad died. They wanted the insurance money. When I said no, not only did they threaten to kill you, but the fire chief paid me a visit and told me he was going to write in his report that it looked like Mom and Dad started the fire themselves for the insurance money. We wouldn’t have gotten anything. The insurance wouldn’t cover it at that point. This way, the Russians ‘loaned’ us money for repairs and only charged us twenty percent interest,” he says sarcastically. “But at least I had some way to take care of you.”
“Sammy, I wish you would’ve told me. This was too much of a burden for you to shoulder alone.”
“Listen to you,” he twirls a piece of my hair around his finger. “You sound like an old lady.”
“It’s because you’ve kept me behind locked doors with my nose in those books for so long.”
“I did the best I could, Kiera. I just want it to be over. And I want you to be able to lead a normal life.”
I shrug. “I have been leading a normal life. You haven’t. I didn’t know anything but what I’ve had. You know what they say, ignorance is bliss. I thought having an overbearing big brother is normal. You’re the one that’s been dealing with all the shit.”
My Russian Nightmare Page 10