by Holly Hart
"Cara.
You don't know how many hours I've spent wondering if this is the right thing, this thing I'm doing. I'm doing it for you, baby. Even if it doesn't feel that way right now, I'm doing it for you. Dad's going to give you up now that I'm gone. He's going to let someone else bring you up. Good people, people who can treat you the way we never could.
I'm sorry that I'm too weak. I'm too weak to live like this anymore.
I'm doing this for you, baby.
Mama."
I reeled back, dropping the yellowed paper on the floor with shock and disgust. Bile rose in my throat, and I bit it back while part of me wanted to spew it out. I never should have opened that envelope. Never knowing would have been better, so much better than the truth.
You’re a silly, silly little girl.
My stomach cramped, and waves of nausea ripped through my body. It was like some sick parody of an orgasm – instead of joy and sparks and electricity, it was misery and pain and depression. When a girl grows up like I did, she makes up fantastic stories; stories that explained where her mama had gone, and why she went and left her little girl alone. Maybe, I once thought, maybe she was saving elephants in Africa, or helping orphans somewhere. That sounded like the mama I knew.
But now I realized, that mama was an illusion. She never existed.
I wanted to wrap myself back up in the blanket of the world that existed before I knew the truth. I wanted to scrub the words on the page out of my mind, to forget them, and to relegate them to the deepest, darkest recesses of my brain.
Every time I closed my eyes, her words echoed in my mind. I could hear her voice. "I'm too weak to live like this anymore."
That sad, desperate little girl who wanted to know the truth still screamed at me that this wasn't what I thought it was – what I knew it was. But her voice was faint now, frail. She was screaming into a hurricane, and only snatches of her voice came through to the other side. She was trying to tell me that the letter was simply a parting note.
But I saw it for what it truly was: a final goodbye;
a suicide note.
After I don't know how long, after my mind was black and numb, the first gut punch of emotion began to recede. I was in a no man's land, stranded in a desperate darkness. I was closer to being an orphan than I had ever believed. All those years, I had still harbored hope that my mother would return to me – it was the gossamer thread that held me back from the edge in my darkest moments. It was the last vestige of light to cling to when everything else was black.
And now I had nothing.
"No!"
I slammed my hand down on the couch, and an emotional outburst ripped past my lips. The letter still stared up at me, words ringing in my mind from where it lay accusingly on the floor. But I knew I needed to draw a line under it. I wasn't kidding myself. I knew I wouldn't be able to process what I'd read in a minute, an hour, hell – even a year.
But dwelling on it would get me nowhere. And for now, until I could come to terms with what I knew, I had to push it away. I needed to lock it up in a vault deep inside my mind; in a place it couldn't hurt me –
because I had a life to live –
a child to care for –
and a man to love.
My afternoon had turned into an emotional roller coaster. I wanted so desperately to throw myself off, but if I did, I was nowhere. I was not going to become my mother. I was never going to let that cycle repeat itself.
I was not giving up on my family before it even had a chance to be a family. I was going to be strong – to be what my family deserved.
15
Val
When I was fifteen I stole my first car.
It was dad's car. I crashed it on purpose.
But first, I went to the zoo. The zoo in Alexandria is exactly what you'd expect in a town like this – once the biggest in the state, now it just existed – frayed and decrepit. Back then, though, the place still had a tiger called Tony: Tony the freaking Tiger, can you believe it?
I took dad's car out for a joyride, and you better believe that no cops messed with that Hummer. They knew exactly who it belonged to, and they knew the consequences of pulling it over. It didn't matter that at 15 my head barely made it over the wheel, or that it would still be a year before the first hair ever sprouted on my chin. In Alexandria, messing with an Antonov's property meant signing your own death warrant.
And if the property belonged to Arkady Antonov, you might as well be begging to be tortured.
So anyway, back to Tony.
I wanted to see more than that damn tiger. I really wanted to lay eyes on some birds, for a start. Not sparrows, or damn woodpigeons, but I've always had time for eagles. Hawks too. All birds of prey, really.
It’s something about the way they soar free, without a care in the world, or anything tethering them back to earth. And it’s the way they're the ultimate predator in the skies, gliding silently above their prey… before they swoop down and catch it unawares. They're Phantoms, like me.
Instead, I spent the day glued to that damn cage. In person, Tony looked nothing like he did on the posters outside. His fur was flecked with silver, and his head hung low.
But he never stopped pacing.
It didn't matter that his cage was little more than twenty feet wide and fifteen feet deep, with nothing more than a half-filled paddling pool and a punctured beach ball to keep him occupied. It didn't matter that hordes of schoolchildren pummeled the glass viewing panel before running away. He never looked up once.
He just paced: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, for hours.
I don't know how to explain it, but seeing him there was like imagining the President locked up in a Chinese jail cell. It felt wrong: like the whole world had been tipped on its head. I couldn't understand how this proud predator had been humbled so, and forced to submit to another's will. I imagined how he was taken – tricked by underhanded poachers. Perhaps his food was laced with drugs. Perhaps he was shot with a dart – something potent, and silent. An underhanded move, because I knew that it wasn't a fair fight.
I wished it had been; that Tony could've ripped his captors apart and coated his snout with their blood.
I wanted to free him.
I wanted to kill him.
I knew how he felt.
He only stopped pacing once, for a brief half-second as the zoo closed. I had sat on a stone bench opposite his enclosure for hours, my only movement the metronomic swaying of my head as I traced his path with my eyes. He stopped and looked at me, and roared so loud the ground shook. I'll never forget it.
I vowed to never be Tony.
"Fuck."
And yet, here I was. The curse word echoed off the abandoned warehouse's old brick walls and the slate roof that soared off into the clouds. That's the good thing about Alexandria. Ever since the factories shut, the Industrial District has been as riddled with bolt holes as it is bullet holes. It was as close to perfect as you could dream of for a man like me a – man on the run.
"Why are you thinking about Tony, Val," I muttered. But I knew why. It wasn't just the curse word that was echoing off the factory's roof, it was the sound of my black boots. I'd been here for an hour, alone with my thoughts – pacing.
I was becoming Tony.
"You're better than that," I grunted. I spoke aloud, which either meant I was going crazy, or that I was trying to convince myself that my grip on sanity was as strong as it had ever been. I kicked a stray tin can and watched as it jangled across the concrete floor, before coming to a halt against a metal cage. The cage growled back.
A shock of excitement crackled through me. It was a burst of my favorite drug – adrenaline. It seared down my arteries and my veins, setting every single one on fire and burning away the damp, mildewed tendrils of depression that had begun to creep into my mind. This, this pining – it wasn't me. I wasn't used to sitting on my ass and waiting for news. I was used to acting.
"So stop m
oaning and fucking act."
I pulled my bulletproof vest over my shoulders and tossed it to the floor, where it joined a growing pile of my kit. I wouldn't need it. The only person that knew I was here was Dimitri, and if he sold me out, then hope was already lost …
But if I had to stay here, out of harm's way, in Dimitri's refuge, then the least I could do was make myself busy.
The warehouse was one of Dimitri's usual haunts – a stash house – used for storing guns, drugs and money, the usual.
Today it had another inhabitant. Unusually, this one had four legs.
Rat.
The dog was every bit as mean-tempered as it had been the day I pulled Cara from its grasp. I flexed my hand and winced, the memory of the almost-healed teeth marks no more pleasant for the passage of time. I walked towards the cage, and my footsteps bounced off the walls. However, they were no longer aimless. I was drifting no longer.
I had a purpose.
I pulled my black T-shirt over my head. It stank of sweat and the singed embers of a burning hideout. Rat was a mutt – half street dog. But the other half was pure German Shepherd. They were drug dogs, the kind that could sniff out a rose in a field of tobacco. So I knew to the hound in front of me, I must have smelled like a beacon.
"What the hell kind of name is Rat, anyway?" I growled. The dog's ears pricked up at the sound of his name, and his chest filled with a throaty growl. "Oh, you heard me," I grinned wickedly.
I knelt down, holding eye contact the entire way and plucked a blade from the sheath strapped to my boot. It was my favorite knife, the Japanese work of art that I'd tossed into a wall. But it wasn't damaged. I tossed it in my hand, and watched as Rat's eyes followed. He was nervous now, crouched in his cage with his fur on end.
What did that asshole Russell do to you to make you this way?
"You like blood, don't you, Rat," I said in a conversational tone. "You don't need to hide it from me. I saw it dripping off your snout the day we met. I like it. It's kinky." I tossed the blade once more and it landed in my hand with a weighted thud. Rat flinched.
I drew a deep breath in through my nostrils, closing my eyes as Rat watched on, bristling with distrust. In my mind I knew exactly what I was about to do. Fuck knows why I planned to do it, it just felt right. I don't expect you to understand. It was a cleansing process, a ritual. I think I read once that they do something like it in the Middle East, I dun’ no. Maybe I invented it, maybe I didn't.
Before, meditation was enough to quiet the darkness inside me. I thought I could handle it – release it when I wanted, and ride the wave until my enemies lay dead before me.
A dead junkie proved that was a lie.
"I didn't mean to kill him, Rat. I really didn't. I blinked, and that syringe ended up in his neck. No one survives that much heroin."
Not when it goes straight into the spinal cord.
I gripped the knife handle and squeezed hard, and moved it slowly to my naked belly. I watched and felt and lived every sensation as a drop of sweat rolled down the glistening surface, curving over my ridged stomach. I pressed the blade against my skin. It was cold to the touch.
Rat yelped.
"This," I hissed. "This one's for Kitty." I cut vertically, and the finely honed blade bit into my skin. Blood spilled out on either side, welling up with all the ferocity of a burst water main.
Rat barked.
"This one's for you, Cara." I bit down on my lip to stifle the pain and cut deep, across the first wound, so the two red welts formed a cross. The pain was almost unbearable. It brought tears to my eyes. I wanted nothing more than to stop, but to stop would mean that all this was for nothing.
Rat whined.
The blood made a steady drip, drip, drip sound as it splashed against the concrete floor. I breathed out heavily, and torn nerve endings crackled with distress like the sparks from a cut power line. "Breathe, Val," I whispered to the empty warehouse. "Breathe."
Drip. Drip.
My breath slowed in my ears, and lengthened. My chest moved slower and slower, until the tiny movements were scarcely perceptible. In the background, behind the cacophony of pain, Rat hurled himself at the metal bars of his cage. His paws scrabbled against the concrete, claws raking at the unforgiving surface to no avail.
Drip.
I was as deep now into trance as I had ever been. The outside world meant nothing to me. The unheated, drafty warehouse's chill licked at my skin, but I didn't feel it. Rat's panicked howls of terror disappeared into the ether. Nothing mattered except what mattered.
Kitty. Cara. My family.
Drip.
My heartbeat slowed until it seemed that it was barely thudding in my chest. Blood froze in my veins.
"This one's for you, mom," I muttered. The low tone sounded like a jet engine in the silence of my head. I made a slashing motion, and then another – an X on top of the cross. My grip loosened on the blade and it fell slowly, clattering on the concrete floor. I held still and listened, ears primed, searching for that metronomic drip of blood falling and pooling on the floor.
But there was none.
I opened my eyes, and a wave of sound assaulted me – except it wasn't sound, not really. It was just the normal background noise of everyday life. It only sounded loud in comparison to the dead silence of the dark place I'd visited deep inside my mind. A place now locked away through the power of four deep cuts.
"Shit," I swore, grabbing the discarded T-shirt off the concrete and pressing it against my stomach to staunch the flow of blood. Except… There was none.
Four red slashes marked my stomach with an eight-pointed star. It would be an eight pointed scar. I stared at the wounds with wonder. "The hell?"
Rat growled, staring at me with a mix of awe and terror in his eyes. I limped over to his cage, wincing as the movement tore at the cuts on my stomach. Whatever magic stopped them from bleeding hadn't done a damn thing to kiss away the pain.
I rested my hand on the bolts that held the cage shut tight. "Here goes nothing," I grunted, knocking it aside.
I stepped back and let the door swing open. I didn't take my eyes off the dog. The lattice patchwork of cuts that now decorated my stomach might have made me look crazy, but I'm not stupid. Rat seemed cowed by the sight of the spectacle he'd just witnessed, but I still remembered the way he'd made mincemeat of my hand.
"So."
The dog slunk out, delicately picking out every single footstep to avoid marking his paws with my blood.
Are you stalking me?
Or just scared shitless…
Rat paused, dropping his head as he got within a couple of feet.
Christ knows what must have been going on inside that streamlined head of his while looking at a man crazy enough to cut his own stomach to shreds; a man who didn't even bleed.
"What's the plan, boy?" I growled. I kept my voice low enough to still sound threatening, but calm enough to stop it from carrying any hint of provocation. Whatever else Rat was, he was still a damn predator. I needed him to make his own decision, not be bullied into it. He'd had enough of intimidation. It turned him mean, once.
I wanted to turn him back.
"You come live with me," I offered. "I promise you can have all the steak you want. And no beatings, either."
I reached out my hand, noticing that my fingers were covered in drops of dried blood.
Maybe this isn't such a good idea.
I stretched out a finger. "Pinky promise?"
Rat closed the last couple of yards that separated us. I closed my eyes, readying myself for the short, sharp burst of pain that would tell me I'd just lost a finger; “especially after you goddamn seasoned it.”
All I could hear was the sound of heavy breathing. Whether it was his or mine, I didn't know. I tensed, feeling the kiss of hot breath on my hand.
And then he licked it.
A heavy metallic clang reverberated through the warehouse as one of the big freight doors swung open at the far end. I
grabbed my weapon from the concrete floor, ready to make my last stand.
Then I breathed out a sigh of relief.
"Jesus, boss," Dimitri gasped as he approached, his face aghast. "What the hell happened in here - a bloodbath?"
I relaxed my grip on the handgun and set it down on the concrete by my side. I patted Rat on his haunches and grinned.
"Training."
I didn't specify who was getting trained. The truth was that it wasn't just Rat, it was both of us.
Dimitri skirted the dog carefully. "You sure…" He said, his voice breaking half way through. "You sure you trust that thing? It damn near mauled a couple of my men to bits before we got it into its cage. It's dangerous."
"Good," I grinned. "I want him dangerous: just not to me." I looked at the red scars on my hand, left behind from our first tangle. "Not anymore."
"Anyway, that’s enough about the damn dog. He's fine. Tell me what you know."
Dimitri looked pained. His face was stuck in its usual grimace, but his eyes were tired, lids drooping down even as he stood in front of me.
"Short or long?"
"Only what I need to know."
"The place was leveled. Only one body – ours."
"That's good news," I stated. It was better than I had expected. But judging by the black shadow that flitted across Dimitri's face, he wasn't done.
"Boss, there's more…"
He paused, and I gestured my hand impatiently to get him to continue. It was like getting blood out of a stone. "Well? Spit it out, Dimitri. This fuck up's on me, not you. Just tell me."
"It's Anatoly, boss. He's missing. He might have been taken –"
"No," I said, my voice black and dripping with the threat of what I planned to do to the traitor. "He sold us out. That rat fucking bastard sold us out. Go."
Dimitri stared at me, confused. "Are you talking –"
When I spoke I didn't look at the man, and my voice was cold as ice. "I said go."