by Anna Zaires
My parents won’t mind, I’m sure.
Tearing off the check, I hand it to the girl and say, “Take this and go to the police. He deserves to be in jail.”
Her rounded chin quivers, and for a moment, I’m afraid she’ll start crying again. But she just accepts the check with trembling fingers. “I… I don’t even know how to thank you. This is—” Her young voice breaks. “This is just—”
“It’s okay.” I put my checkbook away and smile at the girl. “Go cash it in, and put the bastard away, okay? Promise me you’ll do that?”
“I promise,” the girl says, stuffing the check into her jeans pocket. “I promise, Dr. Cobakis. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“It’s okay. Go now. It’s late, and you shouldn’t be out alone.”
The girl hesitates, then throws her arms around me in a quick hug. “Thank you,” she whispers again, and then she’s off, her small figure bobbing between the streetlights before disappearing from sight.
I stand there until she’s gone, and then I turn to go back to the clinic. My bank account just took a serious hit, but I feel as jubilant as if I’ve won the lottery. For the first time since I’ve started working at the clinic, I’ve truly helped someone, and it feels amazing.
The cold wind slaps me in the face as I start walking back, and I realize I forgot my coat at the clinic. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m glowing with an inner joy that’s no match for the chilly March evening.
I can’t fix my own life, but maybe I just helped fix Monica’s.
I’m less than half a block from the clinic when a flicker of shadow on the right catches my attention. My heart jumps, and adrenaline floods my veins as two homeless-looking men step out from the narrow alley-like space between two houses, the light from the street reflecting off the gleaming blades of their knives.
“Your bag,” the taller one snarls, gesturing toward me with the knife, and even from this distance, I catch the nauseating stench of body odor, alcohol, and vomit. “Give it here, bitch. Now.”
I reach for the bag before he even finishes speaking, but my icy fingers are clumsy, and the bag falls off my shoulder.
“You fucking bitch! Give it here, I said!” he hisses, increasingly agitated, and I realize he’s on something. Meth? Coke? Either way, he’s unstable, and his partner—who started giggling like a hyena—must be too.
I have to pacify them. Quickly.
“Hold on, I’m giving it to you, I promise.” Shaking, I kneel to pick up the bag so I can hand it to them, but before I can get up, a blur of motion cuts in front of me.
Gasping, I fall back, catching myself on my palms as a tall, dark figure rams into my attackers, moving with a speed and agility that seems almost superhuman. The three of them disappear back into the shadowed alley, and I hear two panicked cries, followed by a strange wet gurgle. Then something metallic clatters on the pavement. Twice.
Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
I scramble backward, barely noticing the asphalt scraping the skin off my palms as my rescuer steps out of the alley, and I see the two men behind him crumple like puppets with their strings cut off. A dark liquid spreads out from under their prone bodies, and the coppery tang of blood fills the air, mixing with something even more foul.
He killed them, I realize in dazed stupor. He just fucking killed them.
The blast of terror injects me with fresh adrenaline, and I jump to my feet, a scream rising in my throat. But before it can escape, the dark figure steps toward me, and the streetlight illuminates his face.
His familiar, exotically handsome face.
“Did they hurt you?” Peter Sokolov’s voice is as hard as his metallic gaze, and once again, I find myself paralyzed, terrified yet unable to move an inch as he comes toward me, his thick eyebrows drawn into a forbidding scowl. It’s the countenance of a killer, the visage of the monster beneath the human mask, yet there’s something more there too.
Something almost like concern.
“I…” I don’t know what I was going to say because in the next moment, I find myself enfolded in his arms, held so tightly against his powerful chest that I can hardly breathe. The heat of his large body surrounds me, shielding me from the icy wind and making me realize how cold I am, how frozen inside. The full horror of what I just witnessed hasn’t settled in yet, but already I’m starting to feel numb, my thoughts scattered and sluggish as the cold burrows deeper into me, anesthetizing me against the trauma.
Shock, I diagnose on autopilot. I’m going into shock.
“Shhh, ptichka. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.” Peter’s voice is low and soothing, his grip loosening until he’s cradling me with startling tenderness, and I realize the odd gasping sounds I’m hearing are coming from me. I’m struggling to breathe, my throat closing up as though during a panic attack.
No, not as though—I am having a panic attack.
He must recognize it too, because he pulls away and gazes down at me, his gray eyes narrowed in worry. “Breathe,” he commands, his hands tightening on my shoulders. “Breathe, Sara. Slowly and deeply. That’s it, ptichka. And again. Breathe…”
I follow his voice, letting him act as my therapist, and gradually, the choking sensation fades, my breathing evening out. I focus on that, on just breathing normally and not thinking, because if I think about what just happened—if I glance at the alley to the right and see the puppet-like bodies—I might pass out.
“There, that’s good.” He pulls me against him again, his big hand stroking my hair as I stand with my face pressed against his chest. “You’re okay, ptichka. Everything is okay.”
Okay? I want to laugh and scream at the same time. In what world are two dead bodies in an alley “okay?” I’m shaking now, both from the cold wind and the shock, and I know I’m on the verge of losing it again. I’m no stranger to blood and injury, and I’ve seen death in the hospital as well, but the way those two men crumpled, like they’re nothing, like they’re just sacks of meat and bones—
I stop before my thoughts can veer too far down that path, but my throat already feels tight again, my shaking intensifying.
“Shhh,” Peter soothes again, rocking me gently back and forth. He must feel me trembling. “They can’t hurt you. It’s over. It’s all over. Come, let’s get you home.”
I open my mouth to object, to insist on calling the police or an ambulance or someone, but before I can squeeze out a single word, he bends down and lifts me into his arms. He does it effortlessly, as though I weigh nothing. As though it’s normal to carry a woman battling a panic attack away from the scene of a double homicide.
As though he does this every day—which, for all I know, he might.
I finally find my voice. “Put me down.” It’s a thin, hollow whisper, barely a sound, but it’s better than nothing. My hands manage to move as well, pushing at his shoulders as he strides down the street. “Please. I—I can walk.”
“It’s okay.” He glances down, his gaze reassuring. “We’re almost there.”
“Almost where?” I ask, but then I see his destination.
It’s a black SUV parked on the corner a block away from my clinic. A tall man with a thick black beard is leaning against the side of it, and as we approach, Peter says something to him in a foreign language, his voice low and urgent.
The man responds in the same language—most likely Russian, I realize dazedly—and then pulls out a sleek smartphone, swiping across the screen with quick, furious gestures. Lifting it to his ear, he spews out more rapid-fire Russian as Peter opens the car door and carefully deposits me on the back seat.
My tormentor wasn’t lying about having a team. This man must be one of his helpers.
“I’ll be right with you, ptichka,” Peter murmurs in English, brushing my hair off my face with that same bizarre tenderness, and then he backs out and closes the door behind him, leaving me alone in the warm interior of the car.
I sit still for a couple of seconds, watching
him speak to the bearded man, and then I spring into action.
Scrambling across the backseat, I grab the door handle on the opposite side from where the two men are standing and push the door open, nearly tumbling out of the car in my haste to get away. My thoughts and reactions are still slow from shock, but I’ve recovered enough to comprehend one very important fact.
Two men were killed in front of me, and if I don’t do something about it, I’m an accessory to their murders.
The cold wind bites at me, and my lungs burn as I sprint toward the clinic. Behind me, I hear a shout, followed by rapid footsteps, and I know they’re chasing after me. My only hope is to get inside the clinic before they catch me. As a wanted man, Peter shouldn’t be willing to risk exposure. Once I’m safe inside, I can catch my breath and figure out what to do, how to best inform the police about what happened.
I’m less than a hundred feet away from my destination when a hard arm loops around my ribcage, and a strong hand slaps over my mouth, muffling my scream. “You really like me to chase after you, don’t you?” a familiar voice growls in my ear, and then I hear a car approaching.
I double my efforts to get free, kicking at Peter’s shins and clawing at his hand over my face, but it’s futile. I hear a car door open, and then Peter is stuffing me inside, much less carefully this time.
“Yezhay,” he barks at the bearded driver, and then we’re speeding away, leaving the clinic and the scene of the crime behind.
29
Peter
* * *
“Yan and Ilya are on it,” Anton informs me in Russian as he takes a right onto the street leading to Sara’s house. “They got there before anyone stumbled onto the scene.”
“Good.” I glance at Sara, who’s sitting next to me in the backseat, silent and deathly pale. “Tell them to thoroughly dispose of the remains. We don’t want body parts turning up anywhere. Also, they need to bring her car back to her house.”
“Yeah, they know.” Anton meets my gaze in the mirror. “What are you going to do with her? You really freaked her out.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
I’m glad Sara can’t understand what we’re saying; otherwise, she’d be even more horrified. I shouldn’t have killed those methheads in front of her, but they were threatening her with knives, and I lost it. All I could see was Tamila’s body lying there, broken and bloodied, and the thought that it could’ve been Sara—that if I hadn’t been there, one of those strung-out vagrants could’ve killed her—made my blood turn to volcanic ice. I don’t even remember making a conscious decision; I acted purely on instinct. It took only seconds to disarm them and slice their throats, and by the time their bodies hit the ground, it was too late.
Sara saw them die.
She saw me kill them.
“Can you take Ilya’s shift for the rest of the night?” I ask Anton when we stop in front of Sara’s house. With the big oaks shading the driveway and the nearest neighbors a good distance away, the place is nice and private—great in a situation like this. It’s too bad she’s selling the house; I’ve grown to really like it.
“No problem,” Anton replies. “I’ll be around. You going to be here until morning?”
“Yes.” I glance at Sara, who’s still staring straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to our arrival. “I’ll be with her.”
Taking Sara’s hand, I tell her in English, “We’re here, ptichka. Come on, let’s get you home.”
Her slender fingers are icy in my grip; she’s still in shock. However, as I help her out of the car, she looks up at me and asks hoarsely, “What about the clinic?”
“What about it?”
“They’ll wonder what happened to me.”
“No, they won’t.” I dip my hand into my pocket and pull out her phone, which I got from her bag during our trip. “I sent them this.” I show her the text message about having to see to an emergency at the hospital.
“Oh.” She gives me a perplexed look. “You sent this?”
I nod, slipping the phone back into my pocket as I lead her away from the car. “You were a little out of it during the ride.” That’s actually an understatement; after I dragged her into the car, she stopped fighting and became almost catatonic.
She blinks. “But… what about the bodies?”
“That’s taken care of, too,” I assure her. “Nothing will tie you to that scene. You’re safe.”
Sara visibly shudders, so I quickly usher her into the house, opening the door with keys I fished out from her bag earlier. I have my own pair of keys—I had them made a month ago, when I returned for her—but I’d rather Sara not know that. If she changes the locks again, it’ll be annoying to go through the process a second time.
“Here, sit,” I say, leading her to the couch. “I’ll make you some chamomile tea.”
“No, I…” She twists out of my hold. “I have to wash my hands.”
“All right.” I remember she has a thing about that. “Go for it.”
She disappears around the corner into the bathroom, and I walk over to the kitchen sink to soap up as well. I was careful to keep out of the spray of blood as I sliced those men’s throats, but I still find a few small red stains on my forearms.
Hopefully, Sara hasn’t seen them.
I wash my hands and forearms, then turn on the electric tea kettle. When the water boils, I make two cups of tea and carry them over to the table. Sara is not back yet, so I decide to check on her.
Walking over to the bathroom, I knock on the door. “Everything okay?”
There’s no answer, only the sound of running water. Worried, I try the door handle but find it locked.
“Sara?”
No response.
“Sara, open the door.”
Nothing.
I take a calming breath and say in a softer voice, “Ptichka, I know you’re upset, but if you don’t open the door now, I’ll have no choice but to break it.” Or to pick the lock, but I don’t say that. Breaking the door sounds way more threatening.
The water turns off, but the door remains locked.
“Sara. I’m giving you to the count of five. One. Two. Three—”
The lock clicks.
Relieved, I push the door open—and realize I was right to be concerned. Sara is sitting on the floor, her back against the tub and her knees drawn up to her chest. She’s not making a sound, but her face is streaked with tears, and she’s shaking.
Fuck. I really shouldn’t have killed them in front of her.
“Sara…” I kneel next to her, and she scoots to the side, away from me. Ignoring her reaction, I gently grasp her arm and pull her into my embrace. “I won’t hurt you, ptichka,” I whisper into her hair when I feel her shaking intensify. “You’re safe with me.”
A stifled sob escapes her throat, then another and another, and suddenly, she’s clinging to me, her slender arms folding around my neck as she begins to cry in earnest. I rub her back in soothing circles as she shakes with uncontrollable sobs, and she grips me tighter, burying her face against my neck. I feel the wetness of her tears, and I’m reminded of that time in the kitchen, when I was trying to calm her after the waterboarding. The memory sickens me; I can’t imagine doing that to her now, can’t picture hurting her for any reason.
She’s not just a person to me now; she’s my world, and I will protect her from everyone and everything.
It takes a long time for her sobs to ease, so long that my legs feel stiff when I finally get up and gently pull her to her feet.
“Come,” I murmur, wrapping a supportive arm around her back as I lead out of the bathroom. “Let’s have a little tea and get you off to bed. You must be exhausted.”
She sniffles and whispers hoarsely, “No tea.”
“Okay, no tea. In that case, let’s get you to sleep.” I bend to lift her into my arms.
She doesn’t object to me carrying her, just lays her head on my shoulder and loops her arms around my neck. Her breathing is st
ill ragged from all the crying, but she’s calming down. That pleases me, as does the needy way she’s clinging to me. I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of the trauma, or if I’m finally wearing down her resistance, but her holding on to me like this, with no trace of fear or mistrust, fills my chest with a special kind of warmth, one that lessens the icy hollowness around my heart.
With Sara, I’m coming alive again, and I want more of that feeling.
30
Sara
* * *
He’s gentle with me in the shower, his touch tender and incongruously platonic as he washes me from head to toe. I stand still; that’s all I’m capable of at the moment—just standing. Nothing bothers me right now, not my nakedness and not even his. Now that my emotional storm has passed, I feel empty, a fog of exhaustion dulling all my thoughts and feelings. I’m beyond desire, beyond anxiety and fear; all that exists is guilt.
Terrible, soul-crushing guilt from the knowledge that two more men died because of me.
They died because I let a killer into my life and fed his obsession.
It’s clear to me now, so perfectly obvious I don’t know why I didn’t see this before. I’m toxic—a danger to everyone around me. Today, the victims were two druggies; tomorrow, it might be my friends or family. Nobody is safe around me for as long as Peter wants me, and everything I’ve done has only fueled his obsession.
From the beginning, I’ve played the game wrong, and two men paid for that with their lives.
“Here, step out,” Peter commands, and I exit the shower, letting him wrap a thick towel around me. He dries me with it, once again treating me like a child, and I let him, because I’m too exhausted to do anything else. Besides, all this—crying in his arms, clinging to him, having him take care of me—works well for the new strategy I’m going to implement.
Since he wants me, I’m going to let him have me.