The Mercy of the Mako Shark

by Nicole Castle

  “Not the fruit bowl?” Nasir was familiar with all of Miko's fears.

  “Just a plate. He will forgive me.”

  “I think he would forgive you for the bowl too.”

  Miko didn't even want to think about breaking that.

  Cleaning up the broken glass was made much more difficult since Miko was terrified to go close to the table, but he got it done by sweeping the pieces towards him and staying the broom's length away. He ate leftovers for dinner while standing by the sink, and the rest of the streusel, then he went to their park to spend the remainder of the evening where he was unlikely to break anything else.

  While Toby had been chopping parsnips the night before, he'd told Miko that he'd gone to that park himself after cutting his finger. He was in pain, worried and upset about having to miss work and pay the doctor's bill, but he just couldn't bear to go home to an empty apartment so he'd sat there for hours. Miko wondered what would've become of his life, of both of their lives, if Toby hadn't gotten lonely enough to meet strange German men. He decided that he didn't want to think about that either.

  Miko took a picture of a flower with his phone and texted it to Toby even though he knew Toby's phone wouldn't be on. Toby had only gotten to check in a few times throughout the day, but Miko was wearing his shirt and he knew that if he got too anxious he could sit under the kitchen sink and then Toby would sit with him once he got home and it wouldn't be weird because Toby understood.

  It was nearly midnight before Toby called to say he was on his way home, asking if Miko needed him to pick up anything even though Toby sounded completely worn out. The only thing Miko needed was for Toby to come back, and he went home himself, lying in bed so it would be warm when Toby got there.

  He must've drifted off, but not long enough to dream. When he opened his eyes Toby was sitting beside him on the bed, teasing Miko's nose with a bouquet of flowers the size of the fruit bowl. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

  Miko placed his hand over Toby's, holding him still so he could smell the flowers properly. They smelled strangely like frosting. “You caught bride bouquet?”

  “She threw it right into the cake.”

  “Oh no!” Miko sat up, barely keeping the grin off his face to express an appropriate response to what Toby would've considered an absolute fiasco. It delighted Miko that they smelled like frosting.

  “She was mortified.”

  “You were mortified too?”

  “Yeah. But they were really cool about it. The groom said that the flowers were rightfully mine, much to the dismay of about a million bridesmaids, and I 'should give them to my sweetheart.' So there you are.” Toby handed them over and Miko buried his face in them so deep that he likely now had frosting in his hair. Toby kissed the top of his head and flopped down exhausted in the warm spot Miko had left.

  “You are tired?”

  “Mmm hmm,” Toby mumbled, his eyes already closed.

  Miko unbuttoned Toby's shirt, and when that didn't get a reaction began bopping him on the nose with the flowers until he smiled and turned his face away. Snuggling up against him, Miko rested his head on Toby's chest and put the flowers on the pillow where he could look at them. “I broke a plate.”

  “Plates can be replaced.” Toby reached his hand up and started to stroke Miko's hair. “Are you okay?”

  “I had a dream that I was digging through blood and I had no fingers.”

  Toby was still for just a moment, then continued through Miko's knots. “Sounds scary.”

  “Yes.” Miko's eyes drifted from the flowers to his own hand, the stumps grotesque, scary. But not to Toby. He took the prosthetics off, tracing his hand across Toby's bare skin under his shirt. Miko had no sensation at the tips where they'd been severed, but he did have feeling everywhere else, the skin tender from being enclosed in silicone and unaccustomed to other physical stimulation.

  “That feels good.”

  “Yes,” he said again. Toby's breathing became shallower, sleeping or nearly there, and Miko remembered something as he looked up at him, his face tilted towards the bouquet. “Kocham Cie.”

  “Hmm?”

  Miko smiled and closed his eyes. “I will tell you in the morning.”

  Nursery Rhymes

  Miko: Age 8

  With his throat raw from screaming Miko lay under the bed, having once again earned the lock on the door. He didn't eat enough to have the strength to fight the old man, so all he could do was yell, make demands he had no power to have fulfilled. He curled up on the floor, cradling what was left of his hand and seething in the darkness of the bedroom. Miko hurt Hector today, he knew it and he was glad. He'd thrown the vase of flowers across the room after Hector lied again about Miko's father, and Miko told Hector he wanted to shoot him in the throat and watch him die like he'd shot his friend.

  “You are not looking for him,” Miko sobbed to himself. “You are a liar. You are keeping him somewhere just like you are keeping me here.”

  The previous weeks were a blur of confusion and grief, fear and rage, resigning to his helplessness and then exploding in anger. Everything in the room that could be broken was. Miko had torn out tufts of his own hair, and Hector's too. That was the first time the door had been locked.

  He could hear the water running downstairs, Hector doing dishes after Miko had yet again refused his dinner. Miko had broken his plate as well. He'd broken many plates.

  Anything could set him off. Or nothing. His emotions were utterly out of control, and Miko was often as afraid of his own thoughts as he was of Hector. More afraid, since Hector didn't always scare Miko. It was only when Miko started to let himself come to terms with the events and accept what had happened that he would stop seeing Hector as his savior and consider him his captor again.

  It was the flowers tonight, that Hector had brought in flowers from the garden outside to cheer Miko up because he kept looking out his window at them. But Miko saw it as an attack, remembered Hector's gift to Tola as a precursor to everything, and he'd asked for his father again just waiting for Hector to lie.

  The water stopped and Miko lay perfectly still. He knew what came next. Hector would slowly come up the stairs and stand by Miko's door, listening. Then he would go to his own room and the night would be quiet until Miko woke screaming. If he slept at all.

  Reaching his left hand into the bed springs, he pulled down some of the candy he'd stashed and tore the wrappers open with his teeth, holding each red disc in his repulsive right palm until they were stacked high. Then he shoved them all in his mouth, his eyes watering with the spice as he breathed around them, letting them gradually dissolve.

  It took a considerable amount of time when there were that many, but Miko would slip in and out of awareness when he was in such a state, crying and then calm, furious, numb. He twitched as he swallowed the last of it, his mouth so sticky that he struggled to open it.

  The house was silent, no lights showing underneath the door. Miko had not admitted to Tola that he was afraid of the dark too, that he took as much comfort in her glowing toy as she did, but now that toy was gone and so was she, and Miko only had the moonlight.

  Crawling out from under the bed, Miko stood at the window, staring into the darkness. He could see his reflection, a face he no longer recognized. He looked gaunt, dark circles under his eyes, his mouth startlingly red. He twitched again and cast his eyes down, to Hector's flower garden. The flowers were bright white, the ground looked soft.

  He quietly opened the window, the air cold outside. Miko put his jacket on, stained with blood that Hector had tried repeatedly to wash out, Miko's blood, his sister's, maybe the man Anton's too. He didn't want to wear the coat, could feel the blood spots still wet on his skin, but he would not make the same mistake he'd made before, going out unprepared into the world. He and Tola had eaten all of the food their father left them instead of saving it for later. Miko would need the coat later. He had to wear it to get away.

  There was an ivy covered trellis tha
t reached nearly to the window and Miko carefully climbed out, telling himself that not having his right hand any longer wouldn't make that much of a difference, he could manage without it. But his weight wasn't evenly distributed and he heard the snap of wood and tried to grab on, his right hand instinctively reaching out and unable to catch hold.

  The next thing Miko knew he was flat on his back, surrounded by flowers, gasping for air and staring up at the stars. He was stunned, completely winded by the impact, and for a moment he thought he might be dead but then Hector was yelling his name and trying to pick him up. Miko skittered away from him, back against the trellis where the broken pieces still hung from the ivy.

  “Are you hurt?” Hector asked, concernedly trying to reach for him.

  “You do not care!” Miko screamed. “You want to kill me!”

  “Miko, that is not true.”

  “You killed my sister!”

  Hector sighed heavily and closed his eyes as he sat on the ground, his knees creaking. “I did not kill her. Miko, what happened to your sister was a terrible, tragic mistake. Hurting children is not what we do.”

  Miko shook his head, beginning to cry again. “He killed her. He hurt me.”

  “Yes he did. And if you had not taken the gun from him like you did, then I would've done far worse to him.”

  Tucking his knees to his chest, Miko curled up tight. “You lie. You led him there.” It was the only conclusion that had made sense to Miko, that Hector came when his father left and then Tola died and now Miko was taken away to a strange place and locked in a room. It had to all be connected, otherwise the world was just too big for him to comprehend.

  “No, my boy,” Hector said sadly. “I want to explain to you what happened. What we were doing there. Will you let me explain to you?”

  Miko peered out at Hector from underneath his scraggly hair. “Where is my father?”

  “We are looking for him. If your father is to be found, we will find him. Until then, I will protect you. You do not have to be scared.”

  “I am scared,” Miko whispered against his knees.

  “I know you are, Miko. I am scared too.”

  Miko's father had seemed afraid on the day he left them but Miko had never heard an adult say it before, and he picked up his head just a little to ask, “Why?”

  “I worry for you. I worry that you will not get better, that I cannot help you. I want to help you. I do now and I did before.”

  Miko started shaking his head but he remembered Hector asking about his parents, giving him and Tola candy. That flower that made her smile for the first time in days. “Where is my father?” he asked again, weakly, desperately, and Hector's blue eyes welled with tears and he shook his head as well. “He was not inside,” Miko admitted. He knew he must've told Hector that before, when the doctor was there sewing up his hand and Miko wasn't fully conscious. How else could Hector look for his father? But Miko felt guilty for lying, responsible for everything because of that lie. “He left.”

  “I know.”

  “I am sorry I lied,” he bawled, but really he was sorry for being irresponsible and for getting his sister killed. Hector merely reached for him, didn't try to move closer again, and Miko came into his arms and sobbed. “She is dead because of me.”

  “No, Miko, that was not your fault.”

  “She was scared to go in there! I made her go. She knew it was not safe!”

  “She had no way of knowing that. You had no way. You took her in there to protect her, where you both should have been safe.”

  Miko cried harder, his hand hurting, still bleeding in his mind.

  Hector held Miko closer, gently rocking him. “Bringing her there does not make this your fault. Even if you were responsible for where she was, that doesn't make you responsible for Anton's actions.”

  “I broke your plate,” Miko sniffled.

  “Yes, that you did, but it is okay. Plates can be replaced.” Stroking Miko's hair, Hector continued, “Anton told me that he'd seen you and your sister around that building. I had not been informed by my client that there were children living there. I went inside, at considerable risk to my agency, to ensure that you and your family did not live near the mark. Just in case Anton did something stupid. Exactly what he did and used that gun.”

  Client, agency, mark, Miko knew these words but everything was confusing again. “His name was Mark?”

  “No, mark is just what they are called.”

  “Who is 'they?'”

  “The company I work for, we get rid of bad people. Marks are bad people. He was a bad person.”

  Miko blinked away fresh tears, looking at the destruction of the flower garden, the rip in Hector's sweater that Miko had done a few days ago when Hector carried him kicking and screaming to the bedroom to lock him in. “I am a bad person.”

  “You are not bad. You are a troubled little boy. I was a troubled little boy once myself.”

  “What did you do?” Miko asked, his interest piqued. Adults were infallible.

  “This country has been through many hard times. Bad men were in power. Bad men are frequently in power. I wanted to do something about it, and when I was old enough I did. Sometimes you can do bad things for good reasons, Miko.”

  Miko twitched, and very nearly smiled. “You get rid of them?”

  “Yes. As a younger man. I am far too old now, so I help others do as I used to.”

  “Anton?”

  “He was one of the men who work for me. There are others.”

  “All men?” Miko's sister had been part of his life for as long as he remembered, and she'd always commanded the attention of the entire household. Even with the absence of their mother, Miko had grown up with a sense that there could never be all men anywhere without a female around to dote on.

  “Well...” Hector smiled. “One woman. I think you'd like her. She has red hair, like your candies.” Miko wiped at his mouth, more to keep Hector from seeing him smile than to rub the stain away. Hector chuckled. “She was a thief. She tried to break into my boss's home. Climbed the trellis, just like you.”

  Cocking his head, Miko thought about what Hector had said, that sometimes you can do bad things for good reasons. “She is not a bad thief?”

  “No, I am certain she's quite good at it. Someone who climbs in windows can be a great asset to our company. Maybe someone who climbs out, too.”

  “She gets rid of mark?”

  “She got rid of a friend of Anton's actually. Blew him up with a little bomb.” Hector stretched out his fingers like an explosion, the rings he usually wore finally off and his hands looking bare. “He's alive, but...well he's had an attitude adjustment now I think”

  “I like her!” Miko exclaimed, not even noticing that he was smiling this time.

  “I like her as well.” Hector stood, bringing Miko to his feet. “You know, Mikolaj, Anton was one of many. They are not all that way. We are not that way. You are a part of this agency now, and we will never let anything happen to you again.”

  Having never been particularly popular in school, being part of something gave Miko a sense of belonging he appreciated more than he wanted to admit. “What happens when you find my father?”

  “Then you will go back with him, and we will protect you both.”

  “From bad people?”

  “That's right.” Hector moved some of Miko's hair off his forehead, which Miko had only just realized was tickling. “There is another man, he was Bella's partner. In a way, he's part of this agency like you are. Connected to us forever.”

  “This man is like me? Protected?”

  Brushing the dirt off Miko's back, Hector ushered him back into the house. “Yes. You are both protected.”

  Hector was in the kitchen when Miko came downstairs, a new vase with new flowers on the table. He was humming as he set out measuring cups and bowls. Miko had slept through the night for the first time in weeks, the noise over his head in his nightmares a bomb blowing up Anton instea
d of the gunfire that would change his life forever. “What are you doing?” he asked as he approached. Food was frightening to him still, but now Hector had it all set out in bags and jars, the name of the ingredient written in Polish in black marker underneath the German name on the labels. Flour. Sugar. Cinnamon.

  “You are going to help me make Streuselkuchen.”

  “Streusel?”

  “Yes. It is cinnamon, you will enjoy it.” Hector held Miko's face in his hands and sighed. “You have to eat food, Miko. Look at your mouth. It looks like you are wearing lipstick.”

  “Like Bella?”

  Hector laughed. “Yes, like Bella.”

  “I want to hear more about bad people.”

  “I will tell you a story if you promise to try and eat.”

  Miko nodded, moving closer to the counter and watching as Hector filled each cup and bowl, mixed it all together with a wooden spoon and poured it into a pan.

  Holding out the spoon to him, Hector began, “There is a Spanish man, Rodrigo.”

  Miko took the spoon and sat on the kitchen floor, paying such close attention to Hector's story that the spoon went into his mouth autonomously and he'd sucked it clean before Hector had even put the cake in the oven.

  “He is a deeply religious man. A man of God. He does his job so there are less bad people in this world.”

  “I like him too!”

  “That is good. You two also have something in common.”

  “We do?”

  Hector hesitated, then nodded. “One day, Rodrigo was at the barbershop. Do you know about barbershops?”

  “They cut hair.”

  “Yes, they also shave men's faces. Rodrigo was having his face shaved, but it was not the barber behind him.”

  “Who was it?” Miko asked excitedly.

  “It was...a murderer!”

  Miko gasped and dropped the spoon, laughing as he picked it back up.

  “The man slit Rodrigo's throat with a straight razor,” he paused to demonstrate by drawing a line across his throat, and Miko gasped again. “But Rodrigo leaped into action, covering his wound with the hot towel from around his face and emptying his gun into his assailant BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG until the man was on the floor and the barrel of the gun was red hot.” Hector stopped to gauge Miko's reaction to it all, having gotten overly passionate as if Miko's obvious enthusiasm was contagious.