Emergence

by Various

  But Vlad hated what he was. Each day he worried someone would come kill him. His parents had sold him. His mother had killed his sister, her very own infant daughter, just for being chimeric.

  Lucy had helped Vlad change his perception somewhat. Her brazen hope rubbed off on him, despite their disagreements. Had he stayed alone with the old man, Vlad would’ve given up completely by now. But he hadn’t. He and Lucy collected their American superhero books and trinkets while on their cons. The Brown Thrasher was a hero they held in high regard. Not only was he a TCA-sponsored chimeric, but he was a successful businessman. Vlad sucked up memories from people who’d been to America and relayed how wonderful it was to Lucy. They planned. They dreamed. Cheslav could never take that away.

  “Go fix dinner,” Cheslav ordered. “And don’t try to steal from me ever again.”

  Vlad looked at Lucy, stiffly getting to her feet and walking to the kitchen, and anger swelled inside of him.

  Cheslav must’ve seen the look on his face. The man laughed. “The second you try to leave, I’ll call the police and report two unregistered chimerics running amok. I’ll tell them what your powers are, all the evil you’ve done, and they will hunt you down and kill you. That, or I’ll come for you myself; you know what’ll happen if I do. There is no hope for you, boy.”

  Then. Two years ago…

  It was a mistake to run. Vlad told Lucy this more times than he could count, but she insisted. Cheslav was right when he told Vlad as a boy that he’d have to learn the hard way. Lucy would, too. Vlad would be punished alongside her for it.

  “We’ll be okay, love,” Lucy told him. She gripped his hand through his gloves and smiled. “We can sneak onto one of the freighters and go to America. Canada perhaps. Anywhere but here.”

  Vlad made himself return a smile. He nodded and returned to staring out the window.

  It was a beautiful summer day. Deep shades of green melded into the clear blue sky as the train sped through the countryside. It was the time of year American students flocked to Moscow for school trips or vacation. For years Vlad and Cheslav had robbed them. Cheslav beat them up, stole everything but their underwear, and Vlad removed their memories.

  Today, he and Lucy were supposed to go together. It was their first time out alone. She was to put them asleep, they’d steal their stuff, then Vlad removed all traces; instead, they were on a train headed north to St. Petersburg.

  Lucy had only been with him and Cheslav for five days. She was older than Vlad had been when Cheslav bought him. That made all the difference in her unwillingness to obey him. Despite being branded, and Vlad telling her that they couldn’t run, she insisted. She didn’t believe Cheslav had really branded her; that he could find them wherever they went.

  From what Vlad understood, Lucy had little experience using her powers. A year before Cheslav took her, her own powers manifested. Chimeric law was much better in England than in Russia, but as in all places, there were groups who hated them. In the small town Lucy came from, chimerics were pariah.

  Hated by her parents and town, she ran away with an older boy. He was an artist and promised they could make it on their own, peddling his work on the streets and entertaining crowds at festivals. Lucy had an aptitude for language and could speak decent French and Russian, so she figured she had a shot at traveling the world. It was while she was wandering the streets of Denmark alone that she was captured by human traffickers. When they discovered her power, they knew they could fetch a good price for her.

  Cheslav paid 2,000 ruble for her to a Ukrainian man with a scar across his nose and left eye. A spark of jealousy lit up in Vlad’s heart. The girl was worth 1,500 more rubles than he was. Guilt overtook him soon after for thinking such an awful thing.

  Lucy cried the whole way home. He wanted to take off the hood, but feared what Cheslav might do to him if he did. When they arrived back in Klin, Cheslav untied her, removed the hood, and branded her. She lunged for him and tried to put him to sleep.

  She laid in bed for two days crying and recovering from her beating. Now it was back to work. Vlad was to show her how things were done. The moment Cheslav dropped them off at the train station with fare for the train, she went to the one bound for St. Petersburg.

  Lucy flipped through an old magazine. An American superhero was on the cover with the headline ‘Chimeric Power Threat to Russia?’. A smaller image on the bottom left was of the infamous Artemis.

  “We could do this.”

  Vlad’s eyes met hers. They sparkled in excitement. “Do what?”

  “Be a superhero! It would be amazing, right?”

  He thought of reminding her Cheslav would likely find them before they even found a boat to escape on. That they had no money or idea where they were going. He rubbed his forearm where the brand tingled.

  “It would be, yes.”

  “This nightmare will be over soon.”

  Vlad made himself smile again. “Good.”

  Neither spoke again for the rest of the trip. He saw Lucy rub her arm where he knew she had a brand just like his. He dozed for a while and dreamed of Natasha and her fish-like face cooing and laughing.

  At the first stop, Vlad expected to see Cheslav waiting. To his surprise, he was nowhere to be seen. In the middle of the afternoon, the stop was desolate. Two passengers exited the train leaving three left in their cart.

  The train lurched and began the next leg of its journey. Lucy retrieved slices of buttered bread she’d prepared for the journey and handed one to Vlad.

  “See? Halfway to St. Petersburg,” she said. Her excitement let her accent slip through. “Halfway to our freedom.”

  He was hungry. He scarfed down the bread and found a trickle of Lucy’s optimism had rubbed off. Maybe Cheslav wouldn’t find them? Maybe they were too far away for his powers to work?

  When he tried to escape as a boy, he’d made it less than a mile before Cheslav found him. Now that he was older, he saw that it might not have been the brand that guided Cheslav. It was common sense or luck.

  By the time they were at the second stop, Vlad was entirely convinced Cheslav would not come. The brand was another game the man played to keep him afraid.

  He hadn’t told Lucy yet, but he’d been dreaming of going to America to become a superhero for years. Underneath his bed was a box that contained newspaper scraps of anything to do with American superheroes, clips of the California Girls, the brother and sister team of Willow and the Wisp, the Batman-ish Night’s King, and of course the iconic Hero. Cheslav knew about it and mocked him, but had never taken it away; he enjoyed scorning Vlad too much.

  Sunshine streamed through the train window. He soaked it up and felt a genuine smile creep onto his lips. This time when he dozed, he had no nightmares. He thought of Oleg and the fishing trip, of his own memory of it. Of father and how happy they were together. The smell of the worms, of—

  “Vlad.”

  Lucy’s voice was panicked. His eyes flashed open.

  Cheslav entered their cart. His face was smug. He leaned over to the two passengers by the cart entrance and whispered something to them. The woman glanced back at Lucy and Vlad then, shaking her head, hurried out of the train with her companion. Cheslav did the same thing to the man sitting by himself. They were close enough Vlad caught bits of the conversation. Chimeric…dangerous…police…

  The last passenger rushed off the cart, too, leaving the three of them alone.

  “I told you, stupid bitch. I told you I would find you.” Cheslav took a step towards them.

  Lucy sprung to her feet to run at the same time Cheslav pulled a gun from his waistband.

  “You die here or you come back with me.”

  She looked at Vlad, her face pleading.

  “Him? You think he will help you?” Cheslav snorted. “That boy is the last person on this planet who will help you. He probably pissed his pants already, huh Vlad?”

  The mark on his arm burned. Vlad
cursed himself for letting hope cloud his vision. He shouldn’t have let Lucy get him into this. He knew better. He stood, grabbed his backpack, and went to Cheslav. His chest ached as dread filled up every bit of him.

  “I’m sorry,” Vlad said, gazing at the floor.

  Lucy stared at the gun. Her shoulder slumped and the look of defiance melted away. Outside the train, onlookers watched the exchange. Vlad hated them. He hated them for standing there and doing nothing, for letting it happen.

  But it didn’t surprise him.

  “Get your bag,” Cheslav ordered.

  “I thought we’re going to Moscow?”

  He rolled his eyes. “We go back to Klin. You have a lesson to learn, girl. And once you learn it, you will never run again.”

  Lucy blinked away tears. Cheslav kept the muzzle of his gun pointed at her while she retrieved her backpack.

  Cheslav led them out of the train, passing all the people who hated chimerics and turned a blind eye to their suffering. Vlad found he hated himself more than he could ever hate them.

  Now…

  “No, Cheslav.” Lucy stood with a gun in her hand. “There is no hope for you.”

  The first bullet went straight through the middle of the TV. Glass shattered and smoke poured from it. Cheslav rolled out of his chair and ducked behind it.

  She’s not a good shot, was all Vlad could think as she fired two more rounds. One hit Cheslav’s chair where his head would’ve been. The other shattered the window behind it. Lucy paused.

  A cold gust of air wove through the room from the broken window. Snowflakes drifted in, melting the moment they landed. Vlad became aware of the silence, then his own labored breathing.

  “Is he dead?”

  Vlad had been crouched low to the ground, fearful of catching a stray bullet. Now he stood and turned to Lucy. Her hands shook, the muzzle of the gun bobbing wildly. Her lip had stopped bleeding, but left her mouth and chin bright red.

  “I don’t think so.” He took a step to the left and peered around the chair. He quickly spotted Cheslav’s back hunched over. He was a big man and couldn’t make himself small enough to hide.

  “Stand up, you bloody swine,” Lucy called out. “We know you’re still there.”

  He did. Only he had a gun, too. He blindly fired four shots at Vlad and Lucy, then dove out of the living room into the hallway that led to the bedrooms and front door.

  Fiery hot pain shot through Vlad’s arm. He looked down, surprised to see his gray shirt turn wet with blood. Lucy disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later he heard another two shots, a louder boom from Lucy’s gun.

  He slapped his hand against the wound, saw the ragged trail of split flesh beneath the tear in his shirt. The bullet had only grazed him. He darted into the kitchen, which also connected to the hallway to the rest of the tiny house. Lucy leaned against the wall beside the doorframe. Her chest heaved as she sucked in ragged breaths.

  “I got him,” she said firmly. “But I think he ran outside.”

  He peeked down the hallway. The front door gaped open. Against the snow, the droplets of blood stood out bright and vibrant. A revolver was abandoned in the center of the hall.

  “He’s outside.” Vlad winced, his arm pulsating whenever he moved. “Lucy, where did you get that?”

  She looked down at the gun and managed a weak grin. “We got it yesterday. You erased the memory so he wouldn’t see it.”

  That was what he’d torn out. Something was wrong. Vlad would never condone her keeping the gun, let alone using it to murder Cheslav.

  “We can’t kill him. You promised me.”

  She shrugged. “That isn’t quite what I told you. Your memory is fuzzy, Leech. Well, we’re here now, love. Go get the knife.”

  “Knife?”

  “Yes. To defend yourself.”

  His stomach clenched in a tight knot as he bolted to the kitchen. Her plan was to kill Cheslav all along. Had Lucy killed him in one shot, things would have been different, but now the man was wounded and they had to hunt him down. Vlad hated Cheslav more than anything else in the world, but this?

  He somehow found what he searched for. It was small, the blade as long as his middle finger.

  “Let’s go,” she ordered.

  He led the way. The revolver was empty, which is why Cheslav must’ve abandoned it. Vlad and Lucy trudged through the snow, following the blood trail. Their shack was in a round clearing, the perimeter turning to trees and bushes. The nearest neighbor was four kilometers away, and Vlad doubted even if they had heard the sound of gunfire they’d do anything about it.

  They found Cheslav leaning against his car, the vehicle covered in so much snow he never had a chance of digging it out in time. His breaths came out in foggy plumes.

  “You fucking brats.” He wheezed, blood and spittle dribbling onto his chin. Lucy had hit him once in the chest, once in the leg. “You think you won?””

  Vlad tightened his grip on the knife.

  “We have won,” Lucy said.

  Cheslav’s legs gave out under him and he slumped into the snow. He laughed wetly. “You might have done me in, you bitch. I’ll give you that. But whatever you plan to do after this, you will fail. This life I gave you? It’s the only one you’ll ever understand. It’s all you know.”

  “When we get to America—” Lucy started.

  “America!” Cheslav coughed. “You cannot fly. You do not have superhuman strength. You’re good for nothing. You’re just a couple of worthless—”

  Lucy closed the distance and Vlad watched her raise the gun and press it against Cheslav’s forehead.

  “Wait! Lucy…” Vlad said in English, hoping her native tongue might soothe her. “If we kill him, we become just like him. We’ll be bad people.”

  “He is a bad person! He took our lives away. He makes sure every day we never have a chance of going back. Why do you want to stop me, Vlad? His death is the only way we can be free.”

  “Don’t do this, Lucy, please.” A wave of nausea swept over Vlad. “We will find another way. We can give him to the police. Tell them he is chimeric. Let them punish him. Let’s not have his blood on our hands.”

  “After everything he has done? To you? To me?” Lucy scowled. “And you don’t want him dead?”

  Vlad shook his head. “I’m not a murderer. I have seen so much wrong in my life. I have done so much wrong against others. Now that I have a chance to decide for myself, why choose evil?””

  “Because we have to. Because this one evil means a lifetime of good. Once we get there, we’ll never have to use our powers for evil again. I swear to you, Vlad. I swear we will be good.”

  “Idiots…” Cheslav said through bloody teeth. “Stupid childr—”

  Lucy squeezed the trigger and shot Cheslav between the eyes before the old man said another word.

  Then. One year ago…

  It wasn’t that Vlad didn’t trust her. At least, that’s what he told himself as he waited for her to fall asleep. They’d done many cons together, each of them carried out smoothly. She hadn’t put him in danger. Both discussed their past life, their dreams of escaping Cheslav. While the old man still griped about how much they were bringing in, his complaining had reduced over the months.

  What made Vlad decide he had to read her mind was a collection of little incidents; things she said, the expressions on her face when she thought no one was looking. Lucy had been quiet for days. This was normal when they were around Cheslav, but at night in the room they shared they always had hushed conversations until they fell asleep. She’d been distracted or totally unwilling to participate.

  Vlad didn’t love Lucy in a romantic sense. Sometimes he doubted he loved her even as he might a sister. They were merely two victims who only had one another, and the bond that developed from that is unstable and temporary. When Vlad decided she was keeping something from him, and she wouldn’t let him in on it, he knew he had to take
action.

  Their room was dark, but the night sky was clear. The moon shone into the room enough that Vlad could see her pale face glowing in its light. He must have waited for an hour before her breathing became even and her face went slack.

  Slowly, as quietly as he could, Vlad peeled back his covers and stepped on the cold hardwood floor. He crossed the four feet separating their beds and, before he could second guess himself, reached out and set his fingertips on her forehead.

  Lucy’s memories rewound. Vlad felt her underlying sense of tension as she got ready for bed, finish cleaning the kitchen, serving dinner, then making dinner. All normal. Vlad saw his own face slurping up beef stew. His black hair was greasy, gray eyes distant. He made a note to bathe more.

  Her shift in attitude started much earlier, days before this. Vlad concentrated and let himself float farther down into her memories. He landed four days into the past, and he let the memory play in real time.

  Lucy was watching Vlad sleep. Vlad remembered this; he’d fallen asleep on top of his covers, exhausted after they’re most recent trip. Cheslav was gone.

  She turned and left the room, went to the kitchen, and retrieved the small knife she used to peel potatoes. Lucy ran her thumb against the edge of the blade.

  He focused on her thoughts. She wondered if it was sharp enough. If she could do it when the time came. What if she stepped on a floorboard and it creaked, woke him up, and he’d kill her? What if she wasn’t brave enough? How long would it take him to die?

  She spared a glance at the hallway leading toward their room. Lucy knew Vlad wouldn’t approve of her killing Cheslav. She saw no other way. She thought he was too weak to carry it out himself, not because of morals like he claimed, but because he had been under the old man’s thumb too long; that he actually liked Cheslav somehow.

  Not letting himself react to it yet—it was better to stay neutral inside someone else’s mind—Vlad flicked through her memories to see if she’d since changed her mind about the murder.

  As it turned out, she just hadn’t had the right opportunity. With each passing day, she grew more confident. She fantasized about killing Cheslav often. Vlad saw those fantasies, knowing they weren’t real memories because, in them, people’s faces were blurred, their bodies slightly warped. It was how he could tell the difference between something imagined, like a dream or fantasy, and something real.