He nods, and his arm slips around her back, and against her will she leans into him. "I'm constantly surprised you're not more angry. At me."
It's a lot easier to look out at the lavender fields then look at him and actually, you know, confront her feelings. "It comes and goes. You're...usually not around for when I am."
He leans against her. "I didn't think you'd be so..." he trails off, as if grasping for words. "So..." Instead of going further, he pulls her towards the small restaurant behind them. "Try their croissants. And espresso. It's the best I've found."
She follows him, but does not look at him, as if looking at him will be a hair too painful, or, that her eyes would want to look at nothing else. "Best you've found?"
The restaurant is fragrant with the smell of slow baking bread and coffee. "Polish have their comfort food, French have their breakfasts." He signals for the waiter, then leads her to a table tucked in a small alcove, so small they can only see each other and the view out of the window. "Have you ever been to France?"
She shakes her head, looking out at the sea of lavender. "Only in films and pictures."
She risks a glance at him, and he smiles, crooked, and for a moment they sit there, the strangeness and the rawness of their situation sitting on them both.
17
Four days later Flasks is closed, the security cameras off and pointed away, and there's no sign of the blurry bartender anywhere nearby. Just Katya with a grave face and a suit that's cut to make her look as sharp as possible.
She takes a long look at Aimes's face, the sort of uncomfortable look she's been getting from way too many of her friends lately, and sighs, handing her a glass of wine.
They sit, for a few seconds, both drinking wine but not wanting to speak. The bags under Katya's eyes hold volumes.
"Is everything okay with you? You look...stretched thin."
She gets a sharp look in return to that, but then Katya sighs. "Things are going...weirdly right now." She admits. "There's been a rash of killings, in the same way as Dave. There's this girl who can see ghosts - just one ghost - but the ghost has another creature after it and it's a mess to deal with.”
And that's not really what she meant, but all right. "Iakov said he didn't kill Dave." She blurts out.
Katya immediately winces. "Yeah, it's either him or his brothers who did, with the energy around the place." She frowns, shut in on herself. "Aimes, I have to officially ask you to report to me whenever he contacts you."
It's as if she’s plunged into cold water very very quickly. "What?"
"I don't want to ask that, it's just..." She trails off, uncomfortable. "It's just that if it is him killing people then we need to know his movements. And it could...it could put you in danger.
Aimes sits back, her stomach cold. "He's always asking me if you're making me do that." She blurts out. "He's always thinking you're controlling that and--and...and using me to spy on him."
Katya doesn't meet her eyes. "It's not to spy on him, it's for your safety," she says, voice low. "I don't like it, but..." She trails off, looking the most uncomfortable. "We need to start tracking the Demigods, and I don't know how better to do it."
Aimes sits, feeling like she's caving into herself, like her shoulders are slumping and her spine is compressing. "I don't think it's a good idea." She hears herself say. "If he thinks I'm doing that, he won't trust me."
This time Katya does look at her, and the look is pitying. "Aimes, you realize, any emotion you're having to him...it's because of the bond. That he tricked you into."
It's a barb that sticks in the back of her head. "But it's still there."
"And it's not real," she says, blunt, final.
Aimes tries to swallow, then tries to swallow again, the lump not going away. "But it can be?" She manages out.
Katya's face turns kind, and it's far crueler than anything else. "He could be manipulating you, it wouldn't be difficult," she says. "It's in his interests to have you be loyal--"
There's a cough in the back of the store, and they both swivel, Katya's hand flashing to her side holster.
In the dark of the store, in the corner, stands Iakov. His face is neutral, but his eyes dance.
"Oh Jesus." Katya groans. "What the hell do you want now?"
He strides forwards, flicking his eyes to the security cameras as he does. "As entertaining as that is..." He rests a hand on Aimes's arm, and an electrical current goes through her, "I need your help." But he's not looking at Aimes, just at Katya, and suddenly her skin crawls, but not in the way it had earlier. This time it's like something went wrong, some message got mixed, and the world is suddenly dangerous.
Katya's nose flares; she doesn't move the hand from her holster.
Iakov's hand tightens against her arm, but the look on his face doesn't change as he pulls up one of the bar stools. "I've gotten my hands on a few new prophecy pieces." He takes Aimes's glass, takes a swig of it. He wrinkles his nose at the glass, then continues. "And actually have some answers as to...why they've been after me."
They both glance at her, then back at each other, like she's a pawn in getting what they want in this conversation.
"At the same time as the...original prophecy thing...someone made another. That, if the twins could kill me they could rule, but..." He trails off for a moment, as if floundering. "But way more people would die." His hand tightens further on her arm, and she's struck by how much his neutral face, how much the look in his eye, how casual his voice is, how much of it is a lie. A bald faced lie, and he is scared shitless.
Katya hesitates for a beat. "You have enough proof?" She asks, her voice harsh.
"They think they do." The hand on her arm goes gentle, sliding down to grasp her hand.
Aimes squeezes back, and he gives her such a startled look. Like he wouldn't think that she'd do such a thing, and is pleasantly surprised, and then his eyes catch on hers, and it's like he can't look away.
He's definitely scared shitless. Terrified, and scraping by keeping it together.
Aimes nods at him, and his face breaks, like he's going to crumble, like he's going to cry, before he visibly gathers himself back together.
"Vanya killed the librarian in Pasadena, his traces were everywhere there," he says, voice rough. "He was tortured for information."
"He also had a payment from them dated two days before," Katya says, brisk.
"I don't know why," Iakov says, desperate, then with a sideways look at Aimes, he clears his throat. "Regardless, I have to borrow Aimes here, and --" With a squeeze of his hand, they're all of a sudden not in Flasks anymore.
She stumbles, and he catches her, his eyes wide. "Don't leave," he says, his voice rough, then he disappears.
Her heart pounding, she sits down -hard- on the tile floor.
She's...in some sort of windowless room. No door, nothing leading outside, just...a room.
The tile is old, off-orange and brown, like the linoleum you'd find in 1970s houses. The walls are red brick, and there's a small cot tucked along one side, and an ancient fridge against the other. Despite it not being plugged into anywhere, it hums with electricity.
The lights are recessed into the ceiling, and they're old, so old they buzz, as if they have been running since the 1980s.
Her hand shaking, she pushes herself up to her feet, her actions making no noise. "What the fuck," she whispers, and the words sort of stop without making too much noise. Obviously, she can hear them, but they're not clear.
There's a single sink that's not hooked up to any plumbing, but water runs clear and cold from it. She runs her hand behind it and anything holding it to the wall...no pipes. Same with the frankly ancient looking toilet in the opposite corner.
A single cabinet holds packet after packet, all in Russian, more Soviet era than anything else. It rattles -- some sort of foodstuff.
The hair on the back of her arms starts to rise. How long is he leaving her here for?
She yanks open the handle on
the fridge, it's full of fruit and beer, rows of apples and rows of a beer with Russian lettering on it. It's so verging on ridiculous that she sits hard on the tile again, the door open in front of her.
"What the fuck."
She spends three hours -at least, according to her dying phone with zero signal- pressing into all the bricks she can reach. None of them shift or move at all.
So instead, working up quite a sweat despite the chilled air, she sits in the middle, staring up at the ceiling.
It's roughly 15 feet by 15 feet, and, from the chill and the sounds, either in a place that's winter now or underground and completely impossible of getting into or out of unless it's by the weird teleportation thing that Iakov does.
His brothers probably can do it, too. If they share abilities at all or anything, which for all she knows they might not.
And he's left her in this hole. For who knows how long, and who knows why.
Tears bubble up in her eyes, and she buries her head in her arms, feeling like she's about to hyperventilate, her chest rising and falling.
She had been so happy, so happy when he had shown up, for that brief moment of seeing him again, and it was pathetic. The moment he needed something, he put her in this room and...and...and left.
The emotions of the last week crash down on her, with Dave's death and the brothers finding her and not being able to tell Trixie anything, and she cries, tears burning down her cheeks and salting her mouth. She grabs the pillow off of the cot, and it smells exactly like the odd cologne that Iakov wears and that starts a new round of tears.
Full of restless energy, she crosses to the fridge, and throwing her hip into it she manages to move it away from the wall. Still no plug in, despite it running perfectly.
Because she is willing to wage actual money that this all runs on Iakov's power. Somehow. If he can do that from however far away he is. She would also bet actual money that, based on the Russian beer and Russian food and Russian everything, she's not in the U.S. anymore.
She struggles with one of the food packets, and once she rips it open beef jerky falls out.
She gnaws on it tentatively, and it's fresh, or as fresh as beef jerky can be. Not rancid, in any case, and it calms the bubble of hysteria in the back of her throat.
Suddenly exhausted, she takes the packet of beef jerky and lays on the small cot, staring up at the brick ceiling. It's not the most uncomfortable cot she's slept in, and she somehow drifts off to sleep with the bag of jerky resting against her chest like a comfort blanket.
When she wakes, her phone is dead and she has no clue if it's night or day, and the lights buzz on. Her mouth feels like she’s eaten a pile of dust, and without thinking she stumbles to the fridge and downs a bottle of the sour tasting Russian beer.
Making a face, she casts her eyes around the room, and...and there's a small pile of books on the cabinet, with an envelope on top.
With probably more force than necessary, she rips it open, a ball of irritation sitting in her chest. He was here, he was here when she was asleep, and instead of talking to her or, you know, getting her out he decided to leave some books.
On the page is a single word, in a spiky handwriting.
Sorry.
No explanation, no idea of how long she can expect to stay in the little box of a room.
She crumbles it up, the paper crunching, and throws it across the room. It bounces off of the sink, rolling underneath the fridge.
He brought her books, he brought her entertainment, but no news on how long.
"That fucker." She mutters, and picks up the top, cranking it open with more force than necessary. "That absolute fucker."
She's about halfway through Alisha Rai's "Serving Pleasure" when it starts.
One moment she's laying on the bed, stretched out like a cat, and the next she jerks into a ball, gasping, as if she's being held underwater.
A lance of pain dashes through her chest, then another, then another. The pain bleeds through her body, numbing the tips of her fingers and the tips of her toes.
For a few seconds, all she is is pain. Pain everywhere, pain all things, before it slowly, slowly recedes into a ball in the center of her chest.
She lays there, gasping, mind racing the moment she is able to think.
Clearly, something happened with Iakov. As she lays there, a frisson of worry threads its way through her mind.
He had reached out to Katya, someone who he doesn't seem to be able to stand, for something. For protection, as a ruse to distract her, something.
Though she knows so little, for all she knows him showing up might've been to hide her away, instead of asking Katya's help. It could've been a ruse, something meant to distract, to redirect whatever the hell is going on.
For all she knows, everything he said could be a lie.
But the brief glimpse of his face, when she did something so small as to squeeze his hand back, when he looked like it was the end of the world and everything was crumbling around him, that...that doesn't seem like it could be such a lie.
Katya probably thought it was a lie. Unless Iakov somehow, somehow gives her proof. Somehow convinces her.
A small part of her wonders if it was Katya who hurt him, before she banishes the thought with a shake. Katya would know that it would hurt her, she wouldn't do that. Probably.
She curls up tighter, pain radiating out of her, and if she hadn't cried so much the night before she would cry again, but instead her sinuses ache.
An hour later of pain and feeling distinctly sorry for herself, there's a whisper of movement in the air and Iakov crouches next to the cot.
Blood drips from his chest onto the orange brown tile with a soft pitter-patter.
Slowly, as if the movement causes him great pain, he brushes back the sweaty curls from her face. "I'm so sorry," he whispers, his accent so thick she has to strain to hear him. "I'm so sorry."
She struggles to sit up, and he guides her up, a hand cool on her back, blood glimmering dark underneath his suit jacket. She reaches out, and his shirt sticks to his chest, hot and slick.
He locks eyes with her, nods once and --
They're inside a small infirmary style room, the walls a stark white, so white she squeezes her eyes shut. He staggers, setting her down on a cot, then stumbling over to a cheap folding chair, drawing in ragged breath after ragged breath.
Underneath the lights, he looks small, haggard.
"Where are we?" She croaks out, struggling against the weight in her chest to sit up.
He gives her a blank look, one that speaks way more volumes than any of his usual suaveness does. "The Organization's office."
She blinks, then rests back heavily on the bed. "Wait, Katya's?"
He nods, the skin on his face gray.
Her brain clicks together. "Shouldn't you be the one in the cot, not me?" She gestures vaguely at the blood soaking through his suit.
Again, the blank look. "I'll be fine." His face twists with discomfort, as if her bringing it up starts the pain, and he picks at the shirt stuck to his chest with the air of someone distracted.
The door swings open, and Katya strides in with a doctor in tow. She gives Iakov a critical glare - as if the blood sticking to him is an annoyance then scowls at Aimes. "You in pain?" She barks out, and she may actually have up to three hairs out of place, she's that frantic.
Aimes nods, and almost before she completes that action the doctor is unfurling an IV drip. "But --" she starts, but Katya gives her such a glare that she shuts her mouth.
Iakov sits back, face pale, watching as the doctor deftly hooks a needle in her arm, injecting something quick and cold.
The room's silent, but not the silence of the hole she was stuck in for the last few days, and it’s odd against her ears. "What happened? She asks, staring at the IV in her arm as a warm rush spreads from the line.
Both Iakov and Katya open their mouths, glance at each other, then close them at once.
Another fissio
n of frustration moves through her, and the pain seems far away, moving further. "Shouldn't you help him?"
Iakov's face tightens, and he shakes his head, quick. "They're not going to drug me," he snaps, as if drugging him is the worst that can happen, with all the blood on his front.
The moment he shook his head, the pain echoes through Aimes's sinuses. "I mean, blood transfers are a thing, you are bleeding...a lot."
"I can't die from bleeding out, Aimes, that's not how people like me die," he says, harsh, but the lines around his eyes soften. "I just need time and good food."
She leans her head back, exhausted, and rests her eyes for just a moment as the warmth from the drugs floats above her. "Stitches, though. You could get stitches." Her voice sounds slurred, even to her.
Katya coughs, and it's her 'I'm agreeing with you but can't say that' cough, and Aimes smiles with her eyes closed.
Cool fingers fix a pulse reader onto one of her hands, and take her blood pressure, and she lays there, letting them. A small part of her, the part that's not in pain and a lot pissed off, thinks about refusing, about shaking them off and leaving, but she doesn't move.
After an indeterminate amount of time, the door opens and closes again, footsteps walking out. Aimes knows, somehow deep inside her, that it's just her and Iakov in the room. She blinks up at him, and he looks like absolute shit.
They lock eyes, and the silence stretches on.
"What happened?" She whispers, her mouth feeling more like cotton than anything else.
He sighs and cradles his head in his hands. He doesn't answer for a very long time, in which Aimes struggles to keep her eyes open. "I tried your idea." He rasps out. "To take one down."
Her eyes flicker down to the bloody mess of his chest. "Which one?"
"Vanya," he says, as if it’s obvious, and, seeing her face, he capitulates. "He's the shorter one."
Aimes closes her eyes again and tries to remember if one was actually shorter than the other. "Right."
Marked by the Demigod Page 17