Iskra
The sun was warm for a change. Summer was coming and it was the perfect time to travel.
The rental car park was quiet at this hour—a handful of vehicles, a bored attendant in a glass booth scrolling his phone, the kind of unremarkable place that existed in every city and remembered no one. I continued to hum the tune that was stuck in my head.
My phone was switched off and tossed out the window several miles back, somewhere between the last Chernograd street sign and the first open road.
I rolled my suitcase to the rental car and loaded it into the boot without hurrying.
Hurrying attracted attention. Attention was the one thing I couldn’t afford.
Everything was completed online so I had limited time in this car before I had to dump it like his SUV.
I packed the car but kept only one padded envelope on the passenger seat.
The next stop was my brother, Ruslan.
We couldn’t travel together and he knew nothing of my plans.
It had to play out this way to protect him.
But I could help him get out at a later date when the heat died down.
The thought of leaving him behind sat in my chest the way it had since I first mapped this route—a small persistent ache I had learned to breathe around.
He was young. He was capable. He had survived the shestyorka and the contempt of the Brotherhood’s particular brand of education. He would survive a little longer.
I wished I could have seen the Pakhan’s face when he got home.
The destruction was my parting gift in exchange for how he had treated me from the moment we met.
Every clause. Every locked door. Every decision made on my behalf while I was unconscious and unable to object.
Every woman he paraded through the east corridor with the specific intention of being heard.
A fair exchange, I thought. His kitchen for my loss.
His east wing for my body. The rubble of his home for the rubble of everything I had arrived with.
I slammed the door shut and settled into the new car. With the mirrors positioned, I tuned the radio before I revved the engine and pulled away from the rental car park.
The road opened ahead of me, straight and indifferent.
I would soon be on a series of trains.
The Trans-Mongolia route before I sorted out my entrance papers to Beijing.
The international airport was then my gateway to the world.
I would need to purchase multiple flights with his credit cards to throw him off the trail, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.
Let him find the receipts. Let him follow the wrong thread across three countries while I disappeared in the opposite direction.
He had taught me, without meaning to, exactly how a person covered their tracks—I had watched his men operate for months from doorways and staircases, filing everything worth filing.
I hummed along to the radio, driving away from the only world I knew.
Chernograd.
The city that had swallowed me whole and was only now releasing its grip.
I had memorised every street of it without meaning to—the compound, the cathedral visible from the balcony on winter mornings, the port district grey and frozen, the university where I had studied and believed, briefly, that knowledge was its own kind of freedom.
Chernograd had been a cage with a beautiful skyline.
My hand rested on my belly as I thought of Makari.
I had a piece of him with me. The scan picture was long gone in the accident but I had the soil—the small folded tissue in the inside pocket of my bag, the damp earth from beside his headstone, the only thing left of him I could carry.
It would have to be enough. I would make it enough.
It wasn’t long before I saw my brother waiting at the bus stop I had told him to meet me at.
“Oh god. You really did it,” he said, running toward me.
I climbed out of the car and he rushed me, picking me up and swinging me around.
I laughed and hugged him back. We were not an affectionate family.
Everything was so stiff and proper—my mother’s particular brand of love delivered through management rather than touch, my father’s through obligation rather than warmth.
So this was unusual for my little brother.
It was unusual for me. I let it be unusual. I let myself hold on.
He released me and pulled back. His smile faded.
I handed him the envelope.
“Look out on your Avito message board,” I said. “It might take me a few months to settle somewhere but I will send word, and you can come and join me.”
He held the brown envelope and nodded. His jaw worked the way it did when he was holding something back—I had watched that jaw my entire life and knew every variation of it.
“Sestra,” he began, but I placed my hand on his cold cheek.
“Hide the money and always keep watching and planning. Always,” I said sternly.
He nodded.
It was just as well that he didn’t know I had blown up the Pakhan’s house, or this pit stop would have been considerably longer.
I gave him one quick tight hug before I let him go.
“Be safe, Ruslan,” I murmured and returned to my car.
For now, our journey was one of opposites, but that would change. I refused to let my brother rot inside Chernograd’s Bratva. He had joined to protect me—the irony of that wasn’t lost on either of us. He would leave when I had somewhere safe to bring him to.
I waved as I pulled away.
In the rearview mirror he stood at the kerb getting smaller, one hand raised, the brown envelope tucked under his arm. I watched him until the road curved and took him from view.
My mind buzzed from one aspect of my itinerary to the next. I hadn’t left a digital footprint but I had ordered an in-depth travel guide book. Paper left no trail that mattered. Paper could be burned.
It wasn’t until I left Chernograd in the rearview mirror that hope bloomed in my chest. Away from contracts and his insane clauses. Away from a dangerous man that I had cut before I ran.
Yet somehow, knowing him and his reputation, no matter how hard I had tried I was unable to stop myself—I had to ruin something of his.
The same way he ruined me.
Marked my soul.
Gave me a child.
Took it away from me through petty rivalry and his establishment.
Used other women when I refused to lay with him.
My fingers tapped on the leather wheel.
It didn’t matter what I said because he had his way with me in the end.
Twice.
I swallowed and nervously checked my mirrors. The road behind me was empty. It wouldn’t stay that way—I knew that with the same certainty I knew everything else about him. He would come. He always came. The only variable was time, and time was the one thing I was using every mile to buy.
If he ever found out there was a child, then all hell would break loose. Wherever I settled, I had to make sure I was well hidden and far away.
I’d know in a few weeks if I was pregnant.
That wasn’t something I wanted to think about right now. I had a long way to go before I was safe.
I pressed my foot on the accelerator.