Chapter 62
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
VIKTOR
Avelina and the kids are all settled in since moving back to the Kremlin a month ago, and everything is perfect.
I’m checking through invoices when the office door slams open hard enough to make the glass rattle. And Nikolai storms in like a Russian thundercloud dressed in combat gear. “What in God’s frozen hell is this?” he snarls.
I don’t even look up from my laptop. “Whiskers Wonderland.”
He blinks at me. “Whiskers…what the fuck?!?”
Before I can answer, Queenie launches herself from a tiny velvet ramp and lands squarely on his shoulder like she’s conquering Mount Everest. Nikolai screams in fright, his words cut off mid-rant as a cat tail swishes across his face.
I spare him a glance. “It’s for her enrichment. Stimulation reduces aggression. You know, you should try it sometime.”
Nikolai’s jaw drops. “You wanna talk about aggression? First my drones, now this. There’s a twelve-foot fucking fluffy cloud city in the corner!”
“It’s eight feet,” I correct him—because I like things to be accurate. “And each platform is a different kind of cloud. Cirrus, cumulonimbus, stratocumulus, etc. It’s her cloud kingdom.”
He glares at me. “Cloud fucking…what?!”
Queenie leaps over the cat tunnel shaped like a rainbow, meowing triumphantly, and her fluffy paws begin batting the pink pom-poms dangling from the ceiling.
Nikolai spins around. “We’re supposed to be running an empire here!” His arms flail in the air. “Not a…a…feline fucking amusement park!”
I shrug, not giving a shit about his dumb opinions. “The empire runs better when Queenie is happy.” Because if Queenie’s happy, then I’m also happy.
“Happy?” Nikolai splutters. “I don’t care about your goddamn happiness levels. This is totally out of order. Your cat’s got…got…a personal throne now!”
“It’s ergonomic,” I grit out before I can stop myself.
“But all this is in the space I use to store my grenades,” he whines. “Where are my grenades supposed to go now? You know, Viktor, I think I preferred you when you were a grumpy fucker.”
I ignore him.
But his scowl slants across to the couch at the back of the office—the couch where he likes to take an afternoon nap. He stomps over to it, snatches up the new cushions I bought. “What in hell’s name are these?” he wails.
“Cushions for when Queenie is tired and needs to rest her fluffy paws,” I reply. He reads out the slogans on the cushions I picked out.
Seat Taken. Meow Means No!
Knead. Nap. Repeat.
Property of the Cat (Violators Will Be Scratched.)
As Nikolai glares, Queenie leaps onto the couch with the poise of a velvet-pawed queen.
He stiffens. “No. Absolutely not! You have an entire cloud city for this!”
She ignores him completely, circles twice, and settles down right in the middle and stretches out, her claws digging into the upholstery.
“Off,” he orders, pointing toward her tower. “Go. Rule your ridiculous kingdom.”
She blinks, slow and deliberate, then yawns directly in his face.
“Viktor,” Nikolai howls, “your cat is violating my personal space and my human rights!”
“She’s expressing affection. Consider yourself honored.”
Nikolai glowers at me, then back at the cloud city and white puffball tunnel glowing softly with twinkle lights. And he makes a sound that’s like a groan and grunt combined. “I’m surrounded by fucking lunatics.” He presses his fingers to his temples. “I need vodka. Immediately!”
“Top shelf,” I clip. “Next to the catnip.”
And Nikolai’s horrified shriek echoes through the room—while Queenie plays on the couch with her little glittery bell, clearly satisfied with her kitty kingdom and her attempts at world domination.
The next afternoon, the door slams open. And Nikolai stands there in the doorway, clutching his coffee as though it’s the last fragile thread holding his sanity together. His eye twitches. “No. No, no, no. Absolutely not. Not again. What…the hell is happening in this office?”
I look up from my laptop just in time to see Albert trotting through a row of pink cones, tail wagging like a victory flag. There’s a red carpet starting line. A velvet rope. And miniature chandeliers dangling above an agility ramp wrapped in gold ribbon.
Grigory stands beside it all, arms crossed and chest puffed. “If Viktor’s cat gets Whiskers Wonderland in this office,” he declares with a steely look in his eyes, “then my dog gets his own assault course in here.”
Nikolai’s voice shoots up an octave. “Assault course? And why in the hell does your creature need that? He spends his days stealing food and sleeping. He’s hardly in training for active combat.”
“It helps his poise and inner equilibrium,” Grigory explains smoothly. “Builds character.”
Albert leaps rather clumsily over a row of silver hurdles labeled Confidence Jumps, then lands before a gilded archway that reads Pawformance Arena.
I give a satisfied nod. Because I’d actually been thinking of making a dog area like this for Albert, and it’s just that Grigory beat me to it. “Albert’s already exceeding expectations.”
“Exceeding? Viktor!” Nikolai splutters. “The dog has a personal hydration station shaped like a rainbow!”
“It’s electrolyte-infused,” Grigory explains in an unusually helpful tone.
“And there’s mood lighting!” Nikolai shrieks. “Why is that tunnel glowing purple?”
“Ambience,” I cut in. “Albert trains better under soft tones.”
Nikolai looks moments from collapse. “We were once the most feared organization in the country. Now we’re running—what is this—a fucking puppy play gym?” Then he notices the new cushions Grigory added to the couch.
If You Can Read This, You’re in My Spot, Human.
Best Doggy Headquarters.
Pawdon Me, I’m Napping.
“No!” Nikolai declares. “He’s not hogging my couch like some furry dictator.
” But then he looks down at the couch and notices that Albert has already been using it.
“Is…that…dog hair on my couch?” he shrieks.
“That’s going to get all over my black clothes and make me look like a fucking plushie instead of a man running a high-powered international organization. ”
But before Nikolai can start whining some more, Albert bounds over, wearing a gold medal that reads My Best Boy. He drops a squeaky dumbbell at Nikolai’s shoes.
“He’s offering you a peace treaty,” Grigory announces with pride.
Nikolai glares at the slobbery toy. “Tell your diplomat I don’t negotiate with canines.”
Albert squeaks the toy again—three times—clearly ignoring Nikolai’s hostility.
Nikolai exhales like a man who’s just seen the fall of civilization. “I can’t believe that this is what my life has become,” Nikolai groans.
And Albert wags his tail with relish, batting it from side to side. And it’s clear for everyone to see that now this doggy assault course is here, Grigory—and I— have absolutely no intention of removing it ever.
A while later, when Nikolai thinks no one will notice, I see him slip treats out of his pockets for Queenie and Albert. Yeah, he may like to complain, but I predict that by the end of the week, Nikolai will be taking afternoon naps on the office couch while snuggled up with the pets.
This office used to just be about work. But now the animals come in and keep us company, Sofia scampers in and has tea parties whenever she wants, and even Leon comes in and spends his time babbling to us.
And best of all is when Avelina comes in to see me, giving me those special smiles and spreading her beaming sunshine into my life.
I told Avelina that I wanted to talk to someone about my sensory issues, and the following afternoon, we’re sitting across from a neurodevelopmental doctor. Avelina gives me a smile of reassurance.
“I think—and dream—in black and white,” I blurt out to the doctor before she even asks how she can help. My palms sweat. “Everything flattens, like an old movie reel.”
Dr. Avery has a soft expression and a clipboard balanced on her lap. She nods, like this doesn’t sound ridiculous. “Tell me more.”
So, I do. I tell her about the way color bleeds out of the world and about the grayscale that slides over my vision in my thoughts and dreams. And I tell her that sometimes, I wonder if my brain is broken in some way.
When I’m done, she sets down the clipboard.
“I don’t think your brain is broken,” she says.
“What you’re describing is unusual. But autism is a complex condition.
It’s different in every individual because there are three main factors that interact to affect the person.
We don’t know what causes autism, but we do know that the brain is ‘wired’ differently.
My sense is that your brain is acting like a filter.
When you’re sensory-overloaded, your mind cuts out nonessential details, like color, so it can focus on what feels critical. Shapes. Positions. Movement.”
Her words make my chest unclench a little. Not broken. Just filtering.
“Think of it as your nervous system’s emergency mode,” she adds.
“Most people never notice the little things they lose under stress—because most humans filter out various details when they are thinking. You notice because your brain already processes the world in sharper detail. And when you dream, it’s at the end of the day.
Your brain is overloaded from the day’s events, so your brain might suppress the color in your dreams to lessen the overload. ”
I lean back, air finally moving through my lungs.