Chapter 14
Yefrem
T he ground here is softer than I expected, with loose soil mixed into old leaves that give way easily under the shovel blade.
I’ve chosen a spot about fifty yards from where we parked, far enough into the tree line that casual hikers, which is unlikely this late at night, won’t stumble across it, but close enough that we don’t have to carry Lang’s body through dense forest.
Celia stands a few feet away, holding the flashlight with both hands to keep it steady.
The beam wavers slightly—her hands are still shaking—but she’s managed to keep it pointed where I need it.
She hasn’t said much since we arrived. She’s just followed my instructions and held whatever I asked her to hold.
The digging goes faster than usual. This soil has been disturbed before, though not recently. I clench my teeth and dig, piling the dirt to one side in a neat mound that will be easy to redistribute later.
“How deep does it need to be?” Celia’s voice cuts through the rhythmic sound of the shovel hitting earth. She sounds more academic than curious.
I pause, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “Deep enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Three feet. Maybe four.” I resume digging, focusing on the physical work rather than the way she’s watching me. “Deep enough that animals won’t disturb it but shallow enough we can finish before dawn.”
She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, the flashlight beam moving with her. “Okay.”
The hole is taking shape now, roughly rectangular and deeper than it looks from ground level.
My shoulders burn from the repetitive motion, but the physical exertion feels good after hours of sitting in the car.
It gives me something to focus on besides the weight of what I’ve dragged Celia into, and I wouldn’t dream of asking her to take a turn with shoveling.
“You said you were fifteen the first time?”
I stop digging and look up at her. The flashlight illuminates her face from below, throwing strange shadows that make her look older, more serious. Her eyes are focused on me with an intensity that suggests this isn’t casual curiosity.
“Yes.”
“Fifteen.” She repeats the number like she’s testing how it sounds. “That’s young.”
“Not where I come from.”
I return to digging, but she doesn’t let the subject drop.
“What happened?”
The shovel hits something hard—a root or a rock—and I have to work around it, using the blade to cut through whatever’s blocking my progress.
The brief delay gives me time to consider how much to tell her, and how much truth she can handle right now.
“Someone came to our house. Someone who wanted to hurt my family.”
“And you killed him?”
“My brother did.” I set aside the shovel and kneel to pull the severed root from the hole. “I just helped clean up afterward.”
Celia adjusts her grip on the flashlight, and the beam steadies. “How did you know what to do?”
“We didn’t. We figured it out as we went.” I pick up the shovel again, attacking the earth with renewed force. “Made mistakes. Got lucky they didn’t matter.”
“What kind of mistakes?”
I grit my teeth while I dig. I don’t want to relive that night, don’t want to remember how terrified Dmitri and I were, how we nearly got caught because we didn’t know about tire tracks and blood spatter and all the other details that matter when you’re trying to make someone disappear.
“The kind that could have gotten us killed or arrested in St. Petersburg, which would be much worse than here.” I pause to check the depth of the hole, measuring it against the length of the shovel handle. “We learned fast.”
“Because you had to.”
“Because the alternative was worse.”
The grave is almost deep enough now. I’ve been digging for forty minutes, working steadily while Celia holds the light and asks questions I don’t want to answer, but there’s something about the darkness and the isolation that makes honesty easier, like confessing to a priest in a booth where faces can’t be seen clearly.
“The man who came to our house had already killed my parents by the time Dmitri got to a gun.” The words come out before I can stop them, emerging from some buried part of my memory that the physical act of digging seems to have unlocked.
Celia doesn’t respond immediately, but I can feel her attention sharpening, focusing on what I’m telling her.
I drive the shovel into the bottom of the grave with more force than necessary. “Dmitri shot him before he could shoot us too.”
“I’m sorry.”
The simple condolence catches me by surprise.
Not pity or horror or judgment, just genuine sympathy for a loss that happened more than twenty years ago.
I haven’t talked about that night in years and have rarely allowed myself to remember the smell of blood in our small apartment or the way my mother’s hand was still warm when I checked for a pulse that wasn’t there.
“We didn’t know what to do with the body.
We couldn’t call the police because they were as corrupt as everyone else in our neighborhood.
We couldn’t leave him there because more would come looking.
” I measure the depth of the hole again—deep enough now.
“So, we wrapped him in a tarp and carried him to the river.”
“Did you cry?”
The question surprises me with its directness. I pause, the shovel suspended halfway to another scoop of dirt and look up at her. “Yes.”
“Because of your parents?”
I nod. “Yes, but not just them. Because of everything. The blood, the fear, and what we had to do afterward.” I climb out of the grave and set aside the shovel.
“Because I was fifteen, and I’d never seen a dead body before, let alone helped dispose of one.
I didn’t know how to comfort my brother, who’d never killed anyone before either. ”
She nods slowly, and something in her expression shifts. Not sympathy exactly but understanding. Maybe recognition that we’ve both crossed lines we never wanted to cross and been forced into roles we never chose.
“How long did it take? To stop being scared?”
“I’m still scared.” The admission comes out easier than expected. “Just scared of different things now.”
We walk back to the car together, and I open the trunk to reveal Lang’s wrapped body. The bundle looks smaller in the open air and less ominous than it seemed in Celia’s living room. It’s just a problem to be solved. Evidence to be concealed. “Help me get him out.”
Celia positions herself at one end of the bundle while I take the other.
We lift together, and the weight distribution is awkward but manageable.
The walk back to the grave takes longer than the walk to the car since we have to move carefully to avoid tripping over roots or holes in the uneven ground.
When we reach the grave, I lower my end of the bundle first, guiding it into the hole while Celia controls the descent from above. The wrapped body settles into the rectangular space with a soft thud that sounds final and irreversible.
“Is that it?”
I pick up the shovel and begin filling the hole, working faster now that the hardest part is over. “Now we cover him up and get out of here.”
The dirt falls onto the wrapped bundle with a series of soft impacts that gradually muffle into silence as the grave fills.
Celia continues holding the flashlight, though she’s turned her face away from the hole.
I don’t blame her. Watching a grave being filled is somehow worse than digging it. It’s realer and more final.
“What happens now?”
I pause in my shoveling to look at her. “Now we disappear for a while.”
She doesn’t even blink at the “we.” “For how long?”
“However long it takes.”
“Takes for what?” Her responses seem more automatic than intentional, and it’s clear part of her isn’t here with me. She’ll break sometime soon, but I hope she waits until we’re away from here.
I resume filling the grave, using the repetitive motion to organize my thoughts.
How much can I tell her? How much should she know about what comes next?
“Lang wasn’t working alone. When his handlers realize he’s dead, they’ll come looking for whoever killed him.
” I spread the last of the dirt over the grave and use the shovel to scatter leaves and debris across the surface. “They’ll start with you.”
“With me?”
“Your house was his last known location. When he doesn’t report in, they’ll trace his movements.” I step back to examine our work. The grave is invisible now, just another patch of forest floor. “They’ll find your address, interview your neighbors, and search your property.”
Celia lowers the flashlight, and we’re suddenly surrounded by darkness broken only by distant stars. “What will they find?”
“Nothing, if we’re lucky. My people will clean your house and eliminate any evidence that either Lang or I were ever there.
” I gather the tools we brought and start walking back toward the car.
“But they’ll keep looking, especially since you won’t be there.
They’ll know something happened if not what exactly. ”
“So we run.”
“We disappear. There’s a difference.”
She follows me through the trees, her footsteps uncertain on the uneven ground. “What’s the difference?”
“Running implies they’re chasing us. Disappearing means they can’t find us to chase.” I open the car trunk and load the shovel and other supplies. “I have places they don’t know about and people they can’t trace.”
“People like you?”
“People who owe me favors. People who understand the value of mutual protection.” I close the trunk and move to the driver’s side door. “People who know how to keep secrets.”