A Dead Man’s B-Side

Prologue

Three years after the disappearance of Alexandr “Sasha” Miroslav, Wolf Kingsley hired a private investigator who’d pointed him in the direction of a graveyard situated just outside of New York City.

It was upstate and rather large for how deep Wolf had to drive into the abyss of greenery to find it.

On that particularly icy day, Wolf’s black dress shoes, shiny almost to the point of being reflective, crunched against the dry and fallen leaves as he kept an eye on the dark clouds rolling in, promising rain and thunder.

He was alone in the desolate necropolis, and the slight wariness crawling up his spine–or perhaps it was a chill from the wind–made him slide his hands into his long coat pockets, gripping tight to the familiar stainless-steel handle of a gift he’d received in what now felt like a past life.

Upon reaching his destination, Wolf tilted his head and admired the headstone in front of him.

His eyes drifted to what lay next to it, long enough for a chuckle to rumble off his chest at the plastic flowers sitting in a stained mason jar next to the words to die is to be reborn.

Then, he remembered something Sasha had told him a long time ago in the secrecy of his dorm.

When they were only young and foolish schoolboys.

When everyone had shuffled back to the comfort of their beds, one by one, and it was only the two of them.

In those rare moments of night, Sasha would share tiny pieces of himself he wouldn’t otherwise share with anybody else–or at least Wolf had let himself believe.

"When I die, I want to be buried in an empty field somewhere in Norway. Or on the Aleutian Islands. Somewhere quiet where the only interruptions would be… I don’t know, the fall of a tree or the race of a rabbit. "

Wolf huffed out a laugh, the cigarette smoke he'd inhaled billowing around him, almost catching in his throat and making him choke out, "What made you decide that?"

Sasha offered no explanation. He only shrugged and gestured for the cigarette they'd been sharing. At the time, Wolf hadn’t cared enough to ask. He found it comical, sure, intriguing. But he simply brushed it off.

Because he knew the boy, and Sasha always liked offering cryptic musings.

Sometimes he wished that he had–asked, that is.

Looking down at the tombstone now, Wolf wished he asked Sasha a lot of things and really got to know the one who laid his sanity on the line for him–all the reasons he'd avert his eyes or why they often glazed over with a faraway look.

All the secrets he kept close to his chest and well hidden in the coffer of his mind.

Anything he could use as a clue to what led them to where they are now.