08
The office door closes with a soft bang. I don’t look up to see who it is. The smell of weed is enough.
“Would you like something to drink?” I offer him, hiding my cell phone under the table.
“Do you still have that old scotch?” I nod slowly. “Pour me some of that. It always brings back memories of our first murder together—”
“Do it yourself. You already know where it is,” I cut him, too impatient to wait for her image to appear on the screen.
Then I open the app that connects to the cameras I installed throughout her house a few days ago, taking another drag on my cigarette with my free hand. She’s talking to someone on the phone, but since the volume is low, I can’t hear what she’s saying or who the hell she’s talking to.
“Very helpful. Thanks,” Denis replies before picking up one of the small crystal glasses encrusted with rubies.
“Why did you call me? You only ask me to come when you’re really screwed or need something.
” He takes a sip from his glass. “Judging by your face, I’d say it’s the first one.
” I put out my cigarette somewhere on the table and lock my phone screen.
“Do you know someone named Romina?” I push the name out of my lips. Since she enjoys hugging so much, I could send her to hug her dead boyfriend in hell.
“Yes, she’s an old friend,” he murmurs with a sly smile, pouring himself another glass. “Why?”
“I fucked up,” I say, moving the piercing on my tongue. Why the hell would she lie to me?
“What have you done?” he asks, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
“She lied to me.” My frown is just another sign of my anger, but I can’t really be mad with her. That pisses me off even more.
“She, who? I don’t understand.”
“Forget it.”
“You’re acting weird,” he says, moving his whiskey glass without taking his eyes off me. He knows I won’t tell him a fucking thing, so he changes the subject. “Don’t you have a shipment or something for me? This week is fucking boring.”
Before I can answer, my phone vibrates with an incoming call from my father.
“What?” I spit. On the other end of the line, my father coughs roughly.
“I told you to scare him, not fillet him!”
“I got carried away,” I murmur with little interest in the subject.
“Because of you, now it’s all over the news. That’s what you wanted?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t like the photos. I would have used a better angle. The man’s face looked terrible. Well. What was left of it.”
“Don’t fuck with me and fix this whole mess before it goes any further,” he said before hanging up the phone without waiting for a response.
I slam the phone down on the desk and settle back into the armchair, putting a new cigarette between my lips. She’s definitely going to give me more trouble than I expected.
Ten years ago, in Toronto
Age 13
I was so busy thinking about Ana’s words that I forgot to stop by my father’s office this morning.
At another time, that minor mistake would have bothered me more, but now I was thinking of ways to get rid of the stupid butterflies in my stomach that Babush mentioned.
I would burn them and then step on their ashes. I just had to figure out how.
When I opened the door, I found a man who looked a lot like my father. It was my uncle.
“Where’s Kristoff?” I asked, not hiding my dislike for him. The sight of him made me sick.
“He’s busy with something. But don’t worry, I can do what he does,” he said, taking a step forward and narrowing his eyes at me.
My attempt to leave came too late. The door was locked, and in a matter of seconds he had caught me easily, which was not surprising considering the difference in size.
“If you touch me, you’ll regret it!” I shouted, struggling almost wildly in his arms. “This time I’ll tell Kristoff.” I clung to anything I could find so that he would let go of me, but from his laughter I knew it hadn’t worked.
“Do you think he doesn’t know?” he said, throwing me onto the sofa with bitter irony.
His foul breath hit me instantly. He stared with hungry eyes, twisting my insides with a feeling different from the one the red-haired girl made me feel.
“Just because he’s not here doesn’t mean he enjoys it any less. Stupid boy.”
His words echoed in my head unpleasantly. I kept struggling to pull my body away from his, but he always brought me back with sharp jerks.
He hit me, ripped my shirt and squeezed my nipples. He then tore my pants off, breaking a button. My left cheek throbbed from the swelling and my body was paralyzed with fear, but I still managed to kick him in the stomach.
My eyes filled with tears of helplessness, and this time, before it happened, I knew I had reached my limit.
“Stop moving if you don’t want me to smash your face in,” he threatened after hitting me again, blurring my vision even more than it already was.
He took advantage of my disorientation to turn me around and pull down my underwear.
The only thing that brought me back to reality was his penis forcing its way into my body, tearing my skin in two and ripping everything in its path.
I couldn’t even scream because the sofa cushion pressed my head down, suffocating me.
The fabric of the cushion did not muffle the comments he whispered in my ear.
The faster he thrust into me, the more I ignored the blood that was probably flowing from between my buttocks.
I closed my eyes, feeling my body recede into the background, as if I had become a spectator in a horror movie rather than the protagonist experiencing everything.
He turned my body again and pulled out his still erect penis.
Just when I thought he would finish on my bare chest, he dug his fingers into my cheek, forcing me to open my mouth so he could insert the head of his glans and masturbate.
I had the urge to throw up with him inside me when a thick, bitter liquid went down my throat.
“That’s it. Swallow it all,” he said between moans and heavy breathing. Finally, I couldn’t avoid the nausea and threw up all over his jeans and part of his shirt. “What do you think you’re doing? Do I disgust you, huh? Is that it?” He pulled up his pants.
He fixed his eyes on mine and watched for the tears I refused to let fall, knowing that would upset him even more. He didn’t like it when, according to him, I acted tough.
“Ya nauchu tebya uvazhat,1” he said to himself with a smile, grabbing the belt of his pants.
As much as I wanted to run away, my body wouldn’t respond.
It was still numb from the pain and acidity in my stomach.
I didn’t see the first blow coming as I covered my face in an instinctive attempt to protect myself.
I clenched my teeth, swallowing the pain as best I could with each blow, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of enjoying my pain too.
I lost count of how many times the buckle made me bleed, with the blood running down my torso and staining the sofa. This was my favorite part. My body had already become accustomed to that pain, and I had turned it into something pleasurable.
I distracted myself by doing the exercises the teacher instructed until my attention fell on the children who took over the court a few meters away from ours.
I looked at them again with a pout. Why were they sitting on the floor while we had to run around like dizzy ducks bouncing a stupid ball?
I felt like throwing it at the teacher’s head.
I kept glancing around, hoping she would appear. Now they had put on music, and the children were dancing in pairs. I almost tripped when I saw her holding hands with another boy.
My head hurts and I felt an unpleasant twinge in my stomach. Minutes passed, and he didn’t move away from her. Even now he had one hand on her waist. That made me furious. He mustn’t touch her. I thought as I fixed my eyes on the boy’s head. If he didn’t move away willingly, then I would make him.
However, before I could throw the ball at his head, something hard bounced off my nose, leaving a sharp pain. I looked up to find myself face to face with a pale-faced boy who was opening and closing his mouth like a fish.
“You’ll be sorry, Wilson!” I shouted, glaring at him and feeling a thick liquid running down my nose before running to the bathroom with my hand covering the spot.
The blood wouldn’t stop flowing. I had to tilt my head back and put pieces of paper in the holes for a while.
“Hello. Can I come in?”
I stopped breathing normally when I recognized her voice on the other side of the door. I immediately threw away the paper and wiped away the remaining drops. When I opened the door, I wanted to change my image of being hit by a ball to a better one, praying that the bleeding had stopped.
“Hello.”
“I have something for your nose.”
“My nose is fine,” I said with a disinterested attitude, leaning against the door frame.
“I don’t think so. It’s bleeding.” She pointed to the blood with her finger. “Sit here. I’ll fix it up for you.”
I closed the door and followed her to the bench in the middle of the locker room. I was very curious to know how she intended to do it.
First, she put a band-aid on the tip of my nose, and then she brought her lips close to it with confidence. By the time I tried to pull away, she had already left a kiss that was barely a touch, leaving me with a swarm of bats in my stomach.
The pain in my nose was mostly gone. It didn’t seem swollen to me, let alone bleeding, though I had doubts about the latter.
“Better?” All my breath had been taken away. My muscles had gone numb, so all I could do was nod my head.
She smiled, revealing her teeth. One of her front teeth was crooked, but it was still the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. If I had seen her smile before, it would have been easier for me to survive him.
“I don’t think it worked,” she said, watching the red thread come out of my nose.
Seeing her intentions to bring her lips closer again, I wished it would never stop bleeding. I let out a sigh. That sensation in my stomach growing stronger than before. Then I noticed the small drop of my blood that had remained on her lower lip.
“Now it worked.” She smiled, licking the small drop without realizing it. I waited for her to make a disgusted face, but her expression didn’t change. “It always works. My nanny does that when I have a wound,” she explained later, and I looked at her in confusion.
“Your nanny gives you kisses?”
“Only when I get hurt.” I didn’t like her answer at all. No one but me should kiss her wounds. I looked down at her hands so I wouldn’t think about her nanny being killed by my precious knife. They were small and looked soft. Like those of a porcelain doll.
“My head hurts.” I said with a feigned, pained expression. If I wanted to keep her by my side a little longer, I would have to come up with some excuse.
“I think we should go to the nurse.”
“No. That’s not necessary. I just need to rest a little. It would be nice if you could stay for a while to talk.”
“Would that make you feel better?” I nodded.
“I have class. If I don’t go, they’ll scold me.”
“They won’t.” What I said wasn’t enough to convince her either. “Please.” I forced myself to speak.
I hardly ever asked for things. My father had gotten me used to having whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it, as long as I didn’t cause him any trouble and obeyed him. Why couldn’t it be the same with her?
“All right. But then you have to give me one of those candies you gave me the other day.”
“I don’t have any,” I said.
“Then no.”
“Okay. I’ll give it to you.” She turned around with a big smile on her face and sat down next to me.
“What do you want to talk about?”
I attempted to breathe as little as possible. I didn’t want to suffer the consequences of smelling her scent too. Her closeness and the trace of her lips left on my nose were more than enough.
“About you.”
“About me?” she asked with confusion.
“Yes. I want to know everything about you.” She looked at me as if I had grown another eye in the middle of my forehead.
“You’re weird.”
“What’s your name?” I asked, ignoring what she said. I wasn’t strange. I just wanted to know more about her.
“Lena Easton. And you?”
I repeated her name in my head. It sounded very nice.
“Alekei. Alek.”
“Alex,” she repeated firmly.
“No, Alek.”
“I like Alex better,” she replied, making me purse my lips in an annoyed pout, but I let it go. She could call me whatever she wanted if it meant I could learn every little detail about her.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Nine. You?”
“Thirteen.” I heard her gasp.
“You’re so old.”
“I’m not.”
“When is your birthday?”
“October 31.”
“Then you’re a Scorpio,” she said, smiling.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re very shy and don’t like to talk. Is that true?”
“No. I like talking to you,” I said the last part to myself.
“My book never lies.”
“And when is yours?”
“I was born on September 27. And I’m a Libra.” I nodded disinterestedly. I didn’t care what her damn book said.
“Where are you from?” From the first time I heard her speak, I knew she wasn’t from around here. Her accent was different.
“I was born in a hospital in London, England. In Europe.” I smiled when I noticed how excitedly she spoke about her hometown, but the smile never reached my eyes.
The first thing my father ruined was my premature welcome into the world.
I wasn’t supposed to be born on October 31, but he forced the delivery for his own benefit.
Instead of being surrounded by doctors and nurses in a hospital room, the cold snow surrounded me in our garden, the heat of a bonfire, and a strange smell of incense mixed with ashes that stuck to my skin.
I still don’t know exactly what happened that night.
Babush used to say my father was a madman with a disturbed mind and even more disturbing ideas.
“Do you miss it?” I needed to hear her voice again. It distracted me.
“A lot. My friends were there.”
“I could be your friend,” I said, feeling a need to get closer to her. And so I did until there was only an inch between us.
“My brother wouldn’t like it.”
“Then it will be a secret between the two of us,” I murmured with a smile, forgetting the insult I had for her brother.
“Really?” I nodded, my eyes now fixed on her face. She was so perfect that she seemed unreal. As if she were a sculpture carved by the demons of hell themselves.
“Do you want us to seal our secret?”
“Yes,” she replied in a squeaky voice, raising her pinky finger.
That was all I needed to bring my lips to hers real quick. The bats in my stomach had tripled, and my soul seemed to split in two, a piece of it leaving with her.
“Now it’s sealed,” I said, my voice breaking.
She said nothing, just looked at me with her eyes wider than usual. She left the bench and ran off just as I was about to speak.
“Wait, Lena!” I shouted after her.
By the time I found her, she was back with the others, and I returned to the dance floor, wondering what I had done wrong this time. It was just a kiss.
1Ya nauchu tebya uvazhat: I will teach you to respect me.