Prologue #2
She heard him though, heard his footsteps pounding across the wet grass towards them, saw another man appear behind him.
And then another. They were everywhere, like the pill bugs in her stomach, crawling out of the building and placing themselves between the two girls and freedom as though they’d been expecting them to try to escape.
“Faster!” Ivana veered right to put some distance between them and the men. “We’ll lose them in the trees.”
But Tamara’s legs were shaking, and although she tried to keep up with her sister, she could see her getting away. Tears mingled with the cold rain and stung her eyes. Not because she thought that Ivana would leave her behind, but because she knew that she was slowing her down.
She willed her legs to pump faster. Willed her heart to stop being angry and help her catch up to Ivana. But the men were getting closer, and a sob erupted deep inside, getting trapped inside her throat and making it hard to breathe.
Too late. Strong arms wrapped around her from behind, and she sprawled forward, hitting the wet ground with a whump that jarred every bone in her body.
She cried out, “Ivana!”
Ivana peered at her twin over her shoulder, her expression growing visibly darker when she spotted Tamara on the ground, and the man in black dragging her upright again.
The look on Ivana’s face sent chills through her.
It was the same look she’d seen when a twelve-year-old boy in the orphanage had stuck his hand inside Tamara’s panties, immediately before Ivana punched him in the throat and tried to strangle him with her bare hands when he hit the floor.
That episode had earned her a night outside in the coal cellar in the middle of winter without even a blanket to cover herself with, while the boy denied his part in it and received no punishment.
That look gave Tamara the confidence to remember where she was and the reason why they were leaving.
She might not have been as strong as Ivana, but she was wiry.
Sliding her bony shoulder up towards her neck, she managed to slip her arm out of her wet sweater sleeve and wriggle free of the man’s grip, leaving him holding onto empty fabric.
Another fluid movement, and she was dipping out of the sweater completely, charging the man’s lower body with her head down, and hitting him with the top of her skull.
He didn’t go down, but he staggered backwards, shoes sliding on surface water, buying her enough time to whip the knife out of her skirt waistband and slash at his belly with it like a snake lashing out at its prey.
“Want to play, huh?” The man grinned at her as he dodged the blade, baring his teeth and opening his arms wide. “Come on then. Show me what you’ve got.”
Tamara’s gaze slid between him and the suit hovering nearby. No point trying to run; they already caught her once, and the rain was coming down harder. But bizarrely, she wasn’t scared at that moment. She didn’t need to look around to know that Ivana was with her.
Twins. Together. Forever.
Ivana took a running leap at the man taunting her sister, flinging her legs around his waist, and slashing his face with the knife in her hand.
She’d caught him and his friends by surprise, giving her the opportunity to strike again, plunging the knife into his neck and flinging herself backwards, landing on all fours like a feline.
“Run!” she yelled at Tamara.
But Tamara wasn’t going anywhere without her sister. She darted between the next two suits as if heading back towards the house, slicing the thigh of the man on her right and ducking away from the other man’s fist.
Ivana ran directly into him, screaming like the Rusalka spirit from the folk tales they read about in the books they sometimes snuck out of the orphanage library.
She’d left her knife protruding from the neck of the first man who’d grabbed Tamara, so now, she fought with her fists, the way she’d learned from watching the older kids fighting.
She swung left and right, hitting him in the tender parts of his body, the parts she could reach without stretching.
Tamara kicked the other man in the back of his knees and pounced on his back before he even hit the ground, stabbing him with the knife between his shoulder blades.
She’d barely managed to pull the knife back out before strong arms grabbed her from behind and dragged her away, limbs flailing, craning her neck towards her sister, the rain plastering her hair to her face.
“Ivana!” She caught her captor’s shin with the heel of her boot, and he hoisted her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of feathers.
Tamara pummeled his back with her fists, a scream erupting in her core when she saw the man her sister had stabbed punch Ivana in the face.
“No!” Tamara pounded the man’s back, throwing all her weight forward and aiming for his kidneys like her sister had told her. “Let me go! He’s killing my sister!”
But the man gripped her legs tighter. “He won’t kill her. He won’t get paid.”
Tamara kept her eyes firmly fixed on her sister’s lifeless body on the wet grass as she was carried across the grounds and thrown onto the back seat of a black vehicle. Her captor climbed in beside her and the car started moving before he’d even closed the door.
“My sister!” She tried the door, but it was locked.
On her knees, she peered out of the rear window between the drizzle and saw Ivana being placed inside another black vehicle.
Her sister didn’t move. Her legs swung over her captor’s arm, and Tamara’s hope that she was playing dead died when the rear passenger door trapped her inside the car behind her.
Tamara’s final glimpse of the orphanage was the matron watching them leave from the front entrance, then turning around, and heading back inside.
Tamara pressed her forehead to the glass and memorized their journey, building a map inside her head. One day, she promised herself. One day, she would come back, and she would make the matron pay for what she’d done.
She didn’t react when the vehicles arrived at the port.
She watched the men winching containers onto the ships with their rusty hulls and their ramps, and men crawling all over them like spiders.
She studied the sea that looked blacker than the storm clouds and the sky that was prematurely welcoming the night, saw the dirty foam riding the waves, heard the water slapping the docks and the seagulls circling for food.
She wanted to remember everything.
So, she didn’t fight when the vehicle halted and the man dragged her out of the back seat.
She didn’t try to run when she was guided along a low ramp and shoved inside a shipping container.
Instead, she turned around to face her captor, imprinting his face into her memory until he backed away.
Another suit carried Ivana into the container while the man with the bloody face watched from a distance, holding a cloth to the wound on his neck.
Tamara would remember him too.
She dropped to her knees as the container was closed, the clamps locking into place and plunging them into darkness.
Cradling Ivana’s limp body on her lap, she studied her sister’s wounds before the light was stolen from them.
One side of Ivana’s face was swollen all out of proportion, one eye closed and pulpy; blood trickled from her mouth and ear.
“Ya tebya lyublyu,” Tamara whispered. “I love you, Ivana. I’ll never let anyone hurt you again. I promise.”