24. Finn
FINN
Tamara keeps walking, even when sirens and flashing lights announce the arrival of the paramedics.
I fall into step beside her. “You don’t have to do this alone, Tamara.”
Her eyes meet mine, and the pain in them cuts me open. “I’m staying with her.”
“I know, sweetheart. But she needs medical assistance.”
“They’ll try to take her away from me.”
Her panic is contagious, and the child wriggles in her arms.
“They’ll have to go through me first.”
Ambulances halt at the entrance to the docks, and Tamara freezes.
She doesn’t move when paramedics approach us in their green uniforms, the sirens casting patterns across the quayside.
She barely reacts when a silver-haired man with bushy eyebrows sets down his medical bag, his movements calm and steady, and raises his hands palms outwards.
His eyes meet mine briefly and I give him a nod.
“Hello. My name is Sal,” he says. “Can I come closer?”
I rest my hand on Tamara’s elbow. She’s trembling, fight-or-flight barreling through her and hitting a wall because she knows that the child needs help, but she can’t let go.
“Her name is Katya,” Tamara says. “She’s the only survivor.”
Her knees give way, and I catch her in my arms, sinking to my knees on the dock and cradling her and the child on my lap.
That’s where we stay while Sal checks Katya’s vital signs. He works quickly and efficiently talking to her in soft tones that suggest he has children and potentially grandchildren of his own.
“I’m just placing this clip on your finger, Katya, to take your temperature.
I’m counting your heartbeats now, Katya.
And this little light is going to shine in your eyes for just for a moment.
” He addresses me when he is done. “We need to get her to ER. She’s seriously dehydrated and malnourished, and her condition will need to be monitored until it stabilizes. ”
Tamara clings more tightly to the child. “No. I’m not leaving her.”
“You can come with her,” Sal says gently. “We’ll need to stitch up the wound on your arm.”
“Not yet.” Tamara looks at me, eyes dark with panic. “Ivana. I can’t go anywhere until we’ve found Ivana.”
“Andrej is taking care of it, sweetheart. If anyone can find her…”
“Where is he? I should be helping.” She tries to stand and falls heavily back into my lap.
Blood from the bullet wound on her arm is soaking through my sweater, but I’d refuse to budge if Connor was somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, and I’m not going to move her against her will.
“Can you patch it up?” I ask Sal. “I’ll take full responsibility for them and bring them to the ER myself.” It’s obvious that Tamara won’t let them take the child, who is still motionless in her arms.
“I’ve never taken anyone to the ER against their will,” Sal says while his colleague cleans up the bullet wound. “And I believe you. But I have a duty of care to the child. She needs an IV; it isn’t optional.”
While he prepares the equipment, I hold Tamara close and keep my voice calm and steady.
“I know you don’t want to let her go, sweetheart, and that’s okay.
But you want what’s best for her. Talk to her.
Let her know that we’re not the bad guys, that this might sting a little, but it means she gets to stay with you. ”
Tamara’s whispers provide a gentle backdrop to the paramedic’s process. The child barely flinches when the needle penetrates her skin but keeps her eyes locked on the angel who saved her, and my heart swells with pride for them both.
“I’m leaving the bullet in the wound,” the paramedic explains as he applies Steri-strips to hold it together temporarily and covers the pulpy flesh of Tamara’s upper arm with a sterile dressing. “It needs to be removed under local anesthetic.”
Tamara doesn’t react while he works on her arm. She keeps her eyes firmly fixed on Katya as if looking away might give the Bratva the opportunity to come back and steal her away.
When the paramedics have done what they can for us in the circumstances, I realize that Leonid’s injured men have already been treated, but Andrej is nowhere to be found.
My pulse races. He took control of the Ivana situation.
He is the only one who can keep Tamara grounded now; he must realize that she will want to be involved every step of the way.
“Can you stand, sweetheart?” I ask.
Tamara tries out her legs like a fawn walking for the first time, and I hold her waist to support her until she faces me with a small smile.
The child looks even more vulnerable with the glow of the ambulances’ rotating lights turning her skin blue, and the IV in her arm, but I don’t try to take her from Tamara.
Leonid strides towards us, concern forming creases across his forehead and around his mouth.
“Where is Andrej?” I ask him before Tamara can speak.
“Inside.” He gestures to the low office building that supports the dock. “I told him to focus on finding Ivana.”
His expression softens when he looks at Tamara and the child in her arms, and I can almost see him transported back to the moment when he rescued two little girls and altered their lives forever.
Whatever I’ve thought of him in the past, nothing compares to the kindness he showed Tamara and her sister.
Tamara is already heading inside, Katya’s legs swinging against her as she walks.
I linger for a couple of beats, sensing that Leonid has more to say.
“There is no guarantee that Ivana will be found alive.” He lowers his voice, keeping this information between us.
“Perhaps this child will give her a sense of purpose.”
I don’t add that she has the life growing inside her to keep her grounded too. Tamara and I have yet to discuss the pregnancy, and I’m taking nothing for granted.
Leonid places a hand on my shoulder. Man to man. “We’ll do everything we can. I just want her to know that.”
He cares. Tamara doubted him when Ivana went missing, but her emotions were running wild. Deep down, she knows that he has always had their best interests at heart; all I must do now is help her recognize this again.
I follow her inside, where we find Andrej set up in the control room, computer screens pinpointing the locations of vessels around the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Great Lakes, and out to the Atlantic.
He is speaking Russian into a handheld device when we enter, his gaze sliding our way, acknowledging the child in Tamara’s arms, and then back to the monitors lining the wall. I pull out a seat for Tamara and Katya, feeling powerless.
Everything rests on the equipment that Andrej has commandeered in this building, and the resources that he is clearly pulling in from every direction.
Finally, he ends the call and faces us, his eyes scanning the little girl in Tamara’s arms, the blood spatters on Tamara’s face now visible in the stark light, and the wound on her arm. “I called the emergency services,” he says.
“They’ve checked her over.” I answer on Tamara’s behalf. “I’ll see that they’re taken to the ER.”
When we find Ivana. They both have something to hold on for until then.
For Tamara, everything rests on locating her sister. If we don’t… How will I convince her that her sister’s death wasn’t her fault? How will I get her to choose life over guilt?
It’s a momentous fucking task, but I’ll never stop trying.
“Talk us through it,” I suggest to Andrej.
Anything to keep Tamara focused. She needs facts as well as hope, information that she can process and understand, to prevent fear for her sister from dragging her down into a worm hole she’ll never climb out of.
“I’ve spoken to other port authorities around the country.
” Andrej unfolds the bloody schedule that Tamara gave him and traces a trajectory with his fingertip.
“Working on the assumption that the Bratva waited until they were in empty waters and out of reach of passing vessels, we’ve narrowed it down to an area here. ”
He points to one of the screens in front of him, where a green circle has pinpointed the center of the most likely location and expanded to an initial search area based on the ocean’s current and weather patterns. I don’t ask the size of the area; some information is best left unspoken.
“Who’s searching for her?” Tamara asks in a small voice.
For the first time since being rescued from the shipping container, Katya turns her face away from her savior and looks at me and Andrej.
From her size, I would guess her age to be around seven or eight, and the thought of what those fucking monsters would do to her makes me feel physically sick.
Maybe I’m wrong. I know nothing of the child’s history, so maybe she is smaller than other children of her age because she comes from an environment where she was starved rather than nurtured.
But no child should ever have eyes hollowed out by the horrors they’ve experienced first-hand.
No child should have sunken cheeks and protruding collarbones, and an overwhelming fear of everyone they meet.
But especially an overwhelming fear of men.
Sure, I can’t change the world, and I know that fear exists.
Has always existed. But change has to start small, and I’ve already made up my mind that I will do whatever it takes to make Katya whole again.
Little by little. Even if it takes the rest of my life, I will prove to her that not all humans are capable of unspeakable evil.
“The United States Coast Guard is patrolling the area.” Andrej looks tired too, the dark puffy circles under his eyes exacerbated by the overhead strip lighting. “We have helicopters scanning the water from above.”
“I want to go,” Tamara says.
At first, I think that she wants to leave the port because it’s too stressful waiting around for news.
But one look at her clenched jaw, and I realize that she wants to be out there, she wants to join the search party, she wants to be close to her sister even if they never find her.
Sitting still, safe and secure in the Port of Chicago building, is torturing her.