Chapter 13 #2
I shook my head; the harmful action felt so wrong. Especially because I did it to her. “It’s still no excuse to hurt you.”
She ran a hand over her lap as she reached out and grabbed mine, overlapping them again. The colliding spark patiently attached underneath. “I trust you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” she vaguely confided.
Her trust was a sacred thing.
It was the sweetest words that made me profoundly enamored.
Ripples of tense waves remain near my sternum.
“So tell me what happened after that?” She gave me a gentle push to go on.
A rough breath left my lips, my mind fading, my body shrinking, and it all went off.
“Dya, no!” She screamed so dauntingly, it became a haunted memory.
I watched her— her pale face, brown eyes, raven hair settled with the long black knee-length dress—slowly run down the wall onto the floor, blood gushing from somewhere out of her stomach.
No. No. No.
Dropping the knife to the ground, I screamed, running to her side. “Sister!” Placing my hands over the injury as I tried to stop the bleeding as they taught me in first aid. “Please, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be a bad boy.”
“You shouldn’t need to do that, Dya.” Sister Dina's reprimand came out weakly.
Hot saltiness burned in the back of my eyes. My voice cracked, “I’m so sorry. I only wanted to protect you.”
She smiled weakly, slowly cupping my cheek. “I know, sweet boy. Although what you did was brave, that’s not who you are.”
“I don’t know who I am.”
“Yes, you do.” She softly touched my wrist, pointing to the woven bracelet I’ve had on me ever since I can remember.
“You’re all I know. You’re all I have.” My voice broke with fear. Pressing my hands harder as the bright red blood trickled down my fingers.
There’s too much.
“Not for long.” She hummed.
On a whim, a scary large man appeared in the entryway with a gun in his hand. His face covered in scars, his eyes terrifyingly black as he wore his Sunday best: an all-black suit and similarly colored shoes. His features widened with panic and distress as his hand began to shake.
He rushed in, dropping the gun behind him, finally kneeling to her side. “Dina. Dina, look at me,” Igor screamed, his hands cupping her pale face.
She stuttered, her lips already turning purple. “I–Igoryasha, it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. You’re hurt. Bleeding so much. Someone call the ambulance!” With aching pain, he yelled, turning back for help.
She raised her feeble hand and touched his scarred cheek. “Igor, it’s okay. I’m going to see the Father.” Her lips trembled.
“Don’t say that. You can’t. You have a whole life ahead of you.”
“It’s for the best.”
His eyes began to glisten with tears, his voice faltering. “No, no! It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“Sometimes, life isn’t what we want it to be but how it has to be.”
“Please, stay, Dina.”
“I’m so… tired of running, Igor. Let me go, please.”
“Please. Stay.” I cried.
My focus came back to the present moment and the woman who held my future before me.
“After that, I noticed the bastard had shot her. I ran over trying to help, and the Pakhan appeared holding her dying body as he pleaded with her to fight, to live, to stay. But poor Sister Dina just wanted to go in peace. However, not without asking Igor one last favor.” Blair’s beady eyes held onto mine, and her gentle hands kept me warm as they gave me, hopefully, security that someone cared for me.
Wanted me. Longed for me. “Her last dying words were: ‘Take the boy and treat him as your own.”
“And did he keep his promise?” She asked her question brimming with hope.
I gave a nod, eternally grateful for both of them. “He did. Igor Volkov was a man of his word. Never breaking his promises. Loyal to those he loved until the very end. Even to a child who wasn’t his blood.”
Her eyes tinted with sadness, her lips thinned. “I’m glad,” her voice was small. “And did you ever have a friend?”
I nodded again. “Mikhail, the Pakhan’s son, we became more than blood, brothers.”
The set of circumstances leading to most of my early life was tragic and less than ideal, but it was a past set in stone. Nothing could change it.
Unexpectedly, a single tear trickled down her cheek.
It was an inevitable instinctive feeling to comfort her as I raised my hand, touched her cheek, and with my thumb I wiped it away. Her face nuzzled against my palm.
“Why do you cry, kotyonok?”
“For you.” She began to hiccup.
“For me?”
Her gaze fell down, and she dipped her head sheepishly. “Yes, because of everything you've been through. For all the times you were little and scared. For all the times you were alone. For all you were afraid to ask for help. For all time, you couldn’t cry.”
“I’m okay now.”
Her eyes flashed between mine, searching them so deeply as if she were looking for the truth. “But what about then? What about the little boy who was too scared to say anything and had to fight for everything?”
The pulse beneath my neck spiked. “Perhaps for little Dya, who had nothing but the life I made, I am now the man I am today. If it weren’t for all those actions, I probably wouldn’t be here.” I told her.
The corner of her lips slanted upward. “Well, I’m glad through all the hell you went through that you are.”
“Me too.” I smiled back.
The gentle dawn air drifted through my skin, which made a shiver roll down my spine. My body was relaxed and at peace oddly, which never happened, especially with Dya. I waited for his response, but it appeared he was in deep slumber.
Slowly, my eyes shifted open as a heavy blanket of sleep coaxed them to fight the urge to fall back asleep.
For the next several minutes, I was in and out of consciousness until finally I couldn't fall back asleep. I straightened my back against the trunk of the old, rough oak tree we stopped at last night after the gondola ride. We ended up talking some more until one point. I couldn’t remember when I fell asleep.
It all felt like a fever dream until I felt a heavy pressure sitting on my shoulder.
I angled my head; out of the corner of my eye, I saw how Blair slept in the crook of my neck. Her arm interlinked with mine as she pressed herself softly against me, trying to keep herself warm.
Her lips slightly parted as she lightly snored.
Cute.
It wasn’t a dream but my god-given fantasy.
Carefully, I raised my hand, inching nearer and nearer to her face until my fingers softly traced the contour of her cheek, observing how warm and pink it is, just like the curve of her full lips.
The thought of having someone like her so close…
it made me ache and long for something more.
It’s not something I fully understand yet but would love to explore…
with her. Everything in the last few weeks would have been nonexistent if she didn’t cross my path.
It was like fate had conspired for us to meet.
I wanted so much more, but only if she wanted me too.
Dropping my hand, I watched and guarded her sleep until she began to move around.
“Morning, sleepy kotyonok,” my voice was husky in the brisk of the morning.
“Morning,” she yawned, parting her head as she stretched her arms up and out; the edge of her shirt rose a bit. “How did you sleep?” Blair spoke with her eyelids closed.
“Usually, it’s a bit early for me. Prisoners usually wake up at five a.m., but it’s three a.m., so I’m lacking on my beauty sleep.”
“Five o’clock in the morning sounds so early, like I need at least to sleep until—” She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes ripping open with massive concern. “What time did you say it was?”
“Three—”
“Three?”
“Three.”
“Shit, I have to get back before anyone notices.” In a hurry, she clumsily stands up, throwing the blanket aside as she begins stumbling carelessly, her hair a bit disheveled.
“Wait.” I told her, grabbing her by the arm and stopping her.
“What?”
Emotion caught in my throat. Time moved so fast when I was with her. I just wanted it to stop and live with her in this moment forever. “Just be with me a bit longer.” I plead softly.
Her face scrunches up as she still appears groggy as she bats her eyes closed. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“Because…” There was only one reason. One vital irrational factor.
I angled her head, lowering my mouth to hers.
The taste of sweet cherries filled my senses.
“Konstantin,” my name fell from her lips like a forbidden whisper. It roused in me a heavy longing and ache for something I didn’t quite know how to express. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My vows,” she whined through the resistance as her muscles tightened, attempting to slip and flee from my grasp.
But my hand that settled on the curve of her back kept her still, prohibiting her from leaving me. “Your vows aren’t permanent yet. You aren’t vowed to anything yet. But if you will allow me, I would vow myself to you. In every human way possible.” My heated whisper blew past her ears.
A small breath escaped her parted lips.
A glint of the disappearing moonlight flickered through an angle of her face, illuminating her dilated eyes as a shiver passed through her shoulders.
The proposal was a scandalous affair.
A sinister desire.
A longing need.
We both knew it was wrong, yet how could it feel so right?
It wasn’t just the way our bodies synced with one another but the way our minds relentlessly sought the comfort of each other, whether it was the sardonic burn that waved between our endless bickering or the small glances we shared while no one was watching.
It was our little secret. The little universe we shared and where we only coexisted.
She was the sun, and I was Icarus, gathering too close.
And this would only end in my foretold demise.
“Please.” Her soft beg was nearly enough to make my heart give out completely. “Let’s just not ruin this.”
“I can’t.” Even though with every fiber of my being I hated it, I found myself agreeing, being somewhat tolerable as she gazed at me with unknown sentimentality, her lips thinning.
“Why do you have to make this complicated? Let’s go back to hating each other.” She managed to lose herself as she began walking in the opposite direction, towards the less busy part of the street and up the hill.
“I’ve never hated you.”
She turned her head over her shoulder, gazing back at me. “You could barely stand the sight of me when you first saw me—”
“I was in jail. Everything fucking irritated me. But you… you were different.”
A shadow of a smile hung from her lips. “Different? How so?”
I inclined my head, the memory of her flashing before my eyes. Her glowing face emanated hope amongst the despair. “There is nothing ordinary about you, Blair. You are the most memorable being ever.”
“You flatter me too much. I’m not that special.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Denying your magnificence. Undermining your resilience. Your quiet strength.”
“It’s not about denying my good qualities. It’s just being realistic. Truly, don’t glorify me. I’m just human. Flaws and imperfections and all.”
My lips lifted into a smile, almost. “The fact you can admit all your shortcomings makes you better.”
She groaned loudly, frustrated as she began to walk away. “You would be so sweet if you weren’t a psycho!”
“Can’t help that, sweetheart. Two for the price of one.”
“Well, if you had two cocks, perhaps it would be more enticing.”
“Oh, baby, after you have my cock, you won’t want anyone else's." I grunted, lust incrementing in my voice. Stalking after her without a conscious will.
“If you weren’t a criminal, perhaps this would be more charming.”
“You want to know how I got this scar?”
She pivoted in mid-stride; the damning curiosity, the need to know what she shouldn’t, killed her. Carefully, she angled her head over her shoulder, her eyes wavering with ever-dying guilt.
“Because once I loved too hard, and that only got me this. However, now I’m in love with you, and for you, Blair, I’ll suffer this and whatever hell is thrown at me just to be at your side.” I told her, baring my heart to her.
Blair wasn’t just a temporary fix. She was the only cure to the absence.
She was the high I chased.
Her world was thrown upside down as she fell to the ground with me on top of her.
“Tell me you hate me, Blair. Tell me to leave and never come back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why haven’t you turned me in?”
“What are you going on about?”
“You have no reason to keep me. Then why not call the police already?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“B-because…” Her gaze rounded with exasperation. “No. No, I can’t.”
“You can’t? Or you won’t?”
“Stop this.” Her plea was raggedy as she pressed her hand against my chest and pushed me away.
“You don’t get it. There is no stopping.”
“Why? Why must you make everything so complicated? Why can’t you and I coexist?”
“Because it’s not possible.”
“Please, just please don’t do this.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Well, I don’t want you to go.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Either you kill me now or banish me. If you don’t, I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”
Her chest against mine rose in heavy breaths, lingering with the anticipation of the forbidden chemistry. A mischievous glint passed through her gaze.
The verge of sin and temptation.
The madness of hell.
The edge of heaven.
She dragged her nails up my shirt, my chest pounding, and commanded me to her will. “Then do your worst,” she taunted, giving the offer and permission to consume her.