Chapter 25 - Tatiana
Kon’s words were worse than slaps, and hiding in the guest room with the covers over my head couldn’t keep the ghosts from finding me. It seemed like as soon as I dropped into a fitful sleep, the nightmare was upon me, its grip tight enough to keep me from opening my eyes and making it all go away.
I couldn’t run. I couldn’t scream. The hands held onto my arms and shoved me forward, into a darkness that would surely consume me. There were voices I recognized, along with cruel laughter.
This was all a joke. At least to some of them. Some of them were deadly serious.
For the first time, I was able to jerk free.
Whirling around, I expected to see familiar faces, but instead they were shadowy figures, converging on me with outstretched claws.
Not human. No longer people I knew. Now, instead of the dream I hated but had grown used to over the years, everything was different.
They’ll pass you around. They’ll sell you to the highest bidder. All I’ll find are the pieces.
Kon’s voice echoed from all around, but it was no comfort. The strange men who surrounded me moved closer, laughing as if they could also hear him. Then I was in a closet, black as pitch. No, a cage.
But then I was back with my original tormenters, shoving me to my knees and jabbing me. When I fought back, they became the men that Kon warned me about. The men who might have my father. Who might have already made it so I’d only ever find…
My own scream woke me up, tearing my throat. I had already sat up and was blindly clawing at the blankets I had been huddled under. I was trapped between the past and what really happened to me and what might happen if I kept looking for Papa, at least according to Kon.
My heart hammered, and sweat poured between my shoulder blades, making me shiver. By the time I was fully awake, Kon was once again at my side.
“No one’s here. No one’s going to hurt you,” he said quietly, seeming to know not to reach for me until I slumped over and put my head in my hands,
His hand smoothed down my back as I sorted my past into its little box in the back of my mind, and tried to force out the new images Kon had supplied me with.
“I’m fine,” I said, throat still raw. How long had I been screaming?”
“I don’t think so, but you will be.” He sighed and ran his hand down my arm to take my hand. “I’m sorry, Tati. I shouldn’t have been so blunt.”
He thought his tirade was the sole source of my nightmares, just like the last time. I let him, slowly raising my head to see that light streamed between the curtains. It was morning. I was okay, at least until night fell again.
“What was it about?” he asked. “I’ve been told it helps to speak about nightmares. Might purge it from your subconscious.” I turned and raised my brows at him, and he shrugged. “What? Someone like me can’t read a psychology book?”
Someone like him. I slowly shook my head. “I don’t remember,” I lied, and it was clear he saw through me.
I refused to tell him about my past bullying. Why would I, when I never told my closest family? There was no way I wanted Kon to see me as a victim, someone who needed coddling even more than he already believed. He looked so tortured, I decided to use his guilt to my advantage.
“You wanted me afraid,” I said with a shrug.
He winced. “I wanted you to know what we’re up against. But I won’t let anyone near you. You’re completely safe.”
“What we’re up against,” I repeated scornfully, pulling away and arranging the tangled bedclothes around me. “There’s no we about this. It wasn’t what you said that made me so upset; it’s the stress of not knowing anything. Of not doing anything.”
“There’s nothing—”
“No,” I snapped. “Stop telling me I have to wait. There has to be something else I can do. Even if it’s in this damn apartment.”
With a smile, he laid his hand on my back. “That’s a spine made of steel,” he said, then stood. “Come on, then.”
The odd compliment had me glowing, and it scrubbed away the last stains of the nightmare. No one had ever told me I had a spine of steel, but I must, or how could I still be upright under this terrible burden? And it seemed like he was going to let me help.
It took me less than five minutes to step under a stinging hot shower and change into fresh clothes, and I found him in the living room, sitting on the floor like we’d done with our picnic.
Instead of takeout food, there were papers strewn across the glass surface, and his laptop was open in front of him.
“About time,” he grumbled, patting the space beside him.
If I were thinking about a detour to the kitchen for coffee, the work scene made me forget it. The chance to get more information or help in any way gave me a stronger jolt of energy than caffeine ever could.
First, he shoved over the sheaf of papers, which were densely packed with columns of names, places, and dates.
“Look over all of this carefully. Anything at all you can remember, or that jumps out at you, let me know. No matter how insignificant it seems. If your father bought socks from one of these companies, it could mean something.”
He wasn’t grinning when I turned to him in confusion. As useless as this task seemed, he was serious about it. “This isn’t just busy work?”
“It is, but you wanted to help. This is what I do in between stakeouts and gunfights. It’s not all high action. And if something jumps out at you, it might be important, so I’ll get CJ to dig deeper.”
I got to work, pleased despite the tedious nature of the chore.
I read every name twice, searching my mind for any recollection that my father might have mentioned them.
Kon tapped away at his computer, a soothing background sound, and we lapsed into a somewhat comfortable silence as we concentrated.
After a while, he got up, laying a hand on my shoulder to keep me working. He came back with coffee and cinnamon rolls, and I ate and drank without taking my eyes off the endless sheets of information.
None of it jogged a single memory. When Kon gave me a stack of photos to sift through, none of the people in them meant anything to me. Frustrated and stiff from sitting so long, I shoved it all aside.
“This isn’t enough,” I complained.
“It has to be,” he said, not looking away from his screen. “I’m not risking your safety again.”
He looked up when I slapped my hand down on the table, rattling the coffee mugs against the glass. “I’m sure that’s expensive,” he said, trying to tease me out of my snit.
But I wasn’t about to be teased or sidelined by his so-called concern for my safety any longer.
“Why do you act like you care so much?”
His head whipped up to look at me, gray eyes narrowed under furrowed brows. “You think it’s an act?”
No, it seemed very real. “Why, then?” I demanded. “What’s in it for you? Am I going to be a bargaining chip for when my father is found?”
His glare intensified, fixed on me, as he shook his head. I couldn’t read a single thought that flitted across his face, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. I could almost hear him grinding his teeth, but he himself said I had a spine of steel. I straightened up.
“Why is it so important to you that I stay here, under your protection?”
He didn’t like my sarcastic inflection, and it felt a bit unfair, but I was tired of being sidelined. I could help, I was sure of it. But not stuck in front of a pile of papers.
My goading should have had him bellowing at me, but instead, he snapped his laptop shut and stood, making a show of pulling out his phone to check the time.
“I have to go,” he said, voice tightly controlled.
No goodbye. Certainly, there was no explanation of where he was going. He just locked his computer in his office and left, not even slamming the door. The soft click was worse somehow.
Disappointment overwhelmed me, and I lay my head on the table, my cheek sticking to one of the pictures of a man I had never seen before. I shoved it aside.
What kind of answer was I hoping for? Did I want Kon to confirm he was only using me, or something else? That he could possibly care?
Pulling myself together, I stood up and stretched. Foolish thoughts weren’t going to get me any closer to finding Papa. I stuck my head out the door and asked the guard if he wanted a sandwich, and if so, he could come in and join me in a few minutes.
I didn’t want a sandwich or the guard’s company, but when he declined and said he was getting takeout and would eat it at the desk he had set up in the outer area, I knew I had some time alone to do whatever I wanted.
Right now, I wanted to search the apartment again, riled up for answers that Kon refused to give me.
So, I’d find them myself. I started in his bedroom and quickly moved on to the second spare bedroom, where he’d moved most of his work and which was now locked.
Even if it didn’t hold any clues, there was one thing I was certain was in there, and I wanted it back.
I knew he had my phone since he found out about the messages I deleted.
Finding it could tip everything in my favor.
Hell, any phone would change my situation in an instant.
I purposely messed with the overly complicated TV remote and called the guard away from his video game to come and fix it for me, then asked if he wanted to join me for a movie.
He barely kept from cracking up at the bizarre suggestion and politely declined, heading back to his post. It was a necessary waste of time to make sure he didn’t stick his head in to check on me, and now I wasn’t sure how long I had before Kon returned. I had to use it wisely and work fast.
My hands were shaking as I found some helpful tools and headed down the hall toward Kon’s makeshift office. Time to put those rusty lockpicking skills to the test again.