The Games of Madmen

PROLOGUE

Moscow, Russia

Zahkar

Ten years old…

Sharp little pricks of pain fire through the soles of my feet. The holes in my socks snag on the pebbles as I hobble over them trying not to put all my weight down. Icy chills race all over my body making me shake uncontrollably.

I hate this place.

It’s cold. Too cold. Even breathing the air makes my insides freeze.

Everyone speaks differently from me. Even though my mom was born here, I wasn’t, and she never thought to teach me the language, which makes living here now a nightmare.

I hate it here.

The kids at school are mean and they stole my shoes. After tying the laces together, they tossed them in a tree, mocking me with words in a language I don’t understand. My coat was dragged from me as they shoved me to the ground and laughed while I tried to keep a hold of it.

A crowd gathered, watching them throw my coat onto the lake, before daring me to walk its icy surface to retrieve it.

I’m small and alone, but I’m not dumb enough to risk walking on a frozen lake. I need my coat, but racing home without it is safer.

Our house is a twenty-minute walk. I know because I count the seconds and then the minutes every morning on the trek from there to school. But, if I run, it will keep me warm, and I will be able to get there in half the time which is why I’m booking it.

Ten minutes and I’ll be locked safely away from the terrible kids in this foreign place until tomorrow at least.

“One Mississippi, two Mississippi…”

It hurts my lungs to run in this weather. My skin is frozen, the chill whipping at the flesh like shards of glass, my muscles burn, but not a warm burn. It’s painful.

I have to slow down. My exposed feet hurt so much.

Why take someone’s shoes? It’s just stupid to be that mean.

Dad always says people can’t help their nature. It’s wired into their brains that way, and we have to accept that we’re not all the same. I think he says that because my brother is always getting into trouble.

There are no bad people, just bad things people do.

I don’t understand what the difference is.

All I know is, bad is bad, and those jerks who stole my shoes and coat are really bad.

I get to eleven minutes and thirty two seconds before I finally make it home. There are two cars in the driveway that I don’t recognize. We don’t know anyone here as Mom always says we need to keep to ourselves. My stomach twists into a nervous knot when I hear raised voices coming from inside.

My numb fingers push open the front door, and before I go in, I know something is wrong. Something bad awaits me inside. I can’t explain it. Just a feeling. There are these tiny bumps sprinkling all over my skin. I should turn away, run, come back later…but where would I go? I’m already so cold.

Carefully, I step inside and tip-toe toward the crying sounds I know to be my mother. It makes tears spring in my own eyes when I hear the wails from a boy pleading, joining her cries. It’s like the sound a child makes when begging not to be punished by the belt.

The sounds I make.

Fear creeps over me when I round the door frame and see the child crying is not a child at all. It’s my father, his voice distorted with terror.

The thumping of my heart roars in my ears and my mouth goes so dry I find it hard to swallow down my dread.

“No, no,” he pleads through sobs. His eyes lock onto mine, making the man standing next to him look over at me, and give away my presence.

“Run, Zane!” my mother screams out from her sprawled position on our kitchen table. A different man is above her, holding her down, and she’s bleeding from the nose and mouth.

“Mama?” I choke.

My eyes dart to my brother who is tied to a chair bleeding from facial wounds. He’s slumped forward, but is watching with tears in his eyes as our mother struggles with the monster man above her.

I step backwards and scrub at my eyes to make it all go away. This isn’t real. It’s a bad dream. I’m tired and cold. My brain is just frozen and playing tricks on me.

There are men all around now staring at me and talking in that stupid language I don’t understand.

“Run!” my father bellows and I jump.

Turning to flee, I hit a wall. A broad shadow creeps over me like a wave at the beach where we used to live, swallowing me up. Before I can do anything, a fist holding a gun comes down toward me.

Fear gets stuck in my throat. No screams escape from me when pain explodes down my face and darkness drags me backwards into nothingness.

When the light finally makes it back into my eyes, there’s no sound around me apart from the roaring of my own heartbeat. Panic smothers my body, making me sit upright.

Flinching from pain above my eye, my fingers dab there to find sticky blood and the memory of being hit with a gun springs into my mind.

“Mama,” I croak.

Scrambling to my feet, I search the space before me.

I don’t want to see. I wish I didn’t wake up.

Blood, pools of it, cover the entire floor of the kitchen like it was made to be there.

My mother’s broken body lies still on the table, her clothes gone. Red swollen slits are all over her chest and vacant eyes stare at me. It’s not my mother’s stare. She’s not there anymore. I’m going to be sick.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi…

My brother is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he got away?

Who were those bad men?

Would Dad think it was just a bad thing and not bad people now?

As the thought passes through my mind, my eyes find his body.

No. No. Noooo.

His head isn’t there anymore.

The darkness is coming back, chasing away the light. I’m falling.

Two weeks later…

Looking down at the pants swinging around my shins, I sigh and try pulling them down.

Why I couldn’t bring my own clothes with me here, I don’t know, but their clothes make my skin itchy and don’t fit right.

There’s one girl in this orphanage that speaks the language I do, and she only speaks to me to tell me I’ll never be adopted because of my ugly scar that I got when the gun hit me.

She’s probably right.

I have no one now. I’m stuck here with these people until I’m a grown up and can leave to try to find a new home.

My mother’s face haunts me here. No one will give me answers when I ask who hurt my family. Only that they’re gone now and the bad people will be caught.

Whatever that means.

The policewoman who speaks my language, though with a thick accent, told me they found my brother’s body. “He didn’t make it.”

Why are there bad people in the world allowed to hurt others?

I couldn’t do anything to help them. When I get big enough, I’m going to make sure no one can ever hurt me, can’t push me around, or take what’s mine.

I won’t be weak ever again. If being a good person only gets you hurt, then I will be a bad one.

The baddest there ever was. I’ll find those men who hurt my family and I’ll hurt them back.

The doors to the sunroom open and the lady who is in charge of all the thirty kids here enters, bringing with her people who come and go on a daily basis. Some of the same faces, some new.

They walk around and talk about us like we’re on display in a store. I watch the others put on a show and try to make themselves look tidy and nice.

Why do they want strangers to take them away? Don’t they miss their real parents? It was strangers who came into our house and killed everyone. Well, almost everyone. I don’t want any more strangers in my life.

Maybe I’m just different from them. Mama always told me I was too clever for my own good.

“You’re an old soul, Zane. Too smart for someone so young. It’s why you have no friends. They don’t understand you.”

My brother would always scoff and say, “More brains than brute.” He was much older than me and said I was Mama and Dad’s mistake.

Maybe I was. Maybe it was also a mistake that I woke up from the hit with the gun that was clearly meant to kill me too. Or, maybe I didn’t wake up at all and this is a dream.

I want to go back to the room where my bed is, but I know I have to spend time in the sunroom and wait for the “guests” to leave. So, I grab a book from the bookshelf and plonk down on a beanbag chair.

One Mississippi…two Mississippi...

As I open the book, my eyes clash with a bright green pair staring at me from across the room. They belong to a boy around my age who looks at me like he knows me. And it’s the strangest thing, because I feel like I know him too.

Weird.

He starts walking over to me, and I fidget in the seat because I don’t know what to do. A smile lifts the corners of his mouth as he drops down on his knee in front of me. Kids don’t smile at me. They pick on me and steal my things. His smile feels strange to me, but I also like it.

Reaching out with his finger toward my face, I stiffen as he traces the scar of my wound. It’s large and ugly and still very sore, but for some reason I don’t mind him touching it.

“Wow,” he breathes. “It looks like a lightning strike. It’s awesome.” He speaks my language and it’s so clear. I can’t help but feel a little piece of happiness at the sound of it.

“Really?” I ask with a frown.

“Really! I’m Rodion. What’s your name?”

“Zane.”

His smile broadens. “Z, like your lightning wound. Awesome.”

The skin is still tight in places and looks ugly. I don’t think it’s awesome at all. But, he thinks so, and I want to believe him.

“Why are you here?” I ask, a little piece of me hoping he’s here to stay. I really want a friend.

His green eyes probe mine and he uses his finger to once again trace the ragged, sore scar. But when he touches it, it feels better.

“I’m here for you,” he says simply as he plucks the book from my grip. Once he tosses it, he drags me to my feet by my hands and pulls me across the room.

“W-what?”

“Mom! Mom!” he calls out to a woman, trying to move around people to find her.

His mother comes into view. She’s so pretty and really well dressed.

Like the women in the movies. Blonde hair falls into her face as she kneels down next to the boy with eyes the color of the grass in the summer months. Her eyes dart over to our joined hands.

She smiles over at me, but there’s a sadness in her eyes that makes a lump grow in my throat.

“Mom,” Rodion says, voice urgent. “I’ve found him.”

Found who?

Me?

“And who’s that?” she asks, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“My brother.”

I fell in love for the first time that day.

Not a sexual kind of love.

A meeting of souls kind of love.

My brother.

My soulmate.

Well, one of my soulmates anyway.

Turns out I had another.

We had another.

Little did I know that they would both break my heart in the end.