Fever

by Tonya Plank

  “She’s in the back,” a man said. In English.

  “Where?” said another man, also in English. No Russian accents; American-accented English.

  “Keep going through the doors. The third one,” said the first man.

  “I just want my wife. No one will get hurt. We will do the exchange fair and square and no one gets hurt,” another man said.

  Now there were lots of heavy footsteps and slamming doors. What the hell was going on? I was no one’s wife. And were any of these men Russian? What did this have to do with Sasha? Where were the men who’d kidnapped me before?

  Someone’s footsteps were swiftly approaching my door. I had no idea what was on the other side of that door so it was hard to come up with a plan. For now, I stood off to the side so I wouldn’t be in the person’s direct line of vision as he opened the door. I also placed my wrists and ankles close to each other so it would initially look to him like I was still bound with the tape. I didn’t have time to find the gag. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice.

  The knob turned, and stuck.

  “I need a key,” said the American man outside the door. He had no accent I could place. And I didn’t recognize the voice. He could have been from California.

  “Just a minute,” said the man who’d asked for his wife.

  I heard a lot of fumbling around. They couldn’t find the key they’d locked me away with? These people were idiots.

  “Here,” someone said.

  I heard more fumbling, followed by footsteps again approaching my door. I stood to the side again and braced myself, I knew not what for. The door opened and a flashlight was pointed directly at me. I squinted, and kept my hands and feet together.

  “Good. Bring her out,” the man who’d asked for his wife said.

  The man who’d opened the door pulled me by the arm. I pretended to be bound. They didn’t seem to realize I had no gag on. As my eyes adjusted, I realized they weren’t really paying a lot of attention to me. Both men were looking out the front door. The man who was holding me by the arm was heavyset and had a mean, mugger’s face with an overlarge jaw and a heavy brow. The other man was clean cut. He looked more like a businessman and he was even dressed in a kind of business casual attire, in khakis and a blue, pressed linen button-down shirt under a brown corduroy jacket. For shoes he wore brown Oxford tie-ups that looked like they’d recently been shined.

  He had a forlorn expression on his face. He was clean-shaven and had a head of thick but short brown hair, graying at the sides. He could have been in his sixties or even older but he clearly kept himself up. He had a sad face. Unlike the man whose brawny hand held a painful grip on my shoulder, this man with the supposed wife didn’t look like a scary criminal at all.

  The businessman glanced back at me. When he did a double take, I worried he’d realized I’d freed myself. But his eyes froze directly on mine. They were baby blue. He shook his head as if to shake off a crazy thought and looked back outside.

  I followed his gaze, as the man gripping my shoulder moved me toward the door. I could see down a front gravelly path, at the end of which was a black van with its headlights on. There were no other lights, making it impossible to see much else besides the black night.

  Another man I hadn’t seen before, who was standing right outside the doorway that led outside, shined a flashlight out into the darkness. Then I saw her. The young woman—Tatiana, perhaps—who looked just like me was standing alongside the gravelly path. Her eyes were wide, and her skin so pale she really did look like a ghost. She wore a short jean skirt with ankle-high booties and a gray long-sleeved sweatshirt with a hood. It didn’t look like she had anything covering her legs. She must be as freezing as I, I thought.

  Then Sasha jumped in front of her. It looked like he’d been standing beside her. I hadn’t seen him until he stood in the beam of light created by the flashlight. I almost exclaimed vocally, then stopped myself right before any sound came out. I gulped instead. His eyes locked on mine, then darted back and forth between the businessman and me. He looked like he was going to kill the man. He glanced briefly at the man holding me, at his other hand. I let my eyes wander down and saw, for the first time, that that man held a black gun in his left hand. My heart froze. I’d never actually seen a gun before, even though Jamar’s case had involved one.

  Oh my God, this could be so serious. This could end so, so badly. My heart went from shock-still to beating so fast I thought I might have a heart attack.

  I saw Sasha glance at my wrists and ankles, then up to my face. In my fear, I’d parted them. I quickly placed them back together. He knew I could move. He cocked his head slightly, and I sensed movement. I didn’t know from where, but I perceived some kind of motion coming from near the van. I then saw a black figure dart out from behind it.

  “Tatiana, please,” said the businessman at the door. His voice was thick and cracking, as if he was about to cry. “I’m so sorry. Please come back. Please come back home. I promise you…I promise you I will give you what you want. Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

  “She is not going to go anywhere with you,” Sasha said, pronouncing every word, every syllable to its fullest.

  The businessman stood still for a moment as if in shock. Then he shook his head in disbelief and laughed. “Well then, sonny boy, you are never going to see your girlfriend here again.”

  Sonny boy? Who was this guy? He seemed rather small town to have a Russian wife. Where did these two meet, I wondered?

  “Sasha,” Tatiana said, brushing his arm and stepping around him.

  “No,” Sasha said, softly but sternly. Then he said something to her in Russian. She squinted with worry as she eyed me, then my wrists.

  The businessman caught her look and turned back toward me. His gaze quickly fixed on my hands, then darted up to the eyes of the man holding me.

  “Noooo!” I heard someone shout from outside. I saw a flash of movement coming from the same place.

  Without stopping to think I jumped back with enough force that I broke the man’s hold on me. As his hand gripping the gun began to move upward, almost in slow motion, I did a lightning-fast grand battement kick, aiming my stiletto directly at his face. The heel lodged in his nose and he flew backward, grabbing at his face. The gun went flying.

  The man who’d been standing right outside the front door began to run toward me. I had to get the gun the man had just tossed. I tried to scramble around him, now stepping on his cheek. He was still lying on the ground.

  “You bitch!” he said, grabbing my leg.

  Just as the man from outside lunged at me, I saw Sasha’s leg slicing the air. Sasha flew toward the man—literally flew, in just about the hugest, grandest jeté I’d ever witnessed—kicking him in the chest and slamming him into the brick wall. I scurried out of the first man’s hold and reached for the gun, grabbing for it just as Sasha whisked me up, one-armed, into the air and carried me back outside. I heard bullets going off like crazy behind us. Oh my God.

  “Keep down!” Sasha said to me, holding me folded over his arm, covering my head and torso with his body as he ran.

  The doors of the van slid open and we flew inside just in time for it to take off. We screeched out onto the open road, the van swerving this way and that. I had no idea where we were. I hoped the driver didn’t lose control. I heard bullets still sounding behind us. I heard a loud clank at the back of the van. Followed by another very loud clank, like metal hitting metal. Or metal hitting the ground. Then there was a loud crash and glass went flying everywhere.

  “Keep down,” Sasha yelled, covering my head with one hand.

  My heart was beating wildly. I closed my eyes. My face was to the floor. I felt someone else breathing in my space. I opened my eyes and saw Tatiana. Her eyes were equally wide, equally scared. I noticed Sasha’s other hand was atop her head.

  I took several deep breaths and tried to stop my heart from racing so. In case we were caught, I needed my wits about me so as not to
be so scared I couldn’t think.

  After a while, the van slowed and proceeded at a normal pace. I peeked up at Sasha.

  “Can I get up now?” I asked.

  He thought about it a minute then looked around and nodded. I sat up on the seat next to him. He wrapped his arm around me. Tatiana sat on his other side. I looked forward, toward the front window. It didn’t look like we were anywhere near Blackpool. It looked like we were out in the countryside, passing large fields of grazing sheep and cows, like we had on the way in from Manchester. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw, to my initial horror, the eyes of the man who’d kidnapped me and chased Tatiana in the grand ballroom staring back at me. I jumped in my seat and gasped.

  “It’s okay,” Sasha said, knowing exactly what was going through my brain. He caressed my arm and kissed my cheek and my chin. “I am so, so, so sorry you were pulled into this. So sorry, my love.”

  I looked up at him. I could see in his eyes he knew I was flaming mad.

  “Oh,” he said, taking his other arm from around Tatiana and placing it on my cheek. “Oh my God, they hit you. This is going to bruise a little. Maybe swell. We’ll get ice. I’m so sorry. So sorry.” He continued caressing my cheek and chin, kissing my forehead. Both felt good, and I’d momentarily forgotten the pain from being hit. Still, my anger was not dissipating one bit.

  “Well, I’m just glad the right people have finally kidnapped the right girl this time,” I said sarcastically.

  Sasha said nothing and looked away, now embarrassed.

  “Are you going to tell me what the fuck is happening?” It wasn’t often I used profanity. But this was the second time I’d been scared half to death, and this time my life really had been in jeopardy. I was fuming.

  “Rory,” Sasha said after a few moments, “this is my sister, Tatiana. I had thought she was de…dead. If not, gone from our lives forever. Because of my…my fault. Now that she is here, she is never leaving my sight again. Nor are you. I will never let anyone hurt either of you ever again.” His voice was steady, and heavy, like lead. There were tears in his eyes.

  ***

  It wasn’t until after we’d all given our statements to the police—at my insistence—that Sasha told me the whole story from beginning to end. We’d moved to a fancier hotel far from the Winter Gardens because there was now too much media at our hotel in town. We had a large suite. Tatiana was sleeping in one bedroom, and we were in the living room. There was no way I could sleep, and no way I was letting him off the hook any longer. I demanded to know everything. It was far into the morning and we sipped coffee, gazing through a huge window out onto the sea.

  “We grew up poor, very poor, in a small town. In Siberia,” he said, looking away from me.

  Somehow I knew this and knew he was always too embarrassed by this to tell me. As if all Americans were filthy rich and being born poor and Russian was something to be embarrassed of.

  “Dance was my way out, as I think I told you before. So when I met Tamara’s aunt and she offered me that, a more promising life in Novosibirsk, in dance, I jumped at it. My family missed me. My dad wanted me to stay and work the farm. Both my parents wanted me to stay. But my dad…well he was very violent. It wasn’t his fault so much. It’s how a certain generation is there. But, well, he was mainly the reason I wouldn’t stay. He…he beat up on my mom too. It was…it just killed me. I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t.”

  I held his hand, rubbed my thumb along his fingers.

  “It killed my mother for me to leave. At first. But then Tamara’s aunt gave my family some money every month for my services. That at least made my father happy. Appeased him a bit. So he didn’t hate me so much.”

  “Wow, it was like you were working, if your family got paid. At a young age,” I said. Child labor, I thought but didn’t say.

  He looked out the window. “I was seven,” he said. “Old enough to know I needed to leave.”

  I nodded. “So, what happened? What does that have to do with your sister?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing then. She was three when I left.”

  “So why do you blame yourself for her being in danger?” I asked.

  “Because then I went to Moscow, and realized there were far better partners for me than Tamara. I left Tamara. And her aunt’s money.”

  Oh, I get it, I thought. “So when you left for Moscow, the money coming to your family stopped.”

  “Exactly. Plus, Moscow was far away. It was a big city. My mother cried that I’d left her for good. And I did it all for myself. Thinking of no one but myself and my dance career.”

  “You weren’t selfish, Sasha! They were! Who do they think they—” I started but stopped. Who was I to be getting on his family’s case? I didn’t know what it was like to have limited resources in a small town in Russia, to have my son leave at such a young age, and miss him, probably horribly. “Sorry, go on.”

  “I just…blew them off. I received letter after letter from my mother, and phone calls from my father—angry calls—and I just ignored them. I wanted to be free. I wanted a life. I wanted to be a dancer. I wanted them to stop bothering me.”

  I laid my head in the crook of his neck and trailed my fingers lightly along his chest. “Of course you did. I just don’t understand what this has to do with Tatiana?”

  He took a deep breath, then a long exhale. “She saw what I’d done. She figured she could have a wonderful life too if she left home.”

  “So she started dancing too?”

  “No, unfortunately not,” he said. “She started…modeling.” He placed finger quotations around the last word. “There was some organization from Japan but it was run by Americans. I didn’t really understand when my mother told me but they came to Siberia and did auditions and they liked her and offered her a modeling contract in Tokyo.”

  “And it wasn’t legit?”

  “It was; it wasn’t really an out-and-out prostitution ring or anything. But it was also kind of a scam. She didn’t get any jobs, and the organization then told my mother we owed them all this money for her room and board and for acting as her agents. My mother couldn’t even afford to pay her fare to bring her home, let alone all these fees they said we owed them.”

  “Sounds like a scam to me,” I said.

  “Yeah, well who knows exactly what’s right?” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, my mother can sometimes…embellish things.”

  “Oh. Well, I still think some journalist should look into this, possibly do an exposé.”

  He nodded. “Perhaps. Anyway, my bad was that at that time, Xenia and I were still fairly new to the U.S. We were trying to get established in our jobs and partnership. We were really training hard so we could win. We were already having issues. I just…I didn’t have the time to be bothered with my sister.”

  “What do you mean? What did it have to do with you?”

  “I was abroad. I had money and an ease with traveling. My mother asked me to go find her in Japan and bring her back home, to Russia. I had the means to do so. But I was so busy with my own life.”

  I was confused. It didn’t seem to be Sasha’s responsibility to go recover his sister when he was trying so hard to get his own life and career off the ground. Especially when she went to Tokyo of her own volition in the first place. “How old was she?”

  “Eighteen, at the time,” he said.

  “So she was legally of age to be making her own decisions. Albeit young,” I noted.

  He finally looked at me straight on, a bemused look on his face.

  “What?” I said.

  “You’re not very sympathetic. I didn’t expect that.”

  I was taken aback. How was I not being sympathetic? “Well, no, I don’t mean to be unsympathetic. I just mean, you had so much on your own plate. A grown woman isn’t your responsibility and you shouldn’t put her troubles on yourself. I totally understand why you care so much about her. I just don’t think you
should feel so responsible for anything that went wrong.”

  He looked out the window for well over a minute.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you,” I said, worried now.

  “Please,” he said quickly. “Do you really think you could do that?” He was still looking out the window, but he quickly turned back toward me and let out a little laugh.

  “Probably not.” I shook my head, and laughed lightly with him. “So, what happened to her then? How did she end up marrying that crazy American, or how did he end up thinking she married him?”

  “That I’m not completely sure. I have to talk more with her about that. I just know that she got involved with some shady people trying to pay off her debts, the family’s debts. She…I think that ended up involving at least becoming an…how do you call…exotic dancer…if not a…” He couldn’t say it.

  Now I felt badly. Now I felt like taking back everything I’d said about her being old enough to take care of herself. Eighteen is certainly not very old. I was in my first year of college then, thinking back. My tuition and room and board all paid for by my mom, and my dad’s life insurance policy. I had no idea what it would be like to be out on the streets at that young age.

  “Oh no, poor thing,” I said.

  He shook his head rapidly, as if shaking it off. “I am told that anyway, by my family. I am told she found that American guy in one of the clubs. He took pity on her and wanted to marry her. Apparently, she figured it would lead to a better life, in America. In California. They lived up north of San Francisco. She realized afterward what a mistake she’d made. That she didn’t love him, and wanted out. She still couldn’t afford to go home. So apparently she came looking for me, though I didn’t know it then. At the same time, the people from Tokyo, from that modeling organization, told my mother that she’d run out on them without paying her bills. They came after my mother for the money and said they were going to find her and make her pay. That’s when my mother sent my uncle and cousin out to find her—those are the people who unfortunately kidnapped you, looking for her. They were trying to get to her to take her home before the Tokyo people found her. Apparently, she’d told my mother she wouldn’t go back to Siberia. My mom sent family to…help persuade her. They knew they couldn’t trust me to do so. And they were right about that. If I had known she was here, I would have let her stay with me.”