Challenges

by Natalie Grey

  Between that moment and his death, Andrei would deeply regret his next actions: he turned, and ran. His master-plan of a clever bluff was thrown aside, and he ran like a coward. He ran like an animal. He ran like prey.

  So they hunted him like prey. He heard the yell behind him as he plunged into the woods, heedless of the branches whipping past his face. He had no plan, he had only panic.

  Of course they caught him. They were used to people running and they let him struggle too, so that when he was at last dragged back to Ioan’s car he was exhausted and almost crying with fear. He had the chance to see Ioan’s merciless black eyes.

  Then they put a bag over Andrei’s head and the car lurched into motion.

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds

  Marcus made his way down the hallway of the Meredith Reynolds distractedly. He was mentally rechecking final proportions of hops as well as an exhaustive step-by-step list, and looked up periodically to make sure he didn’t trip over anything.

  It didn’t work perfectly as a system, but he only ran into two doorways.

  He thought he heard giggling as he crossed the open bay to his office, but thought nothing of it. The area was hardly deserted. It was only when he crossed the threshold that he realized the delighted giggles were coming from his office. Tabitha was bouncing excitedly on his office chair and grinning at him like a tiny lunatic.

  Marcus stopped dead. This seemed like an ominous development.

  In his experience, things that made Tabitha laugh were likely to end in catastrophe.

  “Can I help you?” he managed.

  “I got you a leg up in the beer competition,” she informed him smugly.

  “You did?” He grabbed the other chair and scooted it closer. “Tell.”

  She hiked her legs up to sit cross-legged and leaned back in the chair with a grin. “I hacked Bobcat’s emails.”

  Marcus froze. “You what?”

  “Yeah, apparently he got something called—”

  “That’s not ethical.”

  She frowned in confusion, “You were trying to do it. I saw the traces in the system. You tried to look, so I thought I’d help.”

  “No, I was going to look and I stopped.” Marcus looked around uncertainly, half sure he would see Barnabas hanging upside down like a bat in one of the corners. “I…want to do the right thing, although I was tempted to do the wrong thing.” He looked around again; Barnabas might still be listening. “But I didn’t,” he added, just in case.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “No one. Nothing.” Marcus settled back in the chair as smoothly as he could manage. “You were saying?”

  Tabitha was watching him like he was going crazy, and perhaps he was.

  Then she gave a very soft, “Aha.” “You’re worried about Barnabas.”

  “Shhhh!”

  She started laughing again, one hand over her mouth as she hiccupped with laughter.

  “You don’t need to be scared of him, I told you, he’s really sneaky.”

  “He keeps insisting that the only good way to do things is to focus on the fundamentals of brewing beer and hope that wins the competition!”

  Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Look, Bobcat nearly got all of you killed to get some special hops. William has hacked Bobcat. They’re both stacking the deck, so why shouldn’t you?”

  “William hacked Bobcat? Aw, man.” Marcus slumped. “I’m never gonna win.”

  “Exactly!” Tabitha leaned over and patted his knee.

  “Comforting.”

  “Oh, for— No, that’s why I helped you with the hacking.” She gave him a sweet smile. “And Barnabas doesn’t have to know, does he? I won’t tell him.”

  “But…” Marcus rubbed his temples. “Oh, I don’t know what to do.”

  “It’s easy.” Tabitha gestured. “Look at the screen. Read the emails. Win the competition.”

  “I can’t just—”

  “Oh, but you can.”

  He wavered. He sneaked a peek out of the corner of his eye.

  He stood up so quickly his chair fell over backwards. If he stayed, he was going to look.

  “Where are you going?” Tabitha called as he walked quickly back across the bay

  “To have a beer!” he yelled back. “It’ll provide clarity.”

  “That is not how beer works!” She hightailed it after him, slamming the door behind her, and poked his arm for emphasis as they walked. “Look, if you’ll just listen—”

  “I’m not listening! Nope! Lalalalalalalala…”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. They got something called ‘myrcene oil.’”

  “Not liiiisteniiiiiing! Wait, what?”

  Tabitha gave him a smug look. “See, was that so hard? Myrcene oil. Ever heard of it?”

  “No.” Shit.

  “Well, all the emails are up on your desktop if you want them.” She gave him a sweet smile and glided off, leaving Marcus staring after her, wide-eyed with indecision.

  He looked at the office door. He looked after Tabby. He looked back at the office door. Then back after Tabby. Then he sank his head into his hands with a muffled groan of distress.

  He’d never even heard of this stuff. What was he supposed to do now?

  Romania

  Andrei barely managed to hold himself together as the car slid smoothly through the streets.

  Once, only once, he gave a little whimper and received a blow to the side that made him cry out. A second blow fell, and then another and another. The pain multiplied, each hit landing on tender skin until there was so much pain that it was beyond him to respond at all.

  He sagged onto the floor. There was only this moment, then the next one, and then the one after that. Each moment was filled with pain and since he could not see, pain was the only thing in his world. Each moment was indistinguishable from the next.

  He had the sense that time had disappeared entirely.

  He must have stopped crying out at some point, because a rough voice said, “That’s better. You make no sound unless you are asked a question, and then you will only answer the question.”

  Ioan’s voice, smooth and filled with contempt, added, “Are you capable of understanding that?”

  “Y-yes.” Opening his mouth meant that he wanted to let another whimper escape, but he pressed his lips together until he felt skin break and tasted blood.

  He couldn’t make a single noise or they would beat him again, and even this moment—filled with bruises, feeling every little jolt in the road—was better than being beaten.

  Ioan waited for a few moments as if hoping that Andrei would break again.

  But when he spoke, his voice was satisfied. “Good.”

  Andrei squeezed his eyes shut under the hood to keep back tears. He was afraid to do anything that would set Ioan off again, but he knew that this was just borrowing time. All he would buy himself was torture while they questioned him.

  And then they were going to kill him.

  He wished, not for the first time, that he wasn’t such a coward.

  ***

  “I still don’t know what to do.” Ecaterina sipped at an earthenware mug of tea and stared blankly at the wall of the kitchen. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Nathan looked out the window as Christina ran shrieking through the garden. When he looked back, Ecaterina was glaring at him.

  “What? What did I… What?”

  “What do I do?” Ecaterina asked him.

  “Oh.” Nathan considered his answer carefully. It was different to give this sort of advice to one’s spouse. “You should do what you think is right.”

  “What does Bethany Anne want me to do?”

  Again Nathan hesitated. Ecaterina had seen Bethany Anne in action all these years, but she did not run her own operations very often and was therefore unaccustomed to Bethany Anne’s style of management. If it could be called management, that was.

  Management sounded like something you did involving cubicles and toner cartridg
es, not shapeWechselbags.

  “She wants you to make a choice you think is right,” he said finally.

  “But what if I make the wrong one?” Ecaterina asked. Her voice was tinged with panic.

  Calm down? No, that wouldn’t go over well.

  “Uh…” Nathan took a large gulp of tea, burned his throat, and choked.

  Alexi pounded him on the back as he came by to take a seat.

  “Thanks,” Nathan managed. He looked at Ecaterina. “Look, here’s the deal. Bethany Anne knows that no one is infallible. If it were her operation she would kill Andrei and everyone else involved, but she trusts your character, and that you’re not stupid. She trusts that if you disagree with her there’s a good reason.”

  “But what if there’s not?”

  Nathan stood up and dropped a kiss on his wife’s lips. “There is,” he assured her. “I don’t know what you’ll decide to do, but I trust you and so does Bethany Anne. This is your home. I trust that you will make a sound decision, and I will follow your lead.”

  He nodded to Alexi as he left the kitchen. He hoped that Alexi understood that Nathan was not denying this was Alexi’s home, too, but trying to keep Ecaterina from simply doing what Alexi suggested.

  She would make a good decision on her own, he was sure of it.

  Alexi nodded back. He did understand. Ecaterina was part of a world that Nathan and Bethany Anne had not seen as much, and both were stepping back to let her lead the way—a good thing for a member of Bethany Anne’s team to be able to do.

  He tried to hide his smile, therefore, as his niece slumped back in her chair and grimaced.

  “What the hell do I do now?”

  Alexi sipped his tea and said nothing.

  “You too?” she accused. “Why is everyone so sure that I should make this decision?”

  “There’s no way to get through life without making decisions,” Alexi pointed out.

  Ecaterina shook her head in frustration, “Yes, but when I joined Bethany Anne’s team—”

  “As I understand it, you promised to be a part of an organization that does the right thing—however difficult that is.”

  “But every choice in this situation is the difficult one!” Ecaterina dropped her head into her hands. “How am I supposed to know which one is right by how difficult it is when they’re all difficult?”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no math you can perform to figure out which decision is the right one,” Alexi explained. “You have to trust yourself.”

  She said nothing, crossing her arms and sinking her chin onto them contemplatively.

  “I’m afraid that if I let Andrei go the way I wanted to, he won’t do the right thing from now on,” she admitted.

  Alexi nodded silently.

  “But I’m afraid if I kill him, he might have done the right thing in the future and now I’ve come in and condemned him for trying to keep his family alive. We all make mistakes…” Her voice trailed off as she remembered Bethany Anne’s definition of a mistake. “I’m trying to balance mercy with justice,” she said finally, “and I don’t know any of the probabilities that either is the right move. I know it’s not math,” she added hastily, “but I just… I wish I knew more.”

  Alexi nodded again. “If it helps, I asked myself the same question many times when I would go to speak with people about their traps.”

  Ecaterina looked over at him with interest, and jumped when Ashur thunked his head on her thigh. She had been so involved in the conversation that she hadn’t noticed the gigantic dog padding into the kitchen. She scratched behind his ears absentmindedly and gave him a smile.

  “I don’t suppose you have suggestions,” she said to him.

  I suggest you keep scratching my ears.

  She laughed and obeyed. “I should have known that would be your answer.”

  There was a silence as they all pondered.

  “And here’s what I don’t get,” Ecaterina added. “The man who’s running all of this—Ioan, was it? Andrei is terrified of him. I always knew about men like that, but now I’m finding myself wondering why he does it. I understand what he does, I get how he controls them. But why bother about something so small as furs?”

  Alexi gave a rueful smile.

  “Some people seek control of others more than they seek money, child. This man has become deranged. He warps people like Andrei, he sweet-talks them about how it’s necessary to do the wrong thing sometimes, and then he binds them to him with absolute fear until they forget that this is furs and not a matter of life and death. To this man, his control of Andrei and the others is worth more than anything. Being questioned sends him into a rage.” He shrugged. “The furs are just today’s reason for him, and I hope you have the good sense to know you’ll never change that one. He’ll throw everything he’s got at you until you fall in line too, or you’re dead.”

  Ecaterina considered this for a long moment and then gave a decisive nod. “Okay, I’ve made my decision.”

  “Good.” Alexi smiled, “What is it?”

  “I’m going to hit Ioan where it hurts. I’ll see what Andrei does. If he’s willing to keep killing people and animals for Ioan, then we’ll have our answer about him, but we gave him a chance to run away and pick a different path. Maybe he’ll take that chance now that he’s been reminded it’s there.”

  “Maybe he will. We can always hope.” Alexi looked around as Nathan came in the door. He grew wary at the look on the man’s face. “What is it?”

  “One of your neighbors came to ask for your help,” Nathan said grimly. “He says a man named Mihai was taken from his home by men in suits, and that Mihai’s grandson, Andrei, was seen running away from those same men, only to be dragged back and put in a car and both of them taken away. They want to know what to do.”

  Alexi looked at Ecaterina.

  “We’re going to go and get them back,” Ecaterina said decisively. “We’ll give Andrei the chance to show his true colors, and judge him on that.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  They hauled Andrei down into the basement of a house, his feet scrabbling and bouncing off the wooden stairs, and tied him to a chair. When they wrenched the hood off, he squinted in the light of a single bare bulb. All of them were blurry shapes, hidden in the shadows.

  This was the sort of thing you laughed at in TV shows, Andrei thought despairingly. It was just psychological; they were trying to scare you.

  The thing was, it was scary. It was terrifying because he was already hurt and he couldn’t see them, and they were going to hurt him more. They would hurt him until he told them what they wanted to know out of sheer terror, trying to get them not to kill him.

  And then they would kill him anyway.

  He knew that.

  He wished he had the courage to defy them so they would kill him now, but he wasn’t that kind of person. He wasn’t like those people in the forest, who had truly believed they could fight Ioan.

  “Why don’t you tell us what’s been going on?” Ioan suggested. His voice sounded eminently reasonable now. He settled down on a couch on the other side of the room, and Andrei saw the glint of his eyes and the bright flash of flame as he lit a cigarette.

  Deep breaths. Calm. Andrei grasped at what little sanity remained and swallowed.

  “Two days ago I scanned the hill, and there were no new pelts. It seemed odd so I went to go check the traps, but many of them were missing.”

  “Did you notify Grigore?”

  “No. I wanted to solve the problem on my own.”

  “I see.” There was a touch of dangerous amusement. “And how did that go for you?”

  “Right before you…found me at my house, I went into the forest to confront the people taking them. I had figured out who they were. It was a woman who had just come back to town to visit her uncle. She used to live here, but she left to marry an American. She brought two pelts with h
er—magnificent. I was going to take them after dealing with her.”

  It was a lie, Andrei realized. When it came down to it, he hadn’t wanted to shoot her in the forest. He could have killed them both easily; he was a good shot, and they hadn’t immediately thought he was an enemy.

  He was fairly sure he could have killed them anyway, but if what happened next wasn’t just some nightmare…

  “Was that the end of the story, Andrei?” Ioan’s voice was sharp now, and at his nod, one of the guards stepped forward to give Andrei a hard blow on the jaw.

  Andrei forced himself not to cry out. “No.”

  “Then continue, and do not waste my time.”

  “I swear to you I am telling the truth,” Andrei whispered. He had a sudden fear that if he explained what happened with the wolf they would beat him until he passed out. “The woman—she turned into a wolf. A massive wolf, bigger than anything I had seen. She pinned me to the ground and asked me questions about you.”

  There was a silence.

  “I didn’t answer her,” Andrei lied desperately. “And she was too weak to kill me for it. I was coming back to tell you, but I thought you wouldn’t believe me and I was afraid. That’s why I ran.”

  “That is…” Ioan’s voice trailed off, then came back strongly “The stupidest set of lies I have ever heard. You know I can’t just let that go.”

  “No, please! I’m telling the truth. I’m telling the truth!”

  But the blows fell, and they were so hard that the chair tipped over and Andrei tasted dirt until he was flipped onto his back. He thought he felt wooden rods raining down on him, and fists, and the jolt of the chair as it was kicked, and he began screaming again.

  This was how it ended, but he wasn’t ready to die. And it had been the truth!

  When at last he fell silent one of the guards looked up at Ioan. “Do you want me to kill him?”

  Ioan threw his cigarette onto the floor and strolled over to study Andrei’s prone form. He considered.

  “No. When his friends arrive, have them bring him and his grandfather back home. They’ll serve us better as living reminders not to cross me.”