by A. Zavarelli
“That’ll do,” Magda tells me, appearing outside the door with a towel. “You’ve scrubbed too hard.”
When I step outside, my knees nearly buckle. Magda grabs me by the arm and helps me to the chair across the room. She wraps the fluffy towel around me, but it doesn’t help. I’m still shivering. It’s getting worse.
“Miss Talia, are you alright?”
“I n-n-need a pill.” My teeth clack together.
She shakes her head and frowns. “No pills. It will pass.”
“It won’t,” I argue.
She ignores me and gathers a few items from the cabinet before she makes her way back to me. She starts to dab at my wounds. Her touch is gentle, but it feels like fire on my skin. I cry out everywhere she touches, and the pain is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
“It hurts,” I tell her. “It hurts so much.”
I know something’s wrong when I blurt those words. My pain tolerance is high. Usually, I can dissociate. Float away to somewhere else. But not now. My heart is racing. I’m sweating. And the room is spinning.
“Give me something,” I beg. “Anything.”
Magda presses her hand to my forehead and grimaces. “You’re burning up.”
She opens a bottle of Tylenol and hands me two. Instinctively, I know they aren’t what I need. But I take them anyway and wash them down with the glass of water that she hands me. And then I promptly heave myself over the toilet and vomit them back up a moment later.
This is when Alexei reappears, frowning at the scene before him. I’m sprawled out on the tile floor, naked and shivering as my brain spews words out of my mouth.
“Just let me die!” I scream. “Give me something. Anything. End it. Please.”
I’m crying. For the first time in too long to remember. There’s no numbness, no comfort for me. I feel everything now. Even the weight of his concerned gaze as I writhe on the floor. I don’t want his concern. I want his mercy.
He takes four quick steps and kneels down to scoop me up into his arms. He clips out something in Russian to Magda before she scurries out of the room to do his bidding.
“You are going through withdrawal,” he tells me. “It will pass.”
I shake my head and sob into his chest. “I can’t. I can’t do it. Please…”
“You can and you will.”
His voice leaves little question. He’s sending me straight to hell.
And then we’re moving. He carries me into the other room and places me into the bed which Magda has prepared just now. The covers are folded down to the end, and he gingerly places only the sheet over my skin. It still feels like knives, so I kick it off, and he doesn’t argue.
“The doctor will be here soon,” he tells me. “It won’t last forever, Solnyshko.”
“I hate you!” I scream in a demonic voice.
He flinches, and it surprises me. There is something on his face that looks familiar. Pain. It hurts him to look at me this way. It hurts him to hear those words. The fucked up part of my brain latches onto that information and takes note of it before he gives me one last glance and then leaves the room.
Magda sets a glass of water on the nightstand and smooths back the tangled hair in my face the way that I’ve seen mothers do to their children. Not mine. Mine kept us locked away where we couldn’t disturb her.
I squeeze my eyes shut and tell Magda to stop. She does.
“It’s okay, child,” she murmurs. “Everything will be okay now. Mr. Nikolaev will take very good care of you. You are safe here.”
Her kind words anger me and I want to tell her so. I want to tell her that she’s a liar. That you are never safe. That you can never count on anyone to protect you. Only yourself. And even then, you will fail. But I don’t say anything. Because another sharp jolt of pain seizes my body and I flop onto my side and curl up in a ball.
“Try to get some rest,” she tells me in a soothing voice. “I will be right here.”
I hear her soft footfalls move to the chair by the window, and a weak thought enters my mind. Even though I lashed out at her, I am grateful that she is there. Because if I’m going to hell, at least I won’t be going alone.
Pain.
I understand now that the word truly meant nothing to me before. The thing I thought I knew well was merely a shadow of the demon that courts me now. Howling inside of me, clawing at my insides, desperate for more poison. My body is at the mercy of this demon. The sanctuary inside my head no longer exists. Nothing exists. Only the pain. The want. And the demon I cannot control.
I continue to beg Magda to end it for me. To kill me. I say horrific things that I didn’t even know I was capable of. At one point, I hear her sniffling from her chair across the room.
I think I black out for a while. Everything is fuzzy when I wake, and Magda is shaking me.
“Miss Talia,” she says, “This is Dr. Shtein. She is here to give you an exam.”
A groan is my only answer. I can’t move. I can’t even see anything but the fuzzy figure of a woman hovering over me.
“She isn’t going to hurt you,” Magda says gently. “Just making sure you are alright. It won’t take long.”
The poking and prodding that takes place over the next twenty minutes barely registers. The pain is gone, and now there is only exhaustion. I think I’m hallucinating too. My limbs don’t feel like my own as she lifts them and examines every inch of me. I’m still naked. But there is no shame anymore. There is nothing.
The numbness is starting to return, and I am grateful. Magda and the doctor speak in murmured Russian and then Magda translates to me.
“She will give you something for the pain. Something to help with the withdrawal.”
The pain is gone, but I don’t argue. I’ll take anything I can get.
“It will be back,” Magda adds. “She says this is normal. This liquid will help you.”
They help me sit up long enough to ingest whatever it is they are giving me. And then I flop back onto my pillow, my eyes rolling up towards the ceiling.
“She needs to do a vaginal exam as well,” Magda says.
There is a note of concern in her voice. As though I might react unfavorably. There is nothing they can do that is worse than what’s already been done. My body has not been my own in so long, I don’t remember anything else. So I keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling and come up with a new number in my head. Thirty. I will give myself thirty days to find another way. By then, Alexei will let his guard down. I will convince him I am better.
There’s a snap of latex gloves, and then an instrument inside of me. It doesn’t hurt. But then the doctor is moving the IUD around inside of me, and I cringe at the sensation. Arman had it placed when he purchased me.
Dr. Shtein murmurs something in Russian, and her and Magda talk quietly for a few moments, coming to some sort of conclusion. And then Magda squeezes my hand tighter and says something in English that I don’t hear.
Something shifts inside of me, and then the Doctor pulls away and pats me on the leg. Magda covers the lower half of me over while the doctor prepares for something else. My eyes fall shut, and a needle enters my arm.
“A blood test,” Magda explains.
When that part is over, Magda covers me completely.
“You did very well.” She pats my hand encouragingly.
I don’t want her to be kind to me. I don’t want any of this. Those are the last things I tell myself before I fall asleep.
7
Alexei
I’m pouring over the reports on the computer screen when Franco taps on my desk to get my attention. I glance up at him through bleary eyes.
“You needed me?” he asks.
I nod and use the remote to pull up the information I’ve retrieved on the monitors across the wall. Franco turns to examine the faces on the screen as well as the names and addresses beneath them.
“What is this about?” he inquires.
Another click brings up the screenshots
of the bets I flagged a month ago. While Viktor does not trouble himself with what kind of bets make him money, I do. There are certain things in this life even I will not abide by.
“They are running a sports bet under a false category.”
I bring up the images of the illegal dog fighting ring I uncovered, and Franco doesn’t ask further questions, except for the most important one.
“What would you like?”
“Make theirs a double.” I point at the men to the left. One in the head, one in the heart. “And then bring Abbott to me.”
Franco nods, but before he goes, he gestures to the monitors again.
“Nikolai is waiting for you downstairs.”
My fingers contract around the glass of cognac in my hand as I flip over to the house cameras and observe him on the screen.
“What does he want?”
“To speak with you,” Franco replies vaguely. And then he leaves the room, allowing my rage to consume me in peace.
I temper it with the rest of my drink before I am calm enough to face him. My half-brother, Nikolai. Though we do not carry the same surname. My father’s shame of me was too great to allow such a thing. So I carry the name Nikolaev of my dead mother’s heritage, while he carries our father’s name Kozlov. It is fortunate for my father that we look nothing alike, to avoid speculation. His greatest fear is that the truth will be revealed to his brothers in the Vory. That they would know he has a son who is defective. Nikolai is his pride and joy, and I am nothing.
When I reach the sitting room, Nikolai is waiting for me, hands folded in his lap. He has fairer hair and complexion than I do, and when I meet his gaze, his eyes are an exact replica of my fathers.
“Is this a business visit?” I ask.
“Yes.” He stands up and extends his hand, which I ignore.
I gesture to the bar across the room. “Help yourself to my drinks if you like. As you do everything else.”
The insult does not go unnoticed, but he ignores it. Viktor is unaware of the tension between us, and this is the only reason I allow his presence in my home. He has only been here one other time since the incident six months ago, and then he left with a broken arm and a blackened face. If Viktor had been aware of the incident, Nikolai would be lucky to escape with the loss of a few appendages at best.
But despite the bitter rivalry between us, he is my brother. And he has never dared to share my secret to the Vory or anyone else who could easily use it to their advantage. For that reason alone, I feel I owe him the same courtesy.
“Anatoly sent me to inquire of a good date for an engagement party,” Nikolai states.
“Then this was a wasted trip,” I inform him. “You should know that.”
“I have no excuses to give for my actions,” Nikolai tells me. “It was a mistake, Lyoshenka. I know I deserve to die for what I have done to you. And sometimes, I wish you would tell them. Tell them the truth. I don’t want to carry on this way. I want to repair the damage I have done. So please tell me how.”
“This discussion is over,” I inform him. “So unless you have other business with me, you can leave.”
Nikolai frowns and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “What should I tell him then?”
“That is up to you,” I reply. “I’m sure you will think of something.”
An odd expression takes over his face, and his eyes move to the ceiling. Though I cannot hear it myself, I know exactly what it is. The girl. She is having another episode. Which I’ve watched from the monitor on my wall for far too long today.
The tension in my body is at the point of exploding if I don’t release it soon.
“What is that?” Nikolai asks.
“That is none of your concern.”
He frowns, but does not argue when I gesture to the door. He pauses one more time to listen to the sound above and then leaves as I requested.
By the time Franco returns with my captive, I am even more on edge and entirely too drunk. But his repentance cannot wait. Because at this moment, it is exactly the thing I need.
I nod at the gagged man tossed over Franco’s bulky frame in approval.
“Take him to the basement.” I grab the bottle of cognac from the bar. “I’ll be down in just a moment.”
8
Talia
The days blend together in a repetitive pattern of pain and sleep. Magda feeds me broth and the prescribed medication every morning. Everything is too vivid and sharp to my fragile eyes, and I beg her to shroud the room in darkness.
She agrees to my request and allows me to sleep. There is no other choice. I cannot move from the bed. Or at least I believe. Until one night, I find myself on the floor, curled up the way I used to at Arman’s when he took my mattress away. It’s hard and uncomfortable, but familiar. I want to stay there.
When Alexei picks me up and returns me to the bed, my murmured protests are met with his harsh words.
“You sleep on the bed in my home,” he tells me. “Always.”
And then he leaves me to my own special form of hell.
Three weeks pass before the symptoms dissolve and my mind is clear. The first time I sit upright in bed and glance around the room, I have to remind myself where I am. With sober eyes, everything looks different. More expensive.
The walls are made of stone. And the colors around the room are rich and dark. Golds and burgundies throughout the drapes and area rugs to match the mahogany furniture.
It is large. Too large for me. And the curtains are drawn back again, allowing natural light to invade the space. It still feels too bright. When I swing my legs over the side of the bed and put weight on them, they are stiff and I have to hold onto the mattress for the first few steps.
Soft material brushes against my skin, and I glance down. I am wearing pajamas, I realize. Soft pink cotton. It is a strange sensation against skin that has been naked for so long.
I move around the room, touching everything that is foreign to me. Things I have not seen or felt for longer than I can remember. Books, canvases, paintbrushes. The textures feel bizarre against the pads of my fingers. On the back of the canvas, I find a staple which I pry off with my fingers.
Instinctively I press it into the flesh of my palm, easing the tension in my chest with the familiar comfort of pain. Then the door opens and I toss it to the floor.
Magda meets my gaze, her eyes following the movement, and she frowns. There is a tray of food in her hands. Real food.
“You should be in bed.” She gives me a sad smile as she places the food on the nightstand. I observe the brightly colored fruit on the tray and my mouth waters at the sight of it. There is also soup and some crackers.
Magda gestures for me to come back to the bed, and I do.
“Eat slowly,” she instructs me, “and stop when you are full. You don’t need to worry about food here, Miss Talia. Any time you are hungry, you can eat.”
I nod, unable to focus on her.
As soon as she leaves the room, I disobey by gorging myself. It isn’t long before I’m in the bathroom purging it all back up. It’s only after the fact that Magda’s instructions begin to make sense. I brush my teeth and make it as far as the soft rug in the bathroom before I lay down to rest. I fall into a deep sleep, only waking when Alexei retrieves me once more.
I can tell by the oak and cloves in his scent that’s it’s him. He picks me up and carries me back to the bed again. I open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling, tracing over the patterns there with a finger while he watches me.
“What will you do with me?” I ask.
“I am keeping you,” is his reply.
His words don’t affect me one way or the other. Which seems to disturb him more than anything when I meet his concerned gaze. I’m back to myself now. To the familiar state of despondency. Even without the pills. And it pleases me. That I can stay numb forever, maybe. It will make it easier this way.
“Would you like to call Mack?” he asks.
“I don’t
know who that is,” I answer.
He tilts his head to the side, examining me. After a moment, he seems to have decided something.
“You feel she has betrayed you?”
“I don’t feel anything.”
His lips press together and he nods.
“I will come for you tomorrow,” he tells me.
And then he leaves the room.
9
Alexei
Franco and Magda are both watching me with matching expressions of concern on their faces. I ignore them and toss back the cognac in my glass.
“Everything ready?” I ask.
“Yes, sir,” Franco replies. “He’s waiting in your office.”
“Talia is bathed and dressed,” Magda adds.
I nod and check my reflection in the mirror. I’m nervous, but it isn’t obvious to anyone but me. If there was another alternative, I’d like to believe I would take it. I tell myself that what I’m doing is best for the girl. For Talia. She will be safe here with me. Out in the world full of monsters and wolves, she would not survive.
This is what I tell myself as I make a gesture with my hand for the others to move to my office. Magda hesitates.
“Mr. Nikolaev, may I be excused from the occasion?”
Her face leaves little doubt to what she thinks of this. She does not agree with it. Magda has strong maternal instincts, and she feels protective of Talia. Just as she was protective of me when I was a boy with nobody else to rely on.
“No,” I tell her. “Talia will want you there.”
She wipes her hands down her dress, smoothing it out before giving me a soft nod. “Very well.”
Her and Franco head to my office and leave me to gather Talia. When I step into the threshold of her doorway, I find her curled up in the chair by the window. Her ankles are crossed, and her pale white fingers clutching a book between them. She’s staring at the pages, but I don’t think the words are even registering. Her mind is far away. Somewhere that nobody else can ever hurt her again. The chair swallows up her tiny frame, and the deadness in her eyes scares even me. There is still much work to be done with her.
