by Plum, AB
The Lost Days Book 2
The MisFit Series
By
AB Plum
Table of Contents
I
II
III
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT AB
THANK YOU!
I hope you enjoy reading The Lost Days as much as I enjoyed writing these new revelations about Michael Romanov’s bizarre childhood. If you’ve not read The Early Years, Book 1 in The MisFit Series, it’s available now. While you’re there, please leave a review.
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PROLOGUE
He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took him in.
Edwin Markham
Requiem to a Dead Mother
Unloving mother. Cold. Rejecting. Dead.
Unfeeling mother. Hard. Self-Seeking. Dead.
Unforgiving mother. Distant. Heartless. Dead.
The worms creep in. The worms creep out.
Rest in hell, you faithless layabout.
Michael Romanov
Chapter 1
Finding Fun in the Midnight Sun
Tivoli Gardens—Saturday, June 19, 1976, 9:35 P.M.
Whipped cream, chocolate meringue, and the traditional dollop of Danish raspberry jam topped four scoops of vanilla ice cream in my waffle cone.
Ahhh, a moment sinful enough to distract me and my best friend Dimitri. Despite our Einstein-IQs, we closed our eyes like normal eleven-year-old boys and savored the explosion of flavors on our tongues. When we opened our eyes, we surveyed the crowds eddying around us. We nudged each other at the same instant and grinned. Our next mark.
Picking pockets in Tivoli had become a sport we’d perfected all spring.
Not for the money.
For the excitement.
Thanks to my absent father, we never lacked for spending money. What we craved was the tingle on our scalps from choosing prey, watching him for five or ten minutes, then closing in.
Perfection evolved from daring. We often discussed when we would hit on one of the policemen mingling with the hordes of tourists and Copenhageners as the midsummer sun hovered above the horizon.
Tonight, though, we zeroed in on a tall, husky American. His booming voice announced his citizenship. The baseball cap he wore backward amounted to an orange neon sign. A wallet bulged in the rear pocket of his walking shorts, extending an invitation for us to transfer it to our possession.
The American’s challenge quotient was low, our boredom quotient was high.
Finished with our cones, I gave our secret signal. Dimitri and I fanned out in opposite directions. My heart beat faster. God, I loved—
A small, blond boy rammed into my thigh. Damn kid. I stifled the impulse to kick the brat and managed to keep my balance. He ran around me without apologizing. Rude little bastard.
Our mark was strolling toward the puppet show.
No sign of Dimitri.
Trusting he’d follow our proven routine, I took one step forward.
Something hard punched me in the kidney.
Chapter 2
Shock Tactics
“This isn’t a finger, Michael. Look straight ahead and keep walking. Don’t even think about running.”
The warning vibrated with malice. My heart raced, and I kept my gaze in front of me. Bodies pressed in on all sides. “Who are you?”
“No talking, either.” His Danish carried a trace of accent I didn’t recognize among the shouts and laughs of kids and adults.
He walked behind my right shoulder, outside my peripheral vision. I had the impression he was tall and light on his feet. The pressure he exerted on my kidney increased as the crowd swelled. Where was Dimitri?
Not close to our American mark. The baseball cap bobbed in and out among the masses as if he was sauntering down a deserted street. I craned my neck to see around two sightseers gobbling Danish hotdogs.
“When we reach the exit, we will go right. Understand?”
“Yes, of course.” The Russian spilled out of my mouth automatically as a single, rushed phrase.
“Mr. Smart Ass,” my companion spit out in Russian, sending goose bumps slaloming down my back. The phrase yes of course tripped up most foreigners since the same words said without a pause carried the opposite meaning. In that split second, he told me he grasped the nuances of my first language damned well.
“You speak Russ—”
“I said no talking. Perhaps you no longer understand Danish.”
Not a question, so I figured it was a trap. No talking. I locked my jaw.
Laughing hordes entered Tivoli and spread out like a mutant virus. If I pulled away from him could I—
“You’re thinking.” His jab to my kidney took my breath away—along with any desire to argue. An involuntary moan escaped my throat.
“Funny, I thought you’d be tougher. You did kill your mother.”
Sweat soaked my scalp, and I swallowed the first bitter taste of fear.
“My mother killed herself.” The muscles in my back tensed for the next kidney-poke.
“So the rumors about your smart mouth are true.” He steered me to our right and slammed his fist between my shoulder blades.
I nose-dived into the backseat of a black Mercedes sedan. Orange and green spots danced at the end of my nose. My scalp stung as if live electrical wires, sharp and hot, were tunneling past dura mater into my cerebral cortex. I cried out.
“Shut up, you sniveling bastard.” The man hurled me against the front seat, holding my face smashed against the warm leather. He yelled at the driver in Finnish.
The back door slammed shut. The front passenger door opened, then closed. A second later, the car glided away from the curb, into the revelers, quickly picking up speed as pedestrians broke away. Spit dribbled down my chin. With my head at the neck-breaking angle, I could barely swallow. My heart galloped. My lungs refused to expand.
“All right, you little twit. Sit back. Flick an eyelash, and I’ll give you a headache you can compare with your warped friend when he wakes up.”
Chapter 3
A Familiar Face
The sun’s eerie summer glow disoriented me as much as the headache hammering my skull. Or maybe my confusion came from the man seated next to me, his foot placed at the top of Dimitri’s spine. I gritted my teeth. Dimitri lay crumpled face down in the space behind the driver’s seat. His legs were folded under him like a penitent waiting for absolution.
The man in the front seat turned and flashed a mouthful of piano-white teeth. His piercing blue eyes glittered. I stared. Without the baseball cap, his copper-colored hair glowed in the golden evening light.
He laughed as if I’d said something funny. “For a boy who killed his mother three months ago, you have a face that borders on transparent.”
“You-you’re not American.”
“And you’re not Finnish—despite your mother.”
Involuntarily, I snorted.
Nostrils flaring, he cuffed my right temple with his knuckles. “I already know what you think of your mother.”
My ears rang. Involuntarily, my fingers flexed and twitched as if I’d been electrocuted. I wanted to hit him. Smash his face. Kick his Finnish teeth down his throat.
“We are going to see,” he s
aid, “just how tough you are.”
Chapter 4
The Long Night
The unchanging pinks and golds in the evening sky stretched time. I had no idea how long we drove. How long had Dimitri been unconscious? The Finn, as I had dubbed my captor in the backseat, showed no signs of fatigue—not that uncommon during summers in Scandinavia. He drank a bottle of beer in silence. Shortly afterward, he rapped on the window separating the front and backseats.
The car accelerated. Despite the traffic, we flew past the street markers. My chest tightened. Where were we headed?
On the floor, Dimitri groaned.
“C’mon, Sleeping Beauty.” The Finn tapped Dimitri with the toe of his shoe. “Open your eyes.”
“Is he hurt?” I asked. “Did you drug him?”
Lightning-fast, The Finn cracked me above the ear. “Did someone give you permission to speak?”
My head rang, and I saw stars through the tears spilling down my cheeks.
This time, he whacked his knuckles against the base of my skull. Not as hard, but the force delivered a kaleidoscope of red pinwheels behind my eyelids. “Now, you may speak.”
At that moment, I hated him. More than I had hated my older brother. More than I had hated my mother. The hatred rose like some kind of black fog from deep inside my stomach. Fear disappeared. The pulsating pain in my head ratcheted up. A torrent of words choked my larynx. He raised his hand.
“I’m sorry,” I lied, letting the hatred flow into every nerve ending.
“Better.” He dropped his hand. “Now, tell me. What kinds of sailors are you and your friend? Does the blood of Vikings or nomads run in your veins?”
“Both.” I had no idea what he meant.
He laughed. “So modest.”
Sensing a trap, I said, “I see no need for false modesty. I’ve sailed on my father’s boat since I was a child. I started riding horses when I was five.”
He laughed—the kind of laugh that conveys ridicule. “A yacht’s not a boat. And a pony’s not a horse, you little bastard.”
Dimitri groaned again. The Finn repeated his order to wake up, shaking Dimitri’s shoulder hard.
I imagined kicking The Finn, throwing open the door, and dragging Dimitri out of the car.
Logic overruled imagination. We’d just crossed a high bridge I didn’t recognize. If I survived jumping out of the Mercedes—with Dimitri in tow— where could we go? Straight into the water?
Chapter 5
No Way Out
“What … hap … pened?” Dimitri whispered, lifting his head about an inch off the floor.
“You got hit by a train.” The Finn winked.
My heart skipped a beat. Did he know about Alexei? How was that possible?
“Where … where am I?” Dimitri raised his head another inch.
The Finn snapped his fingers under Dimitri’s nose. “On the slow train to hell.”
Another wink. My breath caught. He knew. I exhaled. He knew I’d pushed my brother in front of a commuter train three months earlier.
“What …” Dimitri’s question trailed off.
“You’re—”
The Finn poked me in the ribs. “You’re trying my patience, Kid.”
I held up both hands and nodded my silent understanding. Keep quiet until told to speak.
Dimitri cocked his head from side to side. One eye was swelled completely shut, the other one was a slit. Clots of blood had dried in his nostrils. What the hell kind of fight had he put up against The Finn?
“Isn’t this cozy?” Our captor produced another beer from the carry-on next to him. “Either of you boys thirsty?”
Bastard. Sand weighed down my tongue and clogged my throat, but I bit the inside of my cheek and shook my head.
“No?” He leaned toward Dimitri. “How about you, sport? Want a cup of cool water? I’ve got a thermos right here. Yours for the asking.”
“I’m not—” Dimitri licked his chapped lips and rasped, “Thirsty.”
The Finn shrugged. “Okay, heroes. Good thing, actually. Can’t really stop in the middle of a bridge to take a piss.”
My heart thudded in my ears and sweat soaked my hands. No stopping for a piss on a bridge, but what better place to dump us to our deaths?
Chapter 6
Turning the Screw
The glass between the front and back seats slid open. Baseball Cap asked, “Everything all right?”
“Perfect. Can’t you smell?” The Finn chucked me under the chin, clacking my teeth together. “I’ve scared the shit out of our little murderers.”
Exerting all my willpower, I suppressed the instinct to shove his hand away. Bastard cur. The oath burned my larynx.
“Ohhhh, Kari.” In a high, girlish voice, Baseball Cap trilled, “You are such a baaastard.”
They guffawed, then reverted to Finnish. Why hadn’t I recognized Baseball Cap was Finnish when we targeted him at Tivoli?
And what if I’d made the connection? Did I think yelling Finns! Finns! would’ve brought the police to my rescue? Did I think the two men would’ve turned and disappeared in the crowd? Could I have escaped?
In the middle of their conversation, Kari switched to Danish. “How does it feel to think about your own death? Did you give one thought to your mother’s life when you sent her those pictures?”
Pictures? She’d burned them. How could he know—
“Speak up, you twisted little pervert.”
“I am stunned. I-I don’t know what to say.” I widened my eyes, mimicking kids I’d seen feign innocence with their parents.
The sound of his stinging slap across my cheek cracked like lightning.
My head snapped back and bounced off the car window. My top teeth bit through my bottom lip. I tasted blood.
“A sample of what you can look forward to every time you try to feed me pig’s shit.” A boiled potato conveyed more emotion than his monotone. “I asked about the pictures you sent your mother.”
“I wanted to embarrass her. I didn’t know she’d kill herself.”
His open palm shot out, striking my right ear. “Humiliate her, you mean. Shame her. Degrade her. Dishonor her.”
My whole head vibrated with the snake-hiss in his voice.
“You knew she’d kill herself. What choice did you leave her?” His hand came up.
I tensed for another slap.
“Okay, enough.” Baseball Cap spoke in a low, measured voice that banged like cymbals in my aching head. “He’s got a pretty good idea of what’s in store for him.”
Chapter 7
Into Unknown Territory
Ahead of us, the deepening pink rays of sunshine glanced off a ferry’s smokestack. We exited the main street and slid into a queue behind another black Mercedes.
“Get the other one onto the seat,” Baseball Cap said.
“With pleasure.” Kari jerked Dimitri up by his scruff and slammed him into the seat.
Dimitri groaned—a low, animal-in-pain bleat. The sun’s rosy glow heightened the pasty color of his skin.
“Keep him quiet,” Baseball Cap ordered.
“With pleasure, chief.” Kari reached into the carry-on.
When he brought out his hand, it contained a thin metal box the length of a pencil. He flipped open the lid and removed a hypodermic needle. He held the needle in front of his nose, squinted, and tapped the barrel. Quickly, with no pause I could see, he jabbed the needle through Dimitri’s shirt into his bicep. His body convulsed, and his head fell forward.
Kari returned the syringe to its metal box and the box to the carry-on. “See what you have to look forward to if you try anything cute?”
Mouth dry, I nodded. The movement felt like splinters of glass behind my eyes. Jesus, don’t let me piss myself. I squeezed my knees together. Christ, what was going on? What had just happened? Who were these men?
The car pulled next to a sentry house. A young, blond guy in uniform stepped out and leaned into the driver’s open window. “
God aften.”
“Good evening,” the driver replied in impeccable Danish. He produced a single-page document and five open passports.
Lips moving, the guard studied the paper. The stink of sweat oozed off Kari. My gut tightened. I’d heard rumors of boys abducted from the streets of Oslo, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. The kidnappers forced the boys to work like slaves on freighters headed for the Mideast.
The guard said something drowned out by my pounding pulse.
The problem of boys disappearing rarely appeared in newspapers, and I’d always assumed the ones who did vanish were delinquents—vagrants roaming city streets. Boys without families. Boys for whom no one would pay ransom.
I’d always assumed they deserved their fates.
The driver produced another paper and hitched his head toward the backseat. I froze. Surely the guard would notice my split lip. My sweaty hair. My pupils must’ve been bigger than his badge. I kept my eyes glued to his, willing him to look—to see me. For a second, I thought he hesitated. The driver extended his hand. The guard’s gaze slid past me, back to the papers.
He snapped the passports shut and returned them with the two documents. “Everything appears in order, sir. Have a good trip.”
“If the weather holds, it should be great.” They chatted another minute about the spectacle of the midnight sun in Finland. Within seconds, we passed into the line of vehicles waiting to board the ferry. Fumes from the idling engines stung my eyes and nose.
Finland. The ice cream sat in my gut like an anvil. Were we really going to Finland? From years of my father’s belittling comments, I equated the Finnish backwoods with the Siberian steppes.
Mouth slack, Dimitri made a noise. Would my father pay for his return as well as for mine? Would he pay for mine?
Kari grinned at me. “Think he’s faking?”
