Chapter Twelve: Marianna
Ithought I was going to be able to keep it together, that this wasn’t going to affect me the way it is right now. I never imagined that I would be this apprehensive about going after the people that kidnapped my best friend. I have to remember that I can’t be impulsive, that I can’t let this get to me, because it would probably result in Larissa’s death, and I will never be able to live with her blood on my hands. I have to trust Rurik, and the closer I get to him, the more I’ve begun to see how much I’ve come to care about him. I can’t let my feelings get in the way of what we need to do, because there’s no telling where we’re going to be when this is all over, and I can only hope that we’re going to be able to move on when we can finally put this behind us. I’m scared that it’s going to be too much, that it’s going to consume me before I even have the chance to figure out how I’m going to cope with it. Only time will tell.
I followed Rurik back into the truck while he drove us down to a small farmhouse that was all the way outside of the city, sitting alone on a few acres of land, and I was truly wondering what we were doing there. It wasn’t the kind of place I expected when Rurik told me that we’d have to start going after all that the Andreyevs have, and I wondered what he was up to. Though, he was the only one out of all of us that truly knew what was going to hurt them, what was going to send a message, but I was still scared that it would push them over the edge to the point where they wanted to hurt us right back. My stomach turned at the thought of losing Larissa over this, because I knew that she was counting on me to make sure that she got out of this alive.
I couldn’t help but imagine what she must be dealing with, barely hanging onto what was left of her life while she tried to focus on fighting to live another day. I knew that she was strong, but even I was scared to see just how quickly she’d break if she was pushed too far. The more I thought about the conditions she must be under, probably locked away in a basement somewhere, the more my blood began to boil beneath my skin. It was like that feeling alone completely erased the fear whenever it would surface again, and I could feel the adrenaline continue to course through me, reminding me that this was far from over.
I felt for my gun in the holster underneath my shirt, unsure of what we were going to find at this place. It didn’t seem to be protected, to have anyone on the property at all, and I was starting to doubt Rurik, until he fiddled with the lock, opening up the door, as I took note of the look on his face. It wasn’t one that was confused, bewildered, trying to figure out where things had gone, it was one of recognition, and that’s when I realized it was probably a place that was quite special to the Andreyev Family.
“What is this place?” I asked, and he turned to me like he didn’t want to divulge his secrets, like there were parts of his past that were too dark to share, but he wanted to prove that I could trust him, because there was no denying that we were starting to have feelings for each other. I wanted to give in, I wanted to give me a reason to trust him without a single doubt in my mind and I knew for that to happen, he was going to have to share these parts of himself with me.
“This is where Mr. Andreyev grew up. It’s a place that was always so near and dear to his heart, but I knew that there were things that happened behind these four walls that he would never be able to talk about. The reason I know that is because this is where Mr. Andreyev keeps the recruits that he wants to push over the edge, that he wants to test the limits of, and he’d usually like to sit back and enjoy the show. It was like we were animals engaging in a dogfight trying to protect ourselves, and we always ended up killing the other party just for the sake of his enjoyment. He turned his childhood home into a place of darkness and despair, but it’s the only place on the planet that man actually cares about, and I plan on taking that from him,” he said, and I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of his mouth.
“Oh my God, Rurik,” I said, unable to picture what he’d been through, what he had to do to make sure that Mr. Andreyev didn’t get under his skin.
“What are you planning to do?” asked Kir.
“We’re going to burn this place to the ground. No one should ever have to go through this again, and it’s going to be the one thing that Mr. Andreyev won’t be able to ignore. This is the only way he’s going to see us as a true threat, and it’s going to get us one step closer to destroying everything they have,” said Rurik, and I watched him go cold, like the memories of what happened here was just too much for him to handle. I caressed his cheek, gazing deep into his eyes, reminding him that time was over now.
“I know this is hard, but you have to remember that you got out. You have a second chance at happiness, at rebuilding your life however you see fit,” I said to him, and he nodded.
“Thank you, Marianna. Let’s get this done, we have a lot to do,” he said softly, guiding me out of the house, because I knew he wanted to be the one to strike the match and let this place burn down while he watched. I’d never seen such pain in his eyes before, and it was then I knew that they took so much more from him than I initially realized. The Andreyev Family were truly horrific people, and I couldn’t believe that there was ever a part of me that wanted to get to know them, to find out why they were the way they were. Now, I understood why Rurik wanted them all dead, and I was going to stand by him no matter what, no matter how difficult things might get from here on out. It was time he realized that he had people around him that cared about him, and he didn’t have to be the one protecting everyone all of the time. It was time someone did that for him.
Kir and I stayed out on the lawn, watching while Rurik went back inside, dousing the entire place with the cans of gas that were sitting in the back of the truck. This was a monumental moment for him, to get rid of a place that brought him so much suffering, but it was quite a lot to see him like that. I never expected to be front and center, catching myself imagining all of the terrible things that he must’ve experienced when he was in Mr. Andreyev’s grasp. He’d told me briefly that he had to do a lot of things that he wasn’t proud of, but I had no idea that Mr. Andreyev was the kind of man that thoroughly enjoyed torturing the people that did everything he asked. I imagined that Mr. Andreyev had the kind of deep-rooted issues that would drive a person insane, and giving into his darkness is what made him turn out the way he did in the first place, but it shocked me to see just how twisted he truly was.
I wondered what the people around him must truly think, whether they care to even delve into the details of why he acts the way he does, or if they’re like Rurik, doing everything they can to stay alive, refusing to ask any questions. I worried that Rurik was going to have a hard time coping while he revisited all of these memories, but we both had to protect ourselves from getting too deeply involved with this, because the last thing we needed was to get too close only to lose ourselves.
I stood back, watching the flames burst through the glass of the windows, slowly swallowing every inch of the house as Rurik joined me to gaze up at it. It was quite the sight, and the look on Rurik’s face told me that there was a part of him that felt relieved that he could finally put some distance between what he experienced here and where he was headed next. He wanted to look towards the future, remind himself why he wanted to escape in the first place, and I knew a lot of that had to do with me. He reached down, taking my hand in his, squeezing it tightly and I squeezed it right back, as we stood there watching the flames dance upon the framing of the house, leaving a black ash coating around each corner, while the smoke funnelled up into the air. It was done, and I knew it was only a matter of time before Mr. Andreyev caught wind of what happened, knowing quite well that it would have only been one person that would be responsible.
Rurik turned, heading back to the car, and I shared a glance with Kir as he shrugged. Kir was just in the dark as I was about a lot of things, but everything that I’ve been wanting to know would soon be revealed the closer we get, and I had to try to keep myself from imagining what it must’ve been like in Rurik’s shoes. He had to be quite the strong man to be able to survive that, to still look towards the future, believing that there was a way out when he was being pushed over the edge. I commended him for staying true to himself, for showing me that there were parts of him so dark he was afraid to show me, but he was starting to see that it wouldn’t change the way I felt about him.
Not only was this going to send a message, but I believed in my heart that Rurik was still testing me. He wanted to see how much of this I could really handle, and what would drive me over the edge making me question everything. He wanted to see if I was going to change my mind, wake up one day, and decide that I couldn’t be with him anymore because the darkness was far too much to process, but I knew myself better than that. I was better than that, and this was just the beginning for the both of us. We may have still had a lot to learn about each other, but I wasn’t giving up on him, and I knew he was never going to give up on me. We had to find common ground, show the world that we were a force to be reckoned with together, but there was still something inside me that feared he would be the one to have a change of heart, deciding that he needed to go about a lot of this on his own. I’d gotten to the point where I didn’t know what my life consisted of without him, and I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to move on if I wasn’t by his side. He’s brought out a different side of me, one that I was scared to acknowledge in the beginning, but now I’d come to accept. There were still moments where I felt like I didn’t know what I was capable of, but I was aware that the deeper we got into this, the more I was going to be able to find out.There may never be an end to the darkness in your life, Marianna. This life is chock full of it, but you just have to ask yourself if you’re capable of handling it, or if you’re getting a little in over your head.
Kir and Rurik walked off to the side, and I could barely catch onto what they were discussing, but I tried not to pry. Whatever it was, it put a damper on his mood, because once he got back into the car, he was absolutely silent. Kir wasn’t the kind of man that ever seemed to shut up, and I was surprised that he didn’t utter another word to me. I wanted to ask right then what was going on, but I decided that it would be best if I kept my mouth shut, observing their moves, and the quick glance they shared while Rurik drove us back to the cabin. As we got closer, I was starting to feel a bit more at ease to head back to a familiar space because nothing had felt quite like home since everything started. I’d been so adamant on making sure that everything was working according to plan, and so caught up in the whirlwind that was my feelings for Rurik that I didn’t even acknowledge the fact that I’d begun to feel like I had no place to live, no place to call home.
It’s like I’ve been running around like a fugitive, like I’ve become the kind of criminal that I’ve been scared of my entire life, and I haven’t found a semblance of normalcy yet. I can imagine that will come with time, but it’s still nice to know that there are places out there that feel familiar, that bring me a sense of calm whenever I enter them again.That's what I thought I was going back to this time, but when we arrived at the cabin, the place had been completely thrashed. There were furniture tossed about, tables turned over, broken glass on the wood floors, and we were all on high alert.
“Great, this is the only place on the planet I know that would’ve never been found, but now I don’t even have that,” said Kir, and if I were him, I would’ve been upset too because it was a place that was near and dear to his heart, but he had to have known that something like this could’ve happened. It just was how the Andreyevs operated, and I didn’t even think for a second that they would take it upon themselves to retaliate right after we did what we had to do to send them a message. Even though that had been the whole point of the plan, it didn’t make me feel any better to know just how quickly they seemed to take care of business, and I wondered what was going to happen the next time they sent people to come after us. I feared that it might be too much for us to handle, catching us off guard, and I didn’t know what would happen if they got the upper hand.
I didn’t want to think about that, so I instinctively started picking up the shards of glass on the floor, cleaning up what I could even though I was sure that there was no way we could’ve stayed there knowing that our location had been found out. It just helped me keep a cool composure, because it was clear that the people who ransacked the cabin weren't just trying to send a message to us, but they seemed to be looking for something. I didn’t think that Rurik or Kir had anything on them that would be of value to the Andreyev Family, but I had to remind myself that there was still so much about the story that I wasn’t aware of. There was so much left to be discovered, but I had to be the one to keep our little team together.
“I know this isn’t what you expected, Kir, but we have to keep it together. We let this get to us, then there really is no hope for us getting out of this, is there? It’s strange that they were able to get here, to know what we were up to so quickly, and it bothers me because we’ve been incredibly careful,” I confessed, and I watched the two of them share a glance before they looked back at me, as if they’d been keeping secrets.
“I knew that something like this was going to happen, because I felt that we were being followed after we left the farmhouse, like someone had been waiting on the outskirts of the city, waiting to see where we were headed. I wasn’t sure, but now I have my answers. They seem to be one step ahead of us at all times, and we’re going to have to start hunting down the Andreyev spies if we want to continue moving forward with this. Kir here doesn’t like that idea,” said Rurik, and I looked over at Kir for his input, and he shook his head.
“I know that you want vengeance, Volkov, but that is a suicide mission. Taking out a bunch of goons is one thing because you can see exactly what they’re about to do, but trying to take out the people who are being paid to spy on us, are probably highly-trained operatives that can get a shot in us before we even figure out what’s happening,” Kir explained, and he certainly had a point, but that didn’t seem to matter to Rurik. He didn’t seem like he was going to budge on this, and I was going to have to choose a side, but I knew that if I abandoned Rurik on this, he would probably venture off on his own, and I couldn’t have that.
Rurik was hurting, dealing with a lot that was flooding back inside of his mind, reminding him of a time he so desperately wanted to forget. He needed the support now more than ever, and I had to give that to him.
“We said we were going to do whatever it takes to get this done, and that may mean having to do things that would otherwise be seen as too dangerous to get involved in. Haven’t you two seen what we can accomplish together? We just have to be smart about it, but we have to do whatever’s going to put us in the best position to take the Andreyev Family down,” I reminded them both, and I watched Kir soften up to the idea, and we were all aware that it wasn’t going to be easy, but it was evident that we had to get back on the road, that we were going to keep living our lives looking over our shoulders unless we did something to get ahead of the fight.
“I think it’s time we call our men, Kir. It’s time we storm one of the Andreyev’s warehouses. Something tells me that we’re going to see someone there that we might be willing to sway,” he said to Kir, and I could see that the thoughts must’ve been flitting around inside of his mind because he thought about it for a moment, choosing his words carefully, but he agreed.
“If I help you do this, you better be willing to return the favor if the situation ever called for it,” said Kir, and it was evident that what we were about to do might’ve resulted in a blood bath, but we had to make our move.
“I’m indebted to you already, Kir. You’ve done so much to help me, to help Marianna, and I wouldn’t ask you to lay down your life for me, but I am asking you to help me make sure that I get close enough to finish this. We’re not going to be able to get anywhere trying to hide from them any longer, not if they have eyes on us, so we have to turn the tables on them,” said Rurik.
“I suppose we better get out of here then. The war awaits.”
