He does not show.
I stand at the window like I could somehow see him coming if I just stared hard enough into the black, oceanic nothing.
He does not show.
I call and I text and I scream and I cry and still, he does not show.
He promised. Hepromised.
He does not show.
When midnight tolls, I give up. I crawl into his bed alone, pull his pillow against my chest, and breathe in the fading ghost of wintergreen until my throat aches from holding back sounds I refuse to make.
You bastard.
You absolute bastard.
You swore you’d come home to me.
Still, he does not show.
41
BASTIAN
abattoir /'ab??twär/: noun
1: a slaughterhouse; facility where animals are killed and processed.
2: the rotten place where your brother shows you the gore from everything you’ve done.
Consciousness returns, one bloodstained fragment at a time.
First is pain. A throbbing bass drum behind my left eye, pounding out a rhythm that makes my teeth ache. Something wet and sticky is plastered across my temple. Blood, I’m guessing, dried to a crust.
The second is smell. Rust and river water. It’s a decay I know well. In our teen years, when we each were finding our ways in this world, Aleksei used to come home reeking of it. We must be within spitting distance of the Chicago docks.
Third: restraints. My wrists are zip-tied to the arms of a metal chair. My ankles are bound, too. Whoever fixed them did athorough job. I can barely feel my fingertips, and I can’t move a fucking inch.
I force my eyes open.
The warehouse looms around me, cavernous and empty save for rusted machinery and the ghosts of whatever used to be processed here. Through grimy windows crusted with decades of grime, I can see dawn’s arterial bleed leaking over the Chicago skyline.
Dawn.That means I’ve been out for hours.
My first coherent thought isn’t of Aleksei or escape or even survival. It’s of Eliana, waiting in my bed. The promise I made to come home to her.
That hurts too fucking bad to linger on, so I switch gears to Zeke. I hope for my best friend’s sake that he didn’t make good on his vow to charge after me into the parking garage. Or, if he did, I hope Aleksei’s men had already clubbed me and dragged me out by then. The thought of him bound and bloodied in a place like this is nauseating enough. Almost as bad is the thought of him standing all by himself on that empty, dusty parking garage floor, surrounded by blank-eyed vehicles and rats scurrying through the darkness, wondering where I went, who took me, why, how.
The warehouse door groans open. Footsteps approach. They’re lackadaisical, utterly at ease. The steps of a man in no hurry at all.
“Out,” Aleksei commands to the various hooded wraiths standing sentry all around the perimeter of the room. “All of you. Wait by the cars.”
I hadn’t even seen them, but now that they move, I realize there were half a dozen guards spread around the room. At Aleksei’s orders, though, boots shuffle and the shadows recede. The door creaks again. In their wake, there’s silence, save for the distant lap of water against the docks and the steady drip of something trickling from the ceiling just behind me.
Then Aleksei emerges from the darkness.
He looks immaculate, as always. Navy suit tailored to within an inch of its life, not a single thread out of place despite the hour and the filth of our surroundings. His shoes gleam, freshly shined, and yet here he is picking his way across a floor slicked with God knows what, not even bothering to watch his step.
