WHUMP.
A wet, meaty thud.
Then the gurgling. It’s an awful sound, grating, frantic, not coherent enough to be words but something more than an animal’s dying screams.
Then—
WHUMP. WHUMP. WHUMP.
Three more blows.
After that, there’s only silence.
I stop pounding and I don’t bother screaming anymore. My hands are numb, my throat raw, blood trickling down my wrists from my wrecked knuckles.
Minutes pass. Maybe five. Maybe fifty. I don’t know.
Then the scraping sound again. Metal on metal. The latch clicks. The door swings open.
Aleksei stands in the doorway, backlit by the kitchen’s fluorescent lights. There’s blood on his shirt. On his hands. A fine mist of it across his cheek.
And on the tile, there’s more blood.
So much blood on the tile.
He looks at me, and I look at him. “Why?” is all I can whisper.
“Because you’re twelve years old, Semyon,” he says somberly. “You’re my little brother, and I’m not letting you become this.”
“But thepakhansaid?—”
“Fuck what thepakhansaid.” Aleksei grabs my arm and pulls me out of the freezer. “I’ll tell him you did your part. He doesn’t need to know the truth.”
“You can’t just?—”
“Yes, I can.” He steers me toward the back exit, away from the kitchen where I know the body is lying. He makes sure to position himself so I can’t see anything. “And I will. You’re going to go home, Semyon. You’re going to forget this ever happened.”
“How am I supposed to forget?—”
“You just do.” We’re at the exit door now. He pushes it open, and cold night air rushes in. “You go to school. You keep your head down. You stay away from this life.”
“But you?—”
“I’m already in it.” His grip on my arm tightens. “Too deep to get out. But you? You still have a chance.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” I tell him.
“You’re not leaving me,” he corrects. “I’m letting you go.” He gives me a gentle shove toward the alley. “Go home, Semyon. And don’t come back here.”
I want so badly to argue. But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.
So I turn and walk away.
I make it to the end of the alley before I look back. Aleksei is still standing in the doorway, watching me. Even from this distance, I can see the slump in his shoulders.
He raises one hand in a small wave. As he does, a drop of blood falls from the tip of his pinky.
He made his choice that night—to protect me by pushing me away. To shoulder the darkness alone so I wouldn’t have to.
