The rain stopped, but it still smelled damp. I only knew that because an open apartment across the hall had a window that hadn’t been boarded up. There was no lamp, and no overhead light. Dark began setting in, and Boris wasn’t back.
I lifted the package to better examine the wrapping. The outside was secured with a single piece of tape beneath a rough plastic film.
My hands trembled as I peeled it back and shook the paper away.
A block of wood. I turned it over and over. Just a plain block of roughly hewn wood.
The numbing cold spread through my veins as I held it out. That wasn’t the delivery.
I was.
41
Vitali: Static
Ithink I’m crazy.
I don’t want to be crazy, but the rules don’t apply to me like they do other people. I thought I’d get mad and everything would go dark—or light—or whatever the fuck happens when the static comes, but when I see her on the ground and bleeding, everything becomes sharp and certain. I know what to do, the way I know what to do with inanimate objects. I don’t have time to be angry until later because she is what matters most.
And that’s alright because I have time for the other thing.
I’ll take my time with the other thing.
Kotik has a good birthday.
And then she has a second birthday at the Imperial. I don’t like bringing her there, but it’s renovated and the only place I could get a room with a drain big enough to do what I want to do.
Aliev is Musa’s man, so it’s harder to get him, but everyone has to go to the grocery store eventually. It took longer to findthe priest, but that’s alright because Kotik’s birthday isn’t here yet.
I’m disappointed that it’s the only family he has left and I can’t find anyone else, but they’re close enough that I don’t mind.
Katya didn’t like it, but it’s important.
She has to know how much she matters. I have to prove to her that I will never let that happen again. I won’t make her watch Baranov, because I got carried away but I’m not letting him off either.
She gives me a gift, and I fuck it up.
I didn’t want to, but the static came on slow and the picture faded out without me noticing.
I don’t even know when things faded out. One moment I was caught up in her, and the next… I can’t think about what happened next. I snapped out of it, and she was right there. Limp, unconscious.
I have never been more afraid.
Not her. Never her. Never ever her.
I can’t protect her from the outside world if I can’t protect her from myself.
She’s scared, and she thinks I raped her. I didn’t, but I can’t tell her that, because I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t believe me. I don’t want to snap if she doesn’t believe me.
She forgives me, and that’s when I truly know I’m crazy.
I have to work on that. She deserves better, and for the first time I think that’s not me and it starts grinding the gears in my head.
Then, it’s Kotik that fucks up and I have to fix it because she thinks the best of people, and Sergei isn’t a ‘people’ but she doesn’t know that. Misha should have known better, but she came back and she’s alright. She likes Misha so I have to talkmyself down. I’ve gotten very good at that.
Elena’s missing and it’s making Kotik cry.
I don’t care about Elena, but she does, so I have to find her. I already know it’s not good news. Best case scenario is she’s a prostitute, considering who she’s been hanging around.
