I was right in the end, but that didn’t help anyone. Sergei paid the Chechens to let her go, but twenty minutes into the car ride she starts seizing. Her mouth is foaming, and she’s dead before we make it to the hospital. Her arm is swollen; I can see the puncture wound where they stuck her with desomorphine before we picked her up.
I didn’t tell Katya, and she didn’t ask.
I think she’s getting used to this life and I thought I wanted that, but I don’t. I just don’t know how to stop it. She gets this look in her eyes. I know she’s thinking about leaving. She told me once she doesn’t know if she can do this ‘real’ world. And I can’t let her. I can’t let her. We don’t have to be here, but wewillbe together, because every time I think about her leaving the air cuts off.
Kotik finds out everything.
And she stays.
I’m not sure if that really happened. I have to wait and see if she mentions it because I’ve had dreams where she finds out and there have been a lot of different outcomes, but never that. I always thought I’d snap if it came to that moment, but I didn’t. I was dying, and I knew it. I shouted and I was dying.
And then Katya brought me back to life.
Kotik is perfect, but it seems too good to be true.
Too good… for me.
I have a dream about shooting Sergei in the dick.
I go to work.
And then the world falls to pieces.
* * *
I was on my way back when the phone rang. It was Misha, and he didn’t sound right, which didn’t usually alarm me because he had a weak stomach and clear moral lines, but this was different.
“Are you with Katya?” he asked.
“No, she’s at home.”
“Are you sure?”
I didn’t say anything because he said that for a reason and I needed him to talk faster but I couldn’t get that out.
“Vitali, I just left Sergei’s office. Dropped off some papers. Her cellphone is on his desk.”
A painful white flashed across my vision, maybe my brain, and he didn’t have to say more because I had already cranked the wheel, headed back. “How do you know it’s hers?”
“She put a sticker on it. It’s a cartoon cat.”
“Where’s Sergei?” I asked, and a car honked, another sliding off the road.
“He’s there. Listen, it’s none of my fucking business so don’t go thinking I’m trying to make it my business, but Sergei’s been talking about you. Saying you’ve gone soft. Wouldn’t put it past him to grab Katya to make sure that gets figured out.”
Another flash. I got that ringing in my ears, and had to focus on my hands and the steering wheel because it made sense Sergei would lash out and I was an idiot for not thinking ahead.
“What do you have on you?” I asked.
“Ahblyad, don’t get me involved in this shit.”
“Anything heavy?”
Swearing in the background meant Misha held the phone away, knowing he would give in. I was right because the trunk clicked. An old Lada trunk. He was already on the way somewhere less than fun.
“NSV machine gun,” he finally said. “Buthrenif I’m giving it to you, it’s brand new.”
“You’re not giving it to me. You’re using it. Meet me on Tsarevskaya and Gritsova, there’s a pharmacy there.”
