“Empty,” Baranov said, coming up behind my captor as the man spat a wad of bloody saliva where I’d (accidentally) headbutted him in the mouth. “I’d say they cleaned it out before she moved in, but look at her—she knows something.”
“You know something, little bitch?” Clipboard laughed and yanked my head back. I screamed and covered my face, but then he was dragging me, and if I didn’t help him, he’d rip my hair out. I still tried to kick, because I’m an idiot, but Baranov delivered a blow to my shin that sent the pain shooting through my surely broken bones.
They threw me against the wall, then stood over me as I fought my panicked, shallow breaths in low wheezes. All I could make out were the cracks in the old linoleum collecting years of dirt. I hadn’t cleaned the floors as well as I thought I did for Mama’s return from the hospital.
Bits of bloody saliva dripped onto them as I coughed, the cackle stuck in my throat. It’s a wonder what the human mind comes up with when faced with the inevitability of ruin. I guessed that in your darkest hour, you are your rawest self. And my rawest self was an idiot, albeit a funny one.
“So what are we to learn from you?” Baranov crouched, looking me over. “You going to tell us where Vitali is? Sergei?” When he didn’t hear an answer right away, he wound up his arm and swiped me on the side of the head. My body twisted with the impact, and again I threw up my hands.
“I don’t know those people!” I wailed. At that moment, it didn’t matter if I did or not; I was going to die. “Please!”
What had Misha said to do? Did he say anything?
Another slap came before my thoughts formed, and I cried out, but Clipboard pulled him back before next landed.
“You got anything here?” he asked. “You’d better tell us. You got money?”
I shook my head, because at that moment I really didn’t remember the money. Or the gun, which wedged tightly between the crease of my thigh and the leather pants band.
“Go check the room with the heels. If she’s hiding something, it’ll be in there,” Baranov said, and Clipboard went off. The policeman waited for the man to disappear, then turned back to me. “You know those guys, girl? They’re not good guys. They’re killers, and they’re traffickers.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You know the sorts of things they do? You know they pitched a bomb to the bottom of a tram last month? Blew it off the tracks. You know how many died?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You know why? They wanted to scrap the brick factory outside the city—and couldn’t get the zoning approved. So if you’re saying all this because you’re scared, I’m going to give you a moment to change your mind. The names sound familiar at all?”
“No!”
“That’s a shame. Who are you renting this place from?”
Oh crap—
“Mama’s friend’s daughter—I don’t know!” It was a terrible lie, and he knew it as well as I did because he hung his head with a slow, disappointed shake, and stood.
When I heard thechlak—shhhkof the pistol, something inside me broke. I looked up into the eyes of my would-be killer, and they were human eyes. Nothing demonic—nothing monstrous. Nothing like the way murderers were described. This was just a man. They were all just men, because the morality society had built around them collapsed and left behind only enough to build something new and ugly, and easily malleable so the men who were willing to be monsters could shape it according to their own design.
And here was my moment of clarity. This was the ‘real’ I refused to accept. A policeman was about to put a bullet through my head while the man who tracked me through the streets sat at home with his children. Misha, who hid machineguns in the walls also carried Mama from her hospital room to the car and drove her home. He bought her flowers. There were no bad guys or good guys, just a state of lawlessness where men killedmen.
Men like the one who was going to kill me in the hallway.
And it wasn’t evenmyhallway.
It was Vitali’s, and he would come here and find me… he’d find me dead, and he would be all alone. And somewhere—probably not heaven—I’d be alone too.
“A necklace and a couple of rings, that’s about it,” Clipboard said, emerging from my room. He stopped and sighed at the sight of the drawn weapon.
Baranov lazily shifted his attention, examining my gold choker dangling over his friend’s fingers. I only took it off for a minute to get in the shower.
The gun continued to point at me. “Is it costume?”
“The rings might be. This seems real. It’s heavy.”
“Take it.” He redirected his gaze to me. “Where’d you get that if you can’t afford meat?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered.
