Blue talks openly about the accident he suffered when he was fifteen and a half years old.
During a visit to a shooting range with his older brother Victor, a stray bullet struck him in the lower abdomen, destroying his omega reproductive system beyond repair. Later, after complications and a severe infection, his neck glands had to be removed as well.
What catches me off guard the most is how direct he's about the aftermath, admitting that the accident permanently affected his life and greatly reduced his interest in sexual activity and in finding a mate.
Suddenly, all those rumors online about him living like a monk, celibate, don’t sound exaggerated anymore.
I lean back from the screen, staring at nothing for a while as I slowly piece everything together in my head.
This whole subject of Blue’s accident came up more than once in conversations with Marcel.
He used to call Blue ‘that cursed eunuch’ and say the world would’ve been better off if Lowen had died back then instead of poisoning it with his ideas.
There was always a poster of Blue hanging on Marcel’s wall, a target drawn directly over his forehead in thick red marker.
Sometimes Marcel would go on long, unsettling rants about killing Blue, about putting a bullet through his head and solving the problem once and for all.
I listened, but I never fully engaged with it because it always felt detached from reality, more like the kind of edgy fantasy people throw around when they’re angry than something serious.
But now, after everything Marcel said about wanting his group to become more ‘radical’, I’m starting to wonder if those fantasies were never fantasies at all, but actual intentions, the early shape of a plan he was already preparing to carry out.
In the morning, my father pulls up outside the prison.
My dad and Marlow are in the car with him.
They bring two suitcases packed with my things, and they’ve already bought me a few suits that are supposed to fit my new job as a bodyguard. I’ve never worn anything like that before, but I guess that’s about to change.
Before I’m taken to the police van that’s supposed to bring me to Blue’s skyscraper, my father steps in front of me and places his hands on my shoulders.
"Please, be reasonable, Gabriel. Try to follow the rules, because if you violate the terms of that contract, you’re going back to prison with no chance of appeal, and then no one will be able to help you."
Without looking him in the eyes, I mutter quietly, "Yeah, yeah, I know, Fa. I know what I’m doing."
"Do you, really?" He squeezes my shoulders tighter. "Did you know what you were doing the day you went to burn down that lab?"
"Oh, c’mon, Fa!"
I pull out of his grip and take a step back, but that’s not the end of it.
My dad steps closer, one hand tightly clutching his favorite cyan talisman, the one he always wears on his chest, supposedly to ward off bad luck, while the other hand brushes against my face as he starts speaking in Russian.
At home, he always spoke to us in his native language, while my father used English. That’s just how it turned out, so Russian is basically my second language.
"Son, you know I’ve always had good intuition. A lot of people in my family do. Your father is worried… but after thinking it through, I’m actually relieved. I don’t know why, but I have a good feeling about all of this. Just do me one favor, keep an open mind. Forget what you used to think or feel about your new boss, and start a new path. Fate put you on it for a reason,???????[1]. I want to believe this will all end well. And… I would very much enjoy a large pack of cute grandchildren."
"????![2]"
But I don’t comment on anything else because I don’t know what to say.
I know he really does have strong intuition, almost something supernatural.
I’ve always suspected my own abilities might come from his side of the family.
He’s told me more than once how strange they are, what kinds of weird genetic mutations show up there.
Our grandfather could supposedly turn into something strange, he was called an‘oboroten’[3] in Russia, as my dad used to whisper under his breath.
We don’t have contact with that side of the family anymore, except for my dad’s brother, who lives nearby with his family, but I know I shouldn’t just brush off what he says.
