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“In the showers, we had either ice-cold or scalding water, nothing in between,” Peter says, his face tightening as his gaze grows distant. “The pipes would constantly malfunction, so we’d use buckets to mix the water before washing. Some guards, though, would punish us by making us stand under the water as it was, ice cold for minor infractions, scalding when we really misbehaved. One guard, in particular, liked the hot water remedy. He got off on it, I think. The others would just do it for a few seconds at a time, maybe half a minute tops, giving the boys superficial burns. But this guard, he’d push it. A minute, two, three, five… By the time Andrey landed on his shit list, he’d killed two fifteen-year-olds by boiling the meat off their bones.”
I taste vomit in my throat. “Andrey… your friend Andrey?” I whisper through numb lips.
“Yes.” Peter’s chiseled face takes on an almost demonic look of fury. “Andrey, who should’ve never been in that shit hole in the first place. My friend, who refused to let that prick fuck him and died in agony instead.”
“Oh God, Peter…” I press my trembling fist to my mouth, then reach for his hand, feeling his fingers twitch with barely suppressed rage as he fights to control himself. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He grips my hand like a lifeline and closes his eyes, breathing in deeply. When he opens them again, his expression is calm, but I now know the depth of the pain and fury that lurk beneath that controlled mask.
I was wrong to think that his family’s deaths made him into a monster. He was one long before Daryevo, the horrors he’d encountered in his lifelong struggle for survival stripping away whatever capacity for goodness he might’ve once possessed. His early victims were no angels, but once he went down the dark path of vengeance, he became like them, hurting innocent and guilty alike.
Carefully extricating my fingers from his grip, I move back to the middle of the bed. “What about that headmaster?” I ask, holding my captor’s gaze. I’m already sick to my stomach, but I have to know how deep the damage goes. “What did he do to make you kill him?”
Peter smiles grimly. “You haven’t had enough for tonight? No? All right, if you must know, he liked little boys. The younger, the better. I was lucky, because at eleven, I was already big, almost like a teenager. Way too old for him when he started at the orphanage. But the little ones… I would lie there at night and hear them scream and cry in their rooms when he came to them. Each night, I’d die a little bit inside, because there was nothing I could do, nobody I could tell who’d listen. The teachers, the police—they either didn’t care or didn’t dare make waves. This motherfucker was connected, you see; he was from some important family. So nobody did anything, and then a new boy was brought in, all of two years old. When I heard him go to the child, I couldn’t take it anymore. I took one of the kitchen knives, crept up behind him, and while he was busy assaulting the kid, I slit his throat.”
Of course. My dark knight taking vengeance again. I close my eyes against the hot sting of tears, my heart breaking for both Peter and the little boy. I suspected it was something like that, only I was afraid it was Peter himself who’d been the victim. Not that it means he hadn’t been. Opening my eyes, I meet his steely gaze. “What about you?” I ask unsteadily. “Were you ever…?”
“No.” His mouth flattens. “At least not as far as I know. I was always very good at defending myself, even when I was little. I don’t recall much before age three, though, so I suppose it’s possible—I was a pretty kid, according to old pictures. In any case, by the time I was in kindergarten, I knew how to use my fists, teeth, rocks… any kind of weapon I could get my hands on. The one fucker who tried something with me when I was five got his finger bitten off, and after that, I was generally left alone.”
I stare at him, relief battling with agonizing pity. And anger. I feel so much anger at the cruelty of the world that shaped him into the dark, tormented man he is today, into this ruthless, amoral killer who, despite everything, craves love and family. Did he find respite from his demons when he had Tamila and his little boy? Is that why he accepted her pregnancy so easily, becoming a husband and father when he could’ve simply walked away? Did they give him back pieces of his soul, only to rip it all away with their brutal deaths?
