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I remember you. Fucking hell.
“I can’t help you. Both of you, leave me alone. I have work to do.” I try my best not to show her that I understood what she said. I’ve given up on that part of my heritage a long time ago. Tatiana Gagarina died after that fire. I kept the short version of my name, Tanya, as a reminder that whatever happens to me, whatever I do, I’m already broken. I can’t change my past. And my past is mirrored in my future.
I turn on my heel, injecting all my confidence into my steps because inside, I’m a complete mess.
Before I can disappear into the safety of the dark corridor, Ben catches my wrist. It’s a gentle touch, not the determined tug of someone trying to control you. Only a plea hidden in the wrap of his fingers.
I yank my arm away, trying to ignore the guilt now rising up like milk brought to the boil. This is not for me to sort out. Evgenya can go literally anywhere else. But not here.
“Why are you acting this way?” Ben whispers.
I don’t want to have this conversation. “You left me when I needed you and now you bring me some girl dressed in your clothes to look after? Do you know how this all looks?”
“How?” He narrows his eyes, clearly ignoring my weak attempt at gaslighting.
“You know how. Weird. Is she even legal?” My voice drops to a seething whisper too. I’m angry, but I know I’m pushing it. Ben would never do anything inappropriate to Jenya. The fact that he’s seemingly saved her and is trying to find a person to look after her is telling enough.
“Can you just hear me out?” Ben turns his eyebrows upward in that pleading expression I was never able to dismiss. It’s not his fault, really, that he’s about to involve me in the nightmare I spent years recovering from.
“I will listen, but my decision is unlikely to change,” I reply.
“She’s a survivor from the operation we did yesterday. On the Red Rad Ron orphanage, the one you had a flyer of.” He points to my non-existent pocket and I shoot him a warning look. I thought I made it clear that I don’t want to speak about that. “I know you know more than you’re telling me, and that’s fine. I won’t press you. But that kid over there, she is skin and bones. She has never seen a phone and a TV, and she thinks there’s a darkness out to conquer our world. She’s completely brainwashed, but nonetheless, she survived. She followed me and attached herself to me like a curious octopus, but I can’t help her. I can’t take her to the police because I risk exposing my gang.”
“Why not take her to your Empress?” I ask. I’ve been wondering ever since I saw them both standing there like lost puppies.
“Because Jenya wantedyou. She wanted to come here and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
I drop my head, letting my hair curtain my face so he doesn’t see the emotion in my eyes. A memory crashes my thoughts uninvited, like a still photo in a dusty album.
A moon-faced child, in a thick multicolored winter hat holding a mushroom. Her red puffy jacket is like a blot of blood in the image in my head. But her rosy cheeks and her wide gap-toothed grin are so warm, they burn. It’s a picture of joy tainted with the dark swirls of resentment and regret.
“Tanya.” Ben puts a warm palm on my shoulder and it takes everything in me not to fall into his arms and cry.
My logical mind knows that Jenya is a victim; a survivor—same as me. But the hurt inside me, the pain tugging at my belly button that I thought I had resolved, screams at me to get rid of her. That she’s an enemy because she reminds me of times that are best unremembered.
“Listen, she’s just a kid. A kid who’s gone through so much. But she’s so bright. She’s smart and learns so quickly. She couldn’t read English until yesterday. In only one night of teaching, she was able to grasp what takes other people months to learn.”
“You taught her to read?” I raise my head to meet his eyes. He has his passionate look on, the one he put on every time he did something to protect me back when Lavender was a place of nightmares. We never talked about it, and I think he doesn’t realize I know, but I do.
And now he wants to help Jenya. Fucking do-gooder.
“Why wouldn’t I teach her?” He scratches his neck.
“Fine. I’ll meet her.” I finally relent and walk back toward the bar.
Jenya is sitting there, animatedly talking to Luisa, a glass of orange juice in her hand. I sigh, pushing swirling memories to the back of my mind. No amount of cute childhood moments will make me forget everything else that was common practice in??????????????—the beatings, the starvation, the humiliation, and emotional manipulation.
By the time I plop myself on one of the booth benches, my anger has grown to fury. I didn’t lose my entire childhood and teenage years to abuse, and my twenties to recovery, only to be forced to face it all again by a child who’s better off dead.
Chapter 14
The charged silence is awkward, like the moment between a detonation and the explosion. It’s a short but endless moment in which everything can go wrong.
“I’ve not seen you in the village for a long time,” Jenya says to Tanya, finally breaking the quietness with her soft words.
“No, you wouldn’t have.” Tanya’s tone is clipped. I’m not sure why she took such an instant dislike to Jenya, but sitting between them now is uncomfortable as hell. I wish I could just leave them to talk it out.
“How long?” Jenya asks.
