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They aren’t laughing now.
Nobody is fucking laughing now.
My eyes drop to the body, half-sunken into the mud. Rain starts to fall now. Big fat droplets warning us of what’s to come.
Mak wipes a raindrop, or maybe it’s a tear, from my cheek. “You did it,” he whispers, blue eyes at high tide. “You fucking did it.”
I stumble into his hard chest, the realization of what I did settling around me like dust. “Will he survive?” I choke out.
My question is met by a hard stare. “If you care enough to ask, you care too much.” The bells chime, and the kids scatter. Mak glances up at the pustosh’ and delivers a shove to my aching ribs. “Go. I’ll sort this.”
Numb, I stagger away from the scene, bare feet sloshing in the mud. Raindrops pelt me like bullets, ricocheting off my bruises and open wounds. God is punishing me for committing the ultimate sin.
I didn’t even know his name.
The storm won’t force me into the darkness of the pustosh’ just yet. I can’t face the nuns and other children, so I stumble around the perimeter of the courtyard, my fingertips brushing along the iron bars that keep us monsters separated from the real world.
“Malishka.”
A hand grabs mine, clamping it to the railing. I gasp, trying to twist myself free, but the grip turns vise-like.
On the other side of the bars is a man with his hand over mine, a ruby ring glinting on his pinky finger. Despite the black umbrella concealing his eyes and the sheet of rain between us, I know exactly who he is. Well, what type of man he is.
A Vulture.
Men like him are always lurking around the gates of the orphanage in the day. Some find their way into our dorms at night. Mak calls them the Vultures because they circle the building for prey.
It seems like he’s just caught his.
I never know how to act when I encounter a Vulture. Some boys keep their heads low, their cheeks colored pink with shyness. Some girls lift their skirts, bite down on their pillows, and utter a prayer as they give in to their demands. The nuns always remind us that these men will decide our fate once we turn eighteen, so be nice to them. They’ll decide whether we will live a life with warm clothes and full bellies or spend it in the gutter.
“Malishka,” the man repeats. His Russian is regal; he speaks just like I imagine my father does. His suit pants fit like a glove, and his wool jacket looks like it costs thousands upon thousands of rubles. He tilts the umbrella back to reveal his cold black eyes. A smirk tugs on his hard lips, and staccato Russian slips between them. “I saw what you did.”
Panic rises up my throat. His smile widens. “Relax.” He cocks his head, dragging a coal-like eye over my soaked T-shirt and slacks. “I am impressed.”
I force myself to hold his gaze even though I know I shouldn’t. Killing a fellow twelve-year-old has made me feel invincible, but I am no match for a Vulture.
His grip tightens around my hand, pressing my fingers into the cold metal. “Tell me, Malishka, why are you fighting?”
When I don’t reply, he squeezes so hard my knuckles pop. I stifle a gasp and say, “To change my fate.”
His eyebrows shoot up. He’s amused. “You are speaking English? Is that to impress me?”
I shake my head. He knows as well as I do I am speaking English for the opposite reason. To defy him.
“And what is the fate of a sirota?”
My cheeks burn. Orphan.
But I square my jaw and answer with the mantra that has been drilled into me for as long as I can remember. “Boys are fighters. Girls are whores.”
He smirks. Eyes dip below my collarbone. “And you are a girl…”
“But I can fight like a boy.” My fingers dig half-moons into the palm of my free hand. “I am a fighter.”
Those two coal rocks set deep within his brow bone smolder as if they’ve just been stoked. They stay trained on my chest, on the small swells poking out from beneath my mud-caked T-shirt. Suddenly, his hand frees mine, reaching through the bars to clamp down on my shoulder instead.
“I am not sure, malishka…” he murmurs. “I have seen that you can fight, but I think you will be a very beautiful whore.” His eyes finally rise to mine. The smirk melts into a dazzling grin. “Show me that pretty smile of yours.”
I scowl instead.
“Show me. It will help me decide whether you will better serve us as a fighter or as a whore.”
A few heavy beats pass. Thunder claps. A bolt of lightning flashes above the New York skyline behind him.
I smile. A big, demonic smile that splits my face in two.
Then I twist my neck and sink my teeth into his hand.
