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“What the fuck have you done?” I charge at Andrei and tackle him to the floor, slamming my fist into his face until the bones in my fingers splinter and his blood covers my knuckles.
When I finally manage to pull myself away, my chest heaves with the reality I can’t shake. He fucking killed them. He killed them both.
“The bitch bit me,” he groans, rolling around on the floor in pain.
“That’s the least of what you deserve.” I spit at him. “You fucking worthless sack of shit. Who told you to touch her? Who told you to kill them?”
He doesn’t answer. And when he stumbles to his feet, I consider throwing him out the goddamn window. How much would Vasily really miss him? How hard would it be to convince him that this waste of human space fucked everything up and William shot him? But even as I consider it, I know it’s only a fantasy. The unspoken agreement is that I need to keep Andrei alive and out of trouble. The minute he’s no longer breathing, I might as well sign my death warrant too.
“Go downstairs and check on William. Make sure he’s dead,” I tell him. “I can’t stand to look at you right now.”
“We need to find the drive,” he answers sheepishly.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I shake my head. “I’m going to clean up your fucking mess here, and while I do that, you can look downstairs. Do you think you can manage that?”
“Yes,” he grunts. “I got it.”
He disappears out the door, and my eyes drift to Nina. The urge to retch overtakes me, but I choke it back down as I consider what I have to do. I can’t think of her as Kat’s friend anymore. I can’t think of this in any way other than what it is now. Damage control.
But I also can’t leave her here like this. Disgraced and humiliated. Carefully, I dig through her dresser drawers and find a pair of pajama pants. It might not make much of a difference, considering what I’ll have to do now, but this is the last thing I can do for her.
I dress her and lay her back in her bed, covering her up. And for a full minute, I just stand there, wondering when this became my life. My chest is heavy when I drape the blanket over Nina’s face, but there isn’t time to consider how fucked up this situation is. At the end of the day, all I know how to do is get on with the job of surviving. Cleaning up Andrei’s messes and doing Vasily’s bidding. A burden I resent more and more with each passing day.
As I dissect the room, tearing through every possible hidey-hole for the drive, I fantasize about a different life. A life where I have the answers that brought me into this world in the first place. A life where my mother’s death hasn’t gone unavenged, and I can actually look myself in the mirror at night. But these are just empty thoughts, built upon a crumbling foundation. I’ve been working for my uncle for ten years now, and I am still no closer to having the answers I seek. The hope of leaving this existence behind abandoned me long ago, but I’m still here, still functioning on autopilot. And right now, I’m not any closer to finding the drive that Vasily sent us here for in the first place. The drive that William von Brandt knew very well could sink us.
Just when I think I’ve turned over every inch of Nina’s room, something catches my eye. The familiar shade of pink from a scarf I know all too well. Ice coats my veins as I grab the ratty old scarf and bring it to my nose, inhaling.
Katerina.
She was here. But when? A glance at the window only intensifies the churning in my gut. It’s not fully closed, and just outside, a few strands of faded Magenta hair stick to the trellis. She left in a hurry.
Fuck.
My heart slams into my rib cage as I consider what might have happened if she hadn’t. But what’s worse is the fact she may have seen something or heard something. What did Nina tell her? Has she already called the cops?
My brain is firing off questions faster than I can answer them, but the only thing I know for certain is that I need to get the fuck out of here and find her, fast.
“Andrei!” I yell down the stairs. “We need to go. Have you found anything?”
“No,” he grunts.
“I have one more room to clear,” I tell him. “Start looking for some accelerant. Anything you can find.”
He mumbles something I can’t understand as I tear through the von Brandt’s master suite. But my search turns up nothing. There are only two possibilities left. Either the drive is no longer here, or it will go down in flames with the rest of the evidence. There isn’t time for anything else.
