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And now I had to leave.
I brushed away tears that only made me angry at myself. I knew this day would come. As soon as my father found a reason to need something from me, he would come looking for me. And of course, he would find me. All I could do was keep running. I checked my phone, the terror welling up in me that it might already be too late. I still kept in contact with an old friend back in Moscow. She texted me on my birthday and on Christmas day to wish me well, her way of saying everything was fine and I could keep living my life.
This morning she texted me two words that set my small but wonderful little world upside down.
Get out.
I replied, begging to know what she meant. I knew what she meant, but was it so urgent I really had to tear up the short but strong roots I’d laid down here? It shouldn’t hurt so much. What was I really leaving? This crappy apartment? Memories that hurt to even touch on?
Why did it bother me so much to leave Miami? I should have gotten on the first bus the very second I saw my friend’s message, but I started work anyway, in denial that my father was a ruthless beast and had clearly found me.
There was still no other answer from her, and my heart slowed to a crawl, making me feel cold and sluggish. There was a very good chance she wasn’t responding to my pleas because she couldn’t.
“You need to go, Kira,” I said, to have the comfort of my own voice.
Maybe it wasn’t so healthy for a twenty-year-old to talk to herself, but I often did. I spoke to my supervisor every now and then via internet meetings, but it was mostly only the sound of my own voice and whatever was on television that filled this place.
I checked my online bank account, grimacing at the paltry amount. I could only get so far with that, and then what would I do? Thankfully, as long as I had an internet connection I could continue working, maybe even keep up with the precious class I’d spent so much of my meager savings on. Thinking about the class, Introduction to Psychology, made me tear up again. I clenched my fists and blinked them back. I had to go. Now.
I wore shorts and a tank top, my spring, summer and fall uniform. In the winter I threw on a sweater and sometimes jeans. I didn’t want to leave the warm weather I’d grown to adore, so I decided I’d only go far enough north to leave Florida, then head west. Maybe Texas, maybe all the way to Mexico. Throwing my few other items of clothing in a backpack, I added my laptop and notebook and turned in a circle again.
“Bye,” I said, then foolishly added, “Sorry.”
My apartment didn’t care about me the way I cared about it, but still, I was sorry to go. Hell, I was lucky to have two years of relative peace, once I learned how to hide. So what if I had to leave behind those memories that had been so perfect until they weren’t, leaving me with a broken heart that still ached sometimes.
I cracked open the front door, the bright sun making me shield my eyes, finally moving out into the wall of heat. Sliding my sunglasses onto my face, I kept my head down as I stepped lively toward the corner where I could hop on the next bus. The most important thing was to get in a crowd of people and keep moving. Once I was in the main transit center, I could get a bus out of the state, and then I could start breathing again. No time to detour to catch a final glimpse of the ocean. I’d have to make friends with a new ocean if I wanted to keep my hard fought freedom.
I slipped between my building and the one next to it, hurrying down the suddenly dim alley, holding my breath against the stench of the trash cans. All I had to do was get to the end, turn left and walk half a block. The buses ran every twenty minutes or so, and I prayed one would be coming along sooner rather than later. My breath came quicker, and I forced myself to stop panicking. Everything was fine.
I turned back and saw a man race across the opposite end of the passage. Was he here for me? Or just in a hurry to get somewhere else? If he went around the building at that rate, he’d be to the other side in no time. Suddenly the other end of the alley seemed miles away, and I stopped trying not to panic and set off at a full run.
An arm stretched across just as I burst back into the full sunlight, no longer shaded between the buildings. I skidded, trying to turn on my heel, but momentum kept me flying forward, the thickly muscled arm knocked me in the throat, clotheslining me flat onto my back. Gasping for air, I scrambled to my hands and knees, somehow getting back on my feet. A thousand needles shot through my skull as the man gripped a handful of my hair and jerked me backwards. A swift punch in the stomach had me doubling over, but I reached out blindly, clawing at whatever skin I could find. I was pleased to see blood under my fingernails as I struggled to breathe and swiped more furiously, this time managing to crack my fist into something hard. The man cursed and something hard connected with the back of my head, the dull thud reverberating in my ears as I slumped to the ground.
The last thing I saw was the shadow he cast as he leaned over me, a scowl on his face.
“Fuck you, Genno,” I snarled at my second cousin, right before giving into the terrible pain in my head and lapsing into darkness.
***
When I woke up, the only thing that convinced me I wasn’t asleep and in some nightmare but still safe and sound in my own apartment, was the fact my hands were zip tied behind my back and the awful pain in the back of my head. That and I could hear my father speaking in Russian. Every bad memory from my childhood rushed back like shrieking banshees. I recoiled, burrowing into the cushions of whatever couch they’d tossed me onto.
“She’s awake,” my second cousin, Gennady, said.
He and I grew up together, and he’d always been a spoiled brat, never playing by the rules and constantly getting me into trouble. Not that it took much for my father to want to punish me, but the fact that Genno seemed to revel in my pain always made it much worse. I hated him with a passion and wasn’t surprised to see he had risen in my father’s esteem to be one of his most useful henchmen.
Unable to pretend I was still unconscious, I opened my eyes to see I was in a surprisingly luxurious space. Wide windows showed a view of the ocean I thought I’d never see again, the clear blue expanse of sky seeming to mock my imprisonment. The couch I was on was big and white, and I hoped I had left a blood stain from where Genno had hit me. My father stood up from the glass and metal desk he sat behind, pushing the chair so that it scraped noisily against the swirling white and gray marble floor. Every sound made my head hurt, and the pounding of his footsteps as he stomped closer had me gritting my teeth.
Don’t show weakness, don’t show that you’re afraid.
My childhood mantra came back to me, and I clung to it as I had back then. My father didn’t look a day older than when I finally found the guts to run away, but he looked a lot meaner than I recalled. And in my memory, he was plenty mean.
He leaned over the couch and dug his fingers into my shoulder, yanking me upright, then landing a slap across my cheek.
“It’s good to see you again, Father,” I said in my newly perfected English with barely a trace of an accent left. I was proud my voice didn’t betray my terror.
He reared back and slapped me again, letting out a string of vitriol in our native tongue. “You still remember Russian?” he asked. “Did you forget who you are?”
“I certainly tried,” I answered, clinging to my false bravado.
