LIES OF MY MONSTER

5

Not far from the warehouse stand men dressed in black, their faces hidden with balaclavas like in some terrorist snuff movie.

All of them have rifles slung across their chests, except for one who’s holding a gun.

Although her coat looks different and her face is hidden, I know it’s Sasha. I gave her that gun soon after we got to New York, and she scratched an ‘S’ on the handle because it looks too similar to Maksim’s gun, and she wanted to avoid a mix-up.

Red alerts go off in my head. Most of them start and end with ‘run.’

A lot of questions sling through my head. First, who the f**k are these people? How is Sasha related to them? But most importantly, why the f**k does this smell like a trap?

Because it is, you f*****g i***t.

I start to turn the snowmobile, but it’s too late. The man beside Sasha opens fire.

Pain explodes in my chest, and I lose my grip on the handlebars. The snowmobile and I tumble down the hill, flipping twice.

Motherfucking f**k.

I try to control the fall, but it’s impossible on such a steep hill. Pain flares from my wound, but I don’t think it’s near any vital organs—

“No!” Her raw shout echoes in the air as another bullet hits me in the chest. Again.

This time, I can’t attempt to control anything.

I fall and roll, and my vision turns misty red. Not due to the wound or the fact that I’m probably dying.

It’s the reality of knowing that Sasha led me here so that whoever these men are would kill me.

She betrayed me.

Fuck.

Sasha betrayed me.

All the fight leaves my limbs as my world turns black.

SASHA

T

he scene starts in slow motion, but then it’s too fast. Too raw.

Too…surreal.

It’s strange how some events overlap in a completely different rhythm while they happen in real time.

For a moment, I think I’m dreaming. Maybe this is another one of my cruel nightmares where I keep losing the people I care about the most.

That’s a plausible explanation…right?

The person who’s rolling in the snow after being shot for the second time cannot be Kirill.

He just can’t.

When his huge body comes to a halt at the bottom of the hill, my heart nearly does the same. Then, within a fraction of a second, it roars back to life and almost explodes out of its confinements.

This is not a nightmare or a cruel play of my imagination. This situation is happening.

Right now.

Right in front of me.

Uncle Albert raises his rifle, but before he can take the lethal shot, I jump in front of him.

My limbs tremble and the only thing that plays in a loop through my mind is: what makes you think the first or the second shots weren’t the lethal ones?

Kirill is probably dead—

No. I kick that thought out of my head as I remove my face covering and throw it down, my upper lip unconsciously lifting in a snarl.

“Get out of the way, Sasha,” my uncle orders in a foreign voice. Papa was the one who spoke in this authoritarian tone—not to us, but to the people who worked for him. Uncle Albert would never.

It feels like I’m seeing him through new eyes. As if maybe he’s not the same uncle I’ve known for my twenty-one years of life.

He starts to push me aside, but I push back as hard as I can and actually manage to make him stumble in the snow.

“Stop it!” I scream, my raw voice echoing in the emptiness surrounding us.

“What do you mean by stop it?” Uncle Albert steps forward. “He’s the man behind our family’s death, Sasha.”

I shake my head more times than needed. “I don’t believe that.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t you?”

“I just don’t!” I jut a finger at his chest. “I’m going to get him medical help, and if you try to stop me, I don’t know how I will react. I’m warning you. Unless you want one of us to die today, do not stop me, Uncle.”

I don’t wait for his reply as I run through the snow. My boots get stuck and I fall to my knees, but I lift myself up and rush to Kirill. I expect Uncle Albert to try to clutch my hand or forbid me from getting on with my mission, but neither happens.

I run the fastest I ever have and that includes training, military missions, and high-speed exercising. A foreign energy grips hold of me until all I can focus on is reaching Kirill.

It takes me more time than I have to finally get within touching distance. His large body is sprawled out on the snow facedown. Splashes of blood surround him and leave trails of red in the snow. Nausea rises in my throat and my heart shreds to pieces.

This feeling is no different than when I realized my cousins were dead on top of me four years ago. For a moment, I’m frozen in place, unable to move. My nostrils fill with the metallic tang of blood, and my heart all but spills out and crawls up beside Kirill’s inert body.

Falling to my knees beside him, I grasp his shoulder, then turn him over. A small gasp leaves my lips when I see the huge hole in the middle of his chest and his white coat that’s soaked with red. The stubble covering his cheeks looks too black and harsh against his paling skin. My trembling fingers gently touch the blood that’s gushed out of his mouth.

Did he…vomit blood?

Oh, God. Oh, no.

Please no.

I reach my shaky hand beneath his nose and my breath catches as I wait for a sign of life from him.

In the grand scheme of things, the amount of time I wait is insignificant, but it feels like years. The longer I don’t feel any breaths, the harder my heart beats.

I taste salt, and it’s then I realize I’m bawling my eyes out. My hand is a trembling mess, and the sight of blood makes me want to throw my guts up. It’s not because I’m squeamish, but it’s the fact that it’s Kirill’s blood.

He’s lost so much blood.

Faintly, almost as if it’s not there, I feel a fraction of a breath. It’s not much, but it’s all I need. I rip a piece of my shirt and put pressure on the wound in a hopeless attempt to stop the bleeding. Then I contemplate lifting him and carrying him to the snowmobile that’s stuck on the middle of the hill, but I’m scared about aggravating his injuries.

So I sit him up and crouch behind him so that his back is against mine. Then I hook my arms through his and start to lift up.

I fall right back down.

It’s impossible.

Not only is he way bigger than me, but he’s also unconscious, so he feels much heavier.

If I do it this way, I’ll never be able to get him help in time.

I abandon the idea of lifting him and lay him on his back. Then I grab his feet and start to drag him across the snow. This way, I won’t aggravate his injuries. It’s still hard, though. Not only is he literally made of muscles, but the hill is so steep, my legs burn and shake, nearly giving out from beneath me.