10. Vitali

TEN

Vitali

S tasi is like a dog with a fucking bone, or a woman with a phone, constantly saying the same thing, hoping I give in.

“Where is it, Vitali?”

Pulling up to my favorite burger place, I let her continue wasting her breath as I put our order in. If I see another green thing go in her mouth I’m ringing the fucking zoo and telling them they’re missing a giraffe.

I cut off her question with my own as I turn to her. “Why do you hate your family?”

There are no rumors and I know why she hates her mom after overhearing their conversation, but there has to be more.Bone-deep hate isn’t born, it’s created, handcrafted over years until the sight of the creator turns your stomach with anger.

She hesitates and audibly swallows before lying through her teeth.

“I don’t hate them, we’re just different people.”

She’s a brilliant actress, so fucking talented that I didn’t realize that it’s all fake until last night. She hates the socialite lifestyle, the parties and false pretense and her home is the opposite of the other people in those circles. It’s not curated to reflect an image but pieces she wants. It all adds more questions, and she stops them as she turns mine back on me.

“Why do you hate yours?”

It’s an unwritten rule not to talk about Anika and Len, even more so after the shit the cunts orchestrated with Vanya’s life, but I settle into the seat and don’t censor myself.

“Many reasons. They’d fuck in front of us, force Val to beat the shit out of me or me to do it to him. If I refused, I’d get a beating and they’d set up a fight further away so Vlad was out of the house and we wouldn’t be allowed to eat.”

If it was both of us starving then there was solidarity, but the fuckers loved pitting us against each other and would force the other to stand and watch as they ate. I hated those days, I hated Val for going along with it and eating when I had to stand there but we were four, five years old, we couldn’t do shit. Day fights were the worst, they were set up to last hours and Anika knew as long as she didn’t leave a mark there’d be no repercussions.I wasn’t like Val who would throw a tantrum when Vlad came home, and he was too young to even explain it correctly so Vlad would just hold him until he calmed down while I pushed my fist into my stomach so I could trick myself into thinking it was full.

My honesty pulls out some of her own and we form a support group for the kids of fucked up parents.

“I caught my mom fucking Borya while my dad was alive, he was going to divorce her and take me with him that night but?—”

She cuts herself off and I fill in the gap.

But he died, leaving her with the bitch .

“Want me to kill them?” I ask.

Her smile comes back. It’s not an empty offer or a token gesture, I’d deal with whatever shit came my way if it meant Stasi didn’t tense when her phone rang.I’d do anything she wants if it made her life a fraction easier, but I’m stopped from telling her that as our food comes out and she makes a point of ignoring it.

“I’ve got the phone on me. We’ll go through it together.”

She nods and shifts uncomfortably on the seat as I put our food on her lap, hoping she starts eating it. It’s normal to steal fries, but she acts like it’s not there and doesn’t look anywhere other than out the window as I drive to her apartment.

I need to find a new tactic to get inside her head faster. The more she lets me see little snippets, the deeper she pulls me in and it’s no different now. She doesn’t run away when I pull up at her building for once. She actually waits for me and I take the bag she’s ignoring before I open her door. She doesn’t push me away as I wrap my arm around her and hold her hip. The silence is broken when we enter the elevator, and she looks at my other hand, fighting a smile before looking at me.

“Which one are you protecting?”

I don’t answer as I press my lips to her temple. The truth would just confuse us both because if I had to starve for her, I would. I remain attached to her as we enter her apartment and give her the phone. She becomes a different person, more determined and she kisses my cheek before pulling her shoes off and padding into her creepy hacking room. I’m not an idiot and follow after her as she works. She ignores the food as I stretch out next to her and place the bag in front of us. The hum of her computer working fills the air around the erratic tapping of keys with her scanning each line.

There’s fuck all in her cupboards and I stroke my hand down her spine as if it’s a gauge for health. She’s not a rake but it can’t be healthy to limit yourself this much. Once the program is running and she doesn’t need to keep tapping on the keys I pull her to my side and set her laptop down.

“I have a theory.” Her head turns at my voice, and I try to avoid the real one as I slide a lie around it on my tongue. “You’re a messy eater and you don’t want me to see you with sauce and grease all over your face.”

Dirty thoughts flash through her dark eyes but she doesn’t voice any of them as she turns her head at the sound of a ping. I’m surprised there’s no audible crack from how fast she moves. Following her direction, anger burns inside of me, and I grab the keyboard from her hands, throwing it on the other side of the room.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

My voice is deadly, but she switches the monitors using her laptop and fucking ignores me. The message thread must go on for miles if the sick cunt is telling her his fucking fantasies and bile rises in my throat, seeing the main feed at the side.

I quickly push myself up to stand, so I don’t throw up on her and make it to the bathroom in time to empty my stomach. No wonder she doesn’t eat, looking at sick fucking shit in detail wouldn’t allow anything to stay down. People recording themselves masturbating to their own fucking kids, vivid details of what they’ll do, and proof loaded like it’s a trophy. My stomach churns as I expel everything out of my system. I’ve tortured people, watched my brothers give out the most horrific deaths, and heard screams of people burning alive, but that shit is tame in comparison.

Soft footsteps pad closer until Stasi kneels beside me, rubbing circles on my back. Her voice is softer, and she doesn’t move as she whispers, “I forgot about the side panel. My mind has started to block it out now.”

The apology in her tone isn’t enough, she shouldn’t be fucking near it. I want her protected and I’d prefer the coke head was real over knowing she’s always going to throw herself towards danger. My knees are both weak for a different reason that medication won’t be able to solve as I stand and wash my mouth out.

Throwing ice-cold water in my face in the hope I wake up in an ignorant body doesn’t do shit. Every time I blink, I can see the images and closing my eyes has them on a continuous reel; I can’t even think about my family, those kids are the same fucking age as my niece and nephews. Arms wrap around me so tight they force me to breathe, and Stasi just holds me. Her crown is under my chin, and she must feel the way my heart is hammering under her ear. But she doesn’t move, and I hold her tighter. I’ve found out there’s something I’m afraid of and I can’t laugh it away which is terrifying.

I can kill them all and it will fix the problem; it’s not a disease that can be treated, and they’re not human in any sense of the word.

I hold the back of her head, so she can’t move away from me, and walk us to her little cave of depravity. It all makes sense now: how cold the room feels and there being nothing for comfort. No furniture or even a chair, it’s stark because no one should want to sit here. I lower us to the floor and sit her between my thighs, needing to hold on to humanity. She presses her lips to my cheek and gently holds my wrists then pulls my arms around her. Once she’s happy with our positions, she presses a button that hides the main feed while she goes back to her chat with some sick cunt.

I rest my chin on her shoulder, squeezing her harder as though I can take her away from it and I try to find anything to identify the prick.

“How old do they think you are?”

One syllable leaves her lips, stoking my anger higher.

“Ten.”

Her fingers fly over the keys, but she doesn’t type in the chat after he sends a link that should never be fucking shared with a ten-year-old. Hearing Stasi’s monotonous explanation has my throat burning again.

“It’s a grooming technique, show them porn to get them used to the idea but each link will show the age disparity getting bigger in small ways until the kid sees themselves in it and they think it’s normal.”

Her entire body vibrates with excitement while I’m pretty sure a part of me is dying.

“Got you, you little cunt.”

Her message makes it die faster.

Kitty:

Mom came home. G2G xo

She moves as though I’m not weighing her down and shuts everything before trying to stand. I can’t move my arms and her frustration rises as she snaps, “Vitali. Get off me. If you fucking stop me when he’s made plans for tonight I’ll kill you instead of him.”

I can’t move anything. I want to but my body doesn’t work, and I hug her tighter, hiding my face in the crook of her neck. She struggles and I know I’m cutting off her air, but the rushed words aren’t because of my actions.

“He has a stepdaughter, the mom’s a nurse and working night shift for the first time.”

When it sinks in, my body works, and I stand bringing her with me. Is she fuck going alone? I’ll be there and let some of this shit out of my head.

How do you know the world is a fucked up place?

A ten-year-old girl is safer being left in a house alone rather than having a so-called fucking parent home with her. Vanya and Dima are watching the house as Stasi and I put the sicko in his own trunk with a bag of his things to make it look like he’s run away. He didn’t even put up a fight in his eagerness to crawl into a child’s bed while promising his little pedo friends images ‘once she was relaxed’.

The personal chats are worse than the main thread and I made the mistake of reading through them when Stasi was getting her plan in motion. All the things he wanted to do, the images he fucking shared of a child bathing unaware that the cunt had hidden cameras, his fucking friends expressing their jealousy over not having anything in-house. Sick cunts, who the fuck speaks about children like that?

My anger rises as I sit in the passenger seat and Stasi drives; she’s like an entirely different person but I can’t breathe with my rage building. It’s there in my head, the images, their messages, all of it. I can’t stop it and I squeeze my eyes shut.

I blink away from my thoughts to find myself standing in the warehouse. Stasi isn’t next to me, but Mr. Robson is laid at my feet begging. Every little thing I’ve experienced pales in comparison to what he’s done or was going to do. It couldn’t have been the first time, he was too arrogant, too comfortable.

When I blink again he’s naked and everything is red. There’s a severed head thrown far enough away from the body that its dead eyes are fixed on me. Mangled flesh that might have been genitals lay at the other side. But it’s all red. Everything. I pick my hands up, confused as to what’s happened, and they’re covered in the sticky substance. No gloves. I always wear gloves. The overhead lights aren’t the only thing illuminating the space and I have no sense of time or what the fuck has happened as I stumble back.

My clothes are stuck to my skin, and I think I’ve lost time again. It used to happen when I was younger, and I sway like I’ve just been dropped in my body. My foot slips in the crimson pool as another body tries to keep me upright.

“I’ve got you, Tali, just breathe.”

Stasi, she never calls me Tali. Why the fuck am I focusing on that when I’ve lost time? But then she sniffles, and I turn faster than my fucked up mind should be capable of. I bring my hands up to cup her face, but I quickly pull them back at the sight of the red covering them like gloves. There are streaks of red on her face and tears lining her lashes that don’t fall.

“Fuck, did I hurt you?” I whisper.

She doesn’t answer verbally and gives me a sad smile as the doors open.I expect it to be a psychiatrist to cart me away but it’s worse, my brothers slowly step into the warehouse when they are not hesitant people. Vlad’s head moves in slow motion as he surveys the walls and there’s a small crease between his brows when he notices the head on the floor.

Fuck.

I fucked up massively if Stasi felt the need for reinforcements from hell. Val’s eyes widen like he didn’t become a Vor by burning people alive and force me to smell that shit. Both of them walk towards me, showing their palms like I’m an injured animal and I’ve definitely lost time again; it was always the same as this when I was younger. They’d speak softly, keep their movements slow, afraid of spooking me.

What the fuck did I do? I can’t work my way through the gap, it’s just blank and I rub the blood drying on my brows with the back of my wrist. The last thing I remember is being in that motherfucker’s house; he was washing the dishes and acting like a responsible parent before he crept up the stairs to go into his stepdaughter’s bedroom.

Water runs and I look up to see Stasi walking away from me. Fuck, I’ve scared her and there’s blood on the back of her neck. Finger marks. No, for fuck’s sake, I hurt her. Vlad is the first to speak, as always, and he wets a washcloth before holding my wrists and wiping my hands.

“We need you to say your normal dumb shit, so we know you’re not trapped in your head.”

The usual sarcastic shit is missing from his words, and it doesn’t have the intended effect to get me to react. Once he’s done wiping my hands like I’m a toddler, he goes back, getting another washcloth and doing the same to my face. I have a vague memory of him cleaning my hands and face when I was a kid exactly like this, and Val isn’t being an asshole. He stands off to the side, speaking calmly to Stasi as they both stare at me with worry etched on their features.

Fuck! My brain is fucked and a laugh bubbles out through my sore throat. “You going to wipe my ass too?”

Val turns, blocking my girl from seeing me as Vlad steps in front of me. My parent holds my nape and he dips his head to whisper, “It wouldn’t be the first time I had to. Tell me what you remember.”

He’s doing the same checks he used to when I was a kid and I sound weak as fuck as I say, “My name is Vitali, I have two brothers — Vlad and Valentin — we live in New Jersey. I have a stepdad, Dima. I have three sisters — Katya, Inessa, and Dani. I have three nephews — Viktor, Vasili, and Dominik — I have two nieces — Vanya and Verena.”

Everyone relaxes and Vlad steps back, allowing my girl to take over cleaning me up as she holds my now clean hand to guide me to the sink. The tears are still there in her eyes, and she doesn’t say anything as she washes the blood off my arms. She doesn’t stop there and curls her hand around my nape until I lower my head enough for the large shower head spout to reach and she rinses my hair. Dirty brown-red water drips around me, it’s not even pink it’s that saturated. Did I bathe in the fucker’s blood or wear him as full-body fucking costume?

Her breath shakes as she massages my scalp to remove as much of the blood from me as possible. The spray mutes my question as I beg her, “Did I hurt you, sweetness?”

She’s not being cold or ignoring everything, she has tears in her eyes. Fuck, I hurt her. I hurt her and she’s caring for me because she’s afraid.

The sounds of my brothers cleaning up after me, pulling out tarp and the hose slapping against the concrete floor covers my voice as I continue begging her.

“Stas, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”