“You always said to cry in the shower.”
Kate turns off the water and gets in, gently pulling her sponsee to her. “Oh, Sheel, what hap—” Kate stops in mid-sentence when she gets a look at her face, one eye nearly swollen shut, and the other well on its way.
“What happened?” Kate’s anger betrays her accent again.
“He came home drunk and wanted me to party too,” Sheila snivels. “I didn’t drink, Kate, aren’t you proud of me?”
Kate gets her up and out of the stall, wrapping her in a bathrobe and her head in a towel, covering her face. “You bet your ass I am, but we’ve got to get you to the hospital, girlfriend. Just hold on to me.” Taking her will be faster than an ambulance.
Kate guides Sheila down the stairs and sits her on the landing to scoop up her bag. Suddenly headlights blast through the front windows.
Brian is home.
The lights and the Metallica turn off, returning the two women to darkened silence.
Leaving Sheila sitting there, Kate bounds out the door, straight down the stairs directly at Brian, staggering with a six-pack under one arm.
He doesn’t notice her until she’s upon him. “Who the fu—”
She first strikes the kneecap, inverting the joint with a sickening CRACK. Almost instantly, she springs to deliver a sweeping roundhouse kick to his head, silencing his scream, nearly spinning him around. The attack is swift, vicious and brutal but at the same time graceful and flowing. Landing at the ready, Kate takes a second to assess the effects. He should have hit the ground already, but the booze keeps him up, numb to the pain that would have made even her pass out. Instead, he begins to organize a counter strike, extending an arm in an attempt to form a punch with his right.
She feels not an ounce of fear, despite the bum being nearly three times her size.
“Finish him!” Katrina smiles in her inner darkness.
The impulse is difficult to resist, like that of a wild predator set off by the scent of blood. All the rage stored inside—Michael, Stani, her past, her future, all ready to be released.
“NOW!”
The command is like a sudden suicidal impulse to turn the steering wheel into oncoming traffic. An unseen power is waiting to pull her over the line—but Kate, not Katrina, is in control.
“No.”
Kate lets the arm move past her as he stumbles forward. Moving left, she grabs his wrist, stepping inside to trip him and using his falling weight to dislocate his shoulder with a horrible pop. He drops face first into the lawn, his nervous system finally giving in to the agony.
Kate stands over him. A couple of well-placed shots to his throat will cause his larynx to swell, cutting off his airway.
“That could be me,” Kate reminds herself. “He’s sick, just like me.” She knows she has no right to judge the poor slob. She’s just as powerless over alcohol as he is. Her simmering rage begins to cool, but she still has a job to finish.
One by one, she opens the cans of the six-pack and pours them on the unconscious Brian. The sweet smell of the yeast sickens her, and each pop of the can calls to her with its tempting promise. Her lips frown in disgust as the golden liquid glints in the streetlight, a pool of white foam expanding around his head.
Kate lets the last empty fall from her hand, bouncing off Brian’s head with a TONK.
“Last call,” Kate whispers, and then dashes back inside.
“Did I hear Brian?” Sheila asks as Kate guides her to the car, the towel still covering her blackened eyes.
“He passed out, honey, don’t worry about him.”
Chapter 24
Holy Redemption Hospital
It is a slow night in the ER, so poor Sheila is getting special attention. Kate makes a quick call home to check on Tom and Robbie. Everything is under control, and she promises not to be home too late. She returns to the cubical where they are treating Sheila.
Despite the beating she took, she has suffered no fractures, but she’ll need stitches above one of her eyes. Luckily, the husband of ER’s head nurse, a plastic surgeon, offers to do the needlework for the physician’s assistant. On the whole, she’ll be all right, though they’ll keep her overnight for observation and to keep the lawyers happy.
When Kate returns, the social worker on duty is talking to Sheila.
“Kate, this is Leslie,” Sheila says.
“Hello.”
“Hi, Kate, could you give us a minute?” Leslie says with quiet discretion. “We need to discuss something privately.”
“No, no, Leslie, it’s okay. Kate brought me in, she’s my best friend.” The social worker seems hesitant. “She’s my AA sponsor,” Sheila adds.
“Oh, okay then.” Leslie seems relieved. “We were talking about the assault.”
Another woman knocks gently on the door, this time a nurse. Leslie makes the introductions, adding, “Alison is a Sexual Abuse Nurse Examiner.”
“A SANE nurse. There aren’t a lot of us around here, pardon the pun,” Alison jokes.
“They want to know if I’m going to press charges,” Sheila explains.
“To be honest with you, sweetie, you should feel lucky to be alive,” Kate nods. “The next time, you may not be so lucky. Any man that would do this to a woman should be locked up.”
“But he was drunk.”
“I’m not a cop,” Leslie says, “but from what I understand and what I’ve seen, this is border-line between aggravated assault and attempted murder.”
Kate leans into her friend. “Sheel, you know me, I’m willing to give anybody the benefit of the doubt, but this,” she shakes her head, “is just too far over the line.”
“Everything was fine until I quit drinking, you know. This is your fault.”
At first Kate isn’t sure if she heard right. Something allowed the delusion to sneak back in. Kate realizes her sponsee is at a crossroads, suddenly in danger of being lost, perhaps for good. If Sheila decides against pressing charges, that very will might happen. Kate can see her future; Sheila and the fiancé Brian will get back together again. He’s in desperate need of the program too. He’ll quit for a while, but the pressure will build. Eventually they’ll be right back in the same place, only worse.
Kate slowly rises from the edge of the bed and turns to the two women. “Girls, would you give us a couple? My pal here and I need to chat.” She shoos then out into the hall, slides the glass door shut, and pulls the curtain closed. Kate looks at Sheila, and her heart sinks. “God, I love her so much, tell me what to do.”
When she sees a hand mirror sitting on the counter, she recognizes God’s answer and sits on the bed next to her.
“Sheila, Sheila!” The kid is starting to fade. “I want to show you something.”
Sheila opens her one good eye and looks at Kate, and then the mirror. “Oh, Christ! No!” she moans.
“Sheila, sweetie, I didn’t do this, you didn’t do this. Booze did this!”
“Please, Kate.”
“You’ve been given another chance, a new chance to get free. You can’t save him; only Brian can save Brian. You have to save yourself and stop him from doing this again, if not to you, maybe to your kids, your daughter.”
“Kate, stop!” She tries to turn away, but Kate forces her head back.
“Look at this, damn it! This isn’t love! You came between him and his booze, and what did he do after he did this? He went out and got some more!”
Sheila breaks down, but Kate doesn’t let up.
“That’s right, feel the pain, and never forget it! If you do, you’ll never have to feel this way again.” Kate nuzzles up to her. “Please, Sheila, I don’t want to lose you.”
“Why does it have to be this way, Kate?”
“I don’t know honey. I know it isn’t fair, nobody said it was going to be, but it’s real, it’s the truth. God only gives us what he thinks we can handle. So I guess it’s because we can take it.”
Afte
r a few minutes, Kate lets the two women back into the room. Before leaving, Kate gives Sheila a kiss on the head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As she walks out, Sheila stops her. “Kate!”
She turns.
“I love you, Kate.” The shyness in Sheila’s voice makes Kate smile.
“I love you too.”
Then she leaves to let the women do their work.
Kate has almost left the hospital when a male voice calls her name. “Kate, hey wait up.”
It’s John H., her cop friend from the rooms.
“Hey, I heard about Sheila. How’s she doing?”
“She’s really got smacked around, but she’s tougher than a lot of people give her credit for. She’ll be all right,” Kate assures him with a tired smile.
The cop jabs his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the ER. “We just brought in the boyfriend. Anonymous 9-1-1 call. Found him out cold on the front lawn. She going to press charges?”
“I hope so, poor kid. Why’d you bring him here?” Kate asks, surprised.
John H. pauses, thinking deeply about what he is going to say next. “You brought her in, right?”
“Yeah, why?’’
“Did you see him when you were over at the house?”
“No. He wasn’t there,” Kate answers, twisting the truth a bit. “Why?”
“Well, looks like he tuned up himself,” John confides.
“Fall-down drunk.”
John shakes his head. “Not this. Broke knee, arm almost twisted out like a hot wing. Somebody poured a whole six pack on his head.”
That makes her laugh. “Well, that’s just too fucking bad, poor guy!”
John knows Kate’s abilities. Several times a years, she gives a class to the department on advanced self-defense techniques. He steps in closer and lowers his voice.
“You sure you weren’t there when he got back, because I’d understand. He doesn’t remember, and none of the neighbors saw or heard a thing.”
They stare deeply into each other’s eyes, John searching for a truth and Kate trying to conceal it, but she cannot lie to him. “You know, I’ve met Brian before, a real nice guy when he’s sober. Sheila called the clubhouse after he took off. He was gone by the time I got there,” Kate says with defiance.
John knowingly grins, the uncomfortable moment made more so by his jingling pocket change. “My guess is that he pissed someone off and they followed him home. I say they because of the damage.”
“Drinking beats up all of us, John. All we can do is hope we learned something from it,” Kate nods solemnly, convinced the jig is up.
Then the cop smiles. “Well then, I’d better get back. Good night, Kate.”
“Night, John.” Kate begins to relax, but then he stops, looking at something in his hand.
“By the way, I found this at Sheila’s. Maybe you dropped in when you were there.”
Between his finger and thumb, he holds up a bronze AA coin, the Roman numeral X is at its center. She smiles as he hands it to her.
“You must have dropped it before you went in. I found it under Brian.”
Her embarrassed blush is unmistakable.
“You did good, Kate. Thank goodness you’re on our side,” John says walking off with a smile, leaving her holding the coin.
25
Woodcrest Road
If all those king’s horses and all the king’s men had managed to put Humpty Dumpty together, he would probably have suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It’s hard to fix a broken mind. No matter how carefully you glue it back, it’s never going to be the same. The cracks will always allow the nightmares to seep through, as they do into poor Kate’s dreams.
Looking up, white streaks of snow come out from the darkness, while others float lazily across her field of vision.
"How beautiful,"
It makes her happy for a moment, the wet flakes tickling her nose. She almost giggles. Then the cold comes back, and the nauseating pain.
"What happened, where am I?"
She wipes a flake from her eye, only to see streaks of blood, “MY blood?” smeared across her pale arm.
"My pants!"
It returns now, where she is, and what has happened. It always does.
Painfully, she tugs the long winter coat back down to cover her legs as far as it will go, and pulls it closed across her. She looks left and sees the barracks and the orange glow from the windows, smoke rising up into the black. Then she looks right, the bottle of vodka, stuck in the snow. She crawls over to it. "Still some left!"
On her knees, she guzzles it down, indifferent to the pink wisps of blood in the backwash. It stings her mouth, until the warm rush takes it all away.
“Thank the saints I'm still drunk!”
A muffled burst of laughter comes from the building.
"Fuckers," she growls, remembering more details.
“Too bad it hadn't happened in blackout,” she thinks. They had been like brothers to her. No longer.
Shakily rising to her feet, she staggers to the barracks door, the seething rage and the vodka erasing the pain. Slowly and quietly, she enters the dark hall and a few of the flakes follow her in. Behind a closed door, comes the smell of tobacco, the sound of music and spurts of laughter. She smiles; they are enjoying themselves.
“I’ll give you something to laugh about, comrades.”
She removes an AK-47 from the gun rack on the wall. Calmly, quiet as a mouse, she checks the magazine and chambers the first round.
“I can use this on myself, or use it on them. Either way, I'm dead,” she giggles. There is no way she will let them get away with it, not after the trust they broke. The only justice they will receive is from her.
The training has done its job, relieving her of the burden of conscience. She has lost it, and actually finds herself enjoying the madness. The weapon hangs from her right arm, close to her coat as she opens the door to the room. At first, they don't notice her, then one of the two facing the door, cigarette dangling from his mouth, looks up. His surprise spurs the other to turn around. He bursts into laughter, "Hey, look! I told you she'd be back for more!"
She can’t help giggling herself, picturing her wet matted hair, the striped T-shirt, ripped winter overcoat, naked from the waist down.
She squeezes the trigger.
The smile still hangs on his face even after she places the second round dead center into his forehead, sending the contents of his head onto the green wall behind him.
“Christmas colors!” she giggles again.
The two with their backs to her are next. One shot each, perfectly placed at the base of their skulls, exceptional shooting. Everything moves in slow motion as if she has all the time in the world. The fourth begins to stand, hand fumbling for a sidearm.
She laughs once more, making him stop, thinking perhaps she won’t shoot. The smell of gunpowder crosses the threshold of her mind. He is about to say something, so she purposely shoots him in the mouth, throwing him back over the chair.
Still alive and awake, but powerless to do anything, all he can do is watch as she approaches. The gun he tried to pull is now out of his reach. He is inhaling blood, coughing and choking as the wound bleeds into his throat. She makes sure he sees her, giving him a kick in the leg. Their eyes meet. His are filled with fear, but her eyes are distant, like the eyes of an animal, a predator.
Her training is finished. She is now exactly what they wanted. They had plenty of whores, they wanted a killing machine.
One last smile, one last shot. He closes his eyes before it comes.
“All done.”
The radio continues playing its sad accordion music, mourning lost love. Looking up, she sees the commanding officer, Major Petre Kurtsin, standing at the door in a T-shirt, suspenders dangling from his uniform pants. There is nothing more to say or do, she does not raise the gun. He looks over the scene, and then at her, quickly unde
rstanding what it means, looking pleasantly surprised. Then his face changes slightly, looking past her. She doesn't understand until something slams into the back of her head, creating an explosion of colors. She collapses to the floor.
Now she is the one looking up, and recognizing the face that appears above her, she understands.
"Sasha, why didn’t you protect me?”
Part IV
“Since mankind has existed, wherever life has been, there also has been the faith that gave the possibility of living. Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live. If Man did not believe that he must live for something, he would not live at all.”
- Leo Tolstoy
Thursday
Chapter 1
Moscow
Anton Khordikofski is first among equals. As one of a number of deputy defense ministers, he is top dog because he is closest to the minister himself. He is the trusted protégé of a powerful man, and with that trust comes many privileges, and more money than he’ll ever be able to spend. Back in the old days, no one was really above suspicion, bread by the paranoia of the communist state, and anyone who remembered Stalin could understand why.
Thankfully those days are long gone, and many suspicions or transgressions can be easily over looked with a little bit of cash. For Anton this is a very good thing, because he is also a spy.
He is not motivated by ideology or religion, nor has he been blackmailed into betrayal. His motivation is simple greed, although he has never accepted a single euro for his work. His currency is information, which often is priceless.
He learned this early on, starting his career in the archives, where all the bones are buried. When someone had something pulled, he made a point to read it, if and when it was returned. He is not surprised when the file he’s interested in now is missing. It only confirms it’s importance, and value. No big deal, he gets what he needs somewhere else. Now he just has to send it along its way. They’re just pictures, after all.