39. STORM

Shapes.

Shadows.

Green.

My stomach is rolling.

“Did you learn your lesson, sweetums?”

Darya’s grinning face swims into focus, inches from my own. In my dazed state, she reminds me vaguely of Heath Ledger’s Joker.

“Whuh…” It’s all I can manage.

“Chloroform,” she says. “It’s the quicker knocker-outer. Actually, that’s not true. It can take a long time. But it doesn’t leave marks like, say, bashing you over the head with a brick would.”

I try to sit up, but the world spins and I lie back down.

“Arkady wants you pretty,” she grins. “So do I. If you keep fighting, I’ll keep knocking you out.”

Her words combine with the effects of the chloroform to induce a sense of vertigo. The world is outside my control. I was crazy to think it was otherwise. Crazy to think I could be like Nick.

My heart cramps as the memory of him going over the cliff invades my mind. Is that memory going to invade every time I wake up? Am I doomed to watch that movie over and over, every time I close my eyes?

I think I may be going crazy. I can even see his face in the walls of this room.

Wait, what?

My heart slams against my chest as I see Nick’s face in the dark. It’s covered in horizontal shadows and he has a finger to his lips.

This isn’t in my head. It’s real. It’s all I can do to keep from screaming as it hits home: Nick is in the wall behind the air vent, telling me to be quiet.

I take a deep breath to try to get a hold of myself. As much as I want to run to him, to rip the vent cover out of the wall and wrap my arms around him, I can’t. The only way we’re going to make it out of here is if I can keep all of this off my face.

For the first time in my life, I close my eyes and pray: Please, God, if this is real, give me the strength to do what I have to. And if it’s a dream, please don’t let me wake up.

“Well?” Darya says, looking at me like I’m an idiot.

“Well what?” I force myself to keep from looking at the vent.

“Are you going to stop fighting, or are you going to develop a chloroform habit?”

In my peripheral vision, I see Nick’s head move up and down.

“I’ll stop fighting,” I say. “I’ll do whatever Arkady wants.”

Darya beams. “There! Was that so fuckin’ hard?”

She stands and raps on the door.

“Get ahold of yourself for a few minutes,” she says as the thugs open the door for her. “Make yourself presentable. Arkady will be back in a few minutes. Then you’ll have some fun.”

The door closes and the deadbolt sniks shut, locking me in. The instant it does, I leap from the cot and rush to the vent cover.

“Use this,” Nick says, handing me a small, flat square through the slats.

I can barely see the slots in the screw heads because my eyes are flooded with tears.

“I thought you were dead,” I sob, snuffling like a child. “I thought you were gone forever.”

The coldness in his eyes is sobering, and I wipe my tears away as he pops the cover carefully out of the way and crawls into the room. This is real life, and we’re in trouble. We have to focus or we could very easily end up dead.

I help him to his feet and then crush him in my arms as soon as he’s standing.

“I’m not dead yet,” he whispers in my ear. “Maybe soon, but not right now.”

What does that mean?

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he says. “We need to get out of here.”

“What about Arkady?”

He takes me by the arms and locks those steely grey eyes on mine.

“What do you think we should do?” he asks.

I blink. “Me?”

He nods. “You’re the one he hurt the most. Are you ready to kill him?”

My mind reels. An hour ago, I wanted to find the nearest blunt object and split his skull open with it. But now, I’m not as sure. Am I capable of murder?

“I don’t know,” I say. “He won’t stop coming after us.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean we can’t run away.”

His words take a few moments to sink in. “Run away?”

“I’m rich, Storm. And that house is just a house. The only things of value in it to me are you and the dogs.”

“But you,” I say. “Arkady tried to kill you.”

“Yes, he did. And there was a time not that long ago that I would have killed him instantly, without hesitation, along with anyone who got in my way.”

I nod. I understand that about him, and I’ve learned to accept it.

His big hands squeeze my arms tenderly. “But that’s not who I want to be anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to be the man you think I am: kind, generous.” He looks at me with an almost childlike pleading. “Normal.”

I stare at him for a few moments. As crazy as it what he said sounded, I understood every word.

“All right,” I say. “We’ll go, and we won’t look back.”

His eyes meet mine with a softness that says more than words ever could.

“A new start,” he says. “A whole new world.”

He clasps my hand and leads me through the vent opening and into the oversized duct beyond, then pulls the cover back into place behind him. From a pack in the corner of the duct, he pulls a roll of matte black tape and straps it over the inside edge of the cover to keep it in place.

“That way,” he whispers, point ahead to a light shining around a corner in the ductwork. “There’s an opening to the loading bay. My bike is in the alley waiting for us.”

I feel the edges of claustrophobia as we shimmy through the tight space for several dozen yards, but I manage to keep it in check. Still, it feels heavenly when I finally slide out of the open vent in the dim light of the loading bay.

Nick runs his hands over my body, inspecting me.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Nick shoulders his pack and we head for the door. But before we take two steps, my eyes are suddenly filled with blinding white light.

I feel Nick’s hand on my arm right before the sound of hands slowly clapping in the distance. I hold up my arms to shade my eyes, but the feeling in the pit of my stomach tells me I already know who it is.

“Not bad,” Arkady says as my pupils finally expand enough for me to make out shapes. “My old man was right about you, Nick. You’re a resourceful guy.”

“And you’re a piss-poor shot,” Nick says.

Arkady grins. At his side are the two musclemen and, of course, Darya, who is carrying a machete.

“You got me there!” Arkady hoots. “You’re a tough man to kill, no two ways about it. But you got a little sloppy this time, hey? There were cameras in that storeroom – we saw the whole thing. Bet that wouldn’t have happened back in the old days, huh? Before you got pussy whipped?”

“We don’t have to do this,” Nick says.

“Actually, we do,” says Arkady. “You have to go through us and a whole club full of people to get out of here.”

I follow Nick’s gaze to the back door, only to see a thick, padlocked chain running through the crash bar. It’s not going to open for us.

“I’m not a bad guy,” Arkady says. “If I could, I’d just shoot you, man. Out of respect for my father and all. But this place is crowded, and shots would cause a panic. People could die. Other than you, I mean.”

“You saw us,” Nick says, holding up both hands. “But did you hear us? What we were talking about?”

Arkady shakes his head. “Sorry, no point in microphones. All the noise in the club and all.”

“We talked about getting out,” I say. “About leaving New York behind and starting over. Everybody wins – us, you, your father. No one has to die.”

I see Nick square his feet as our four opponents advance on us. Darya looks like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Come on, now,” Arkady says with an insane grin. “Where’s the fun in that?”