Emergence (11 page)

Lucy hauled her backpack onto the table and removed the gold bracelet. Cheslav tossed it in the rest of the pile. “Now, for the other problem. Escape. Why are you even thinking of it? This life? This is all you know.”

Escape? Vlad recalled their brief conversation on the train. If he hadn’t removed that memory, what had he? He couldn’t ask Lucy, of course, because that would defeat the whole purpose of erasing whatever he had.

“You’re cruel and stupid,” Lucy snapped. She raised her pale face and stood tall. “The world is changing, some day even here, old man. Soon chimerics won’t be persecuted. In America they train them to be heroes. They’re loved!”

Vlad’s heart sank. “Lucy, stop—”

“No!” She looked at Cheslav openly, her gaze defiant. “I’m sick of this life! We’re people. We’re chimerics. We’re powerful!”

Cheslav’s hand was like lightning as he reached out and slapped Lucy. She stumbled sideward, almost fell, but caught herself on the edge of the sink. Cheslav walked around the table and grabbed her hair, knotting it in his meaty fist. She screamed while he dragged her out of the kitchen.

What pained Vlad the most—even more than hearing Lucy’s screams—was that he couldn’t do anything. His thin, weak arms were no match against Cheslav. Emaciated from years of being underfed, neither had the strength needed to subdue the man.

Vlad swallowed the lump in his throat and screwed his eyes shut. He could only hope Cheslav would be quick with her.

“Vlad! You stupid shit, get in here!”

He obeyed, left the kitchen, and entered the tiny room Cheslav kept his big chair and TV in. Lucy was on her knees, blonde hair still balled up in Cheslav’s fist. Her lip bled where he hit her. Cheslav yanked her upwards, drawing out a painful moan.

“This is what you want, isn’t it?”

Cheslav found a news station and turned up the volume on the boxy TV. A fuzzy image from a news channel showed a sunny American city. Chimerics fought in the metropolis of Port Haven. Vlad recognized one of them as the blue-and-black-garbed
Artemis
. Lucy adored her, and Vlad couldn’t deny he found her incredibly attractive. While the costumed hero/vigilante called Dervish slammed at high-speed into a man wielding a cast iron streetlamp pole, Artemis got civilians out of harm’s way, ushering them toward DCD officers.

The male Russian commentator criticized American’s infatuation for masked chimerics and their lax laws. He segued to the recent murder of a chimeric from Dallas, Texas, who’d been a school teacher: “…are in an uproar over the public execution of Benjamin Browne. While the execution was conducted by unnamed vigilantes, many are in agreement of the actions taken. Egor?”

The footage of the superheroes cut away to a man beside the first news anchor adjusting a microphone on his shirt. Static overtook the shot. Cheslav tapped the top of the TV and adjusted his carefully-made metal wires to regain the signal.

“The chimeric in question was witnessed hovering off the ground to change a fluorescent bulb in his room between classes. Three days later, Mr. Browne was found hanging from a stop light with the word ‘Abomination’ carved into his chest. Our own leader’s comments on the incident after this…”

Cheslav turned off the set and sneered. He released Lucy and kicked her to the floor, sending her flat on her face. “This has been on TV all day. See? They hate your kind in America as much as they hate you here.”

“That’s not true,” Vlad said, surprised by the strength in his own voice. “There’s some bad people in America, but not everyone. The superheroes fight them. Here, we’re killed in the streets no matter where we go or what our intent is. We don’t have a chance of a life here. In America, there is hope.”

For years Cheslav tried to beat them into submission. He found out their dreams and tried to crush them. For every true story of crimes against chimerics, he had even more fictional ones to enforce it. It was easy to make a child live in fear. From the day Cheslav brought him to Klin, he made sure Vlad knew what happened to chimerics in Russia. He tried to do the same to Lucy, but she was too old when he got her. More defiant.

But Vlad hated what he was. Each day he worried someone would come kill him. His parents had sold him. His mother had killed his sister, her very own infant daughter, just for being chimeric.

Lucy had helped Vlad change his perception somewhat. Her brazen hope rubbed off on him, despite their disagreements. Had he stayed alone with the old man, Vlad would’ve given up completely by now. But he hadn’t. He and Lucy collected their American superhero books and trinkets while on their cons. The Brown Thrasher was a hero they held in high regard. Not only was he a TCA-sponsored chimeric, but he was a successful businessman. Vlad sucked up memories from people who’d been to America and relayed how wonderful it was to Lucy. They planned. They dreamed. Cheslav could never take that away.

“Go fix dinner,” Cheslav ordered. “And don’t try to steal from me ever again.”

Vlad looked at Lucy, stiffly getting to her feet and walking to the kitchen, and anger swelled inside of him.

Cheslav must’ve seen the look on his face. The man laughed. “The second you try to leave, I’ll call the police and report two unregistered chimerics running amok. I’ll tell them what your powers are, all the evil you’ve done, and they will hunt you down and kill you. That, or I’ll come for you myself; you know what’ll happen if I do. There is no hope for you, boy.”

Then. Two years ago…

It was a mistake to run. Vlad told Lucy this more times than he could count, but she insisted. Cheslav was right when he told Vlad as a boy that he’d have to learn the hard way. Lucy would, too. Vlad would be punished alongside her for it.

“We’ll be okay, love,” Lucy told him. She gripped his hand through his gloves and smiled. “We can sneak onto one of the freighters and go to America. Canada perhaps. Anywhere but here.”

Vlad made himself return a smile. He nodded and returned to staring out the window.

It was a beautiful summer day. Deep shades of green melded into the clear blue sky as the train sped through the countryside. It was the time of year American students flocked to Moscow for school trips or vacation. For years Vlad and Cheslav had robbed them. Cheslav beat them up, stole everything but their underwear, and Vlad removed their memories.

Today, he and Lucy were supposed to go together. It was their first time out alone. She was to put them asleep, they’d steal their stuff, then Vlad removed all traces; instead, they were on a train headed north to St. Petersburg.

Lucy had only been with him and Cheslav for five days. She was older than Vlad had been when Cheslav bought him. That made all the difference in her unwillingness to obey him. Despite being branded, and Vlad telling her that they couldn’t run, she insisted. She didn’t believe Cheslav had really branded her; that he could find them wherever they went.

From what Vlad understood, Lucy had little experience using her powers. A year before Cheslav took her, her own powers manifested. Chimeric law was much better in England than in Russia, but as in all places, there were groups who hated them. In the small town Lucy came from, chimerics were pariah.

Hated by her parents and town, she ran away with an older boy. He was an artist and promised they could make it on their own, peddling his work on the streets and entertaining crowds at festivals. Lucy had an aptitude for language and could speak decent French and Russian, so she figured she had a shot at traveling the world. It was while she was wandering the streets of Denmark alone that she was captured by human traffickers. When they discovered her power, they knew they could fetch a good price for her.

Cheslav paid 2,000 ruble for her to a Ukrainian man with a scar across his nose and left eye. A spark of jealousy lit up in Vlad’s heart. The girl was worth 1,500 more rubles than he was. Guilt overtook him soon after for thinking such an awful thing.

Lucy cried the whole way home. He wanted to take off the hood, but feared what Cheslav might do to him if he did. When they arrived back in Klin, Cheslav untied her, removed the hood, and branded her. She lunged for him and tried to put him to sleep.

She laid in bed for two days crying and recovering from her beating. Now it was back to work. Vlad was to show her how things were done. The moment Cheslav dropped them off at the train station with fare for the train, she went to the one bound for St. Petersburg.

Lucy flipped through an old magazine. An American superhero was on the cover with the headline
‘Chimeric Power Threat to Russia?’.
A smaller image on the bottom left was of the infamous Artemis.

“We could do this.”

Vlad’s eyes met hers. They sparkled in excitement. “Do what?”

“Be a superhero! It would be amazing, right?”

He thought of reminding her Cheslav would likely find them before they even found a boat to escape on. That they had no money or idea where they were going. He rubbed his forearm where the brand tingled.

“It would be, yes.”

“This nightmare will be over soon.”

Vlad made himself smile again. “Good.”

Neither spoke again for the rest of the trip. He saw Lucy rub her arm where he knew she had a brand just like his. He dozed for a while and dreamed of Natasha and her fish-like face cooing and laughing.

At the first stop, Vlad expected to see Cheslav waiting. To his surprise, he was nowhere to be seen. In the middle of the afternoon, the stop was desolate. Two passengers exited the train leaving three left in their cart.

The train lurched and began the next leg of its journey. Lucy retrieved slices of buttered bread she’d prepared for the journey and handed one to Vlad.

“See? Halfway to St. Petersburg,” she said. Her excitement let her accent slip through. “Halfway to our freedom.”

He was hungry. He scarfed down the bread and found a trickle of Lucy’s optimism had rubbed off. Maybe Cheslav
wouldn’t
find them? Maybe they were too far away for his powers to work?

When he tried to escape as a boy, he’d made it less than a mile before Cheslav found him. Now that he was older, he saw that it might not have been the brand that guided Cheslav. It was common sense or luck.

By the time they were at the second stop, Vlad was entirely convinced Cheslav would not come. The brand was another game the man played to keep him afraid.

He hadn’t told Lucy yet, but he’d been dreaming of going to America to become a superhero for years. Underneath his bed was a box that contained newspaper scraps of anything to do with American superheroes, clips of the California Girls, the brother and sister team of Willow and the Wisp, the Batman-ish Night’s King, and of course the iconic Hero. Cheslav knew about it and mocked him, but had never taken it away; he enjoyed scorning Vlad too much.

Sunshine streamed through the train window. He soaked it up and felt a genuine smile creep onto his lips. This time when he dozed, he had no nightmares. He thought of Oleg and the fishing trip, of his own memory of it. Of father and how happy they were together. The smell of the worms, of—

“Vlad.”

Lucy’s voice was panicked. His eyes flashed open.

Cheslav entered their cart. His face was smug. He leaned over to the two passengers by the cart entrance and whispered something to them. The woman glanced back at Lucy and Vlad then, shaking her head, hurried out of the train with her companion. Cheslav did the same thing to the man sitting by himself. They were close enough Vlad caught bits of the conversation.
Chimeric…dangerous…police…

The last passenger rushed off the cart, too, leaving the three of them alone.

“I told you, stupid bitch. I told you I would find you.” Cheslav took a step towards them.

Lucy sprung to her feet to run at the same time Cheslav pulled a gun from his waistband.

“You die here or you come back with me.”

She looked at Vlad, her face pleading.

“Him? You think
he
will help you?” Cheslav snorted. “That boy is the last person on this planet who will help you. He probably pissed his pants already, huh Vlad?”

The mark on his arm burned. Vlad cursed himself for letting hope cloud his vision. He shouldn’t have let Lucy get him into this. He knew better. He stood, grabbed his backpack, and went to Cheslav. His chest ached as dread filled up every bit of him.

“I’m sorry,” Vlad said, gazing at the floor.

Lucy stared at the gun. Her shoulder slumped and the look of defiance melted away. Outside the train, onlookers watched the exchange. Vlad hated them. He hated them for standing there and doing nothing, for letting it happen.

But it didn’t surprise him.

“Get your bag,” Cheslav ordered.

“I thought we’re going to Moscow?”

He rolled his eyes. “We go back to Klin. You have a lesson to learn, girl. And once you learn it, you will never run again.”

Lucy blinked away tears. Cheslav kept the muzzle of his gun pointed at her while she retrieved her backpack.

Cheslav led them out of the train, passing all the people who hated chimerics and turned a blind eye to their suffering. Vlad found he hated himself more than he could ever hate them.

Now…

“No, Cheslav.” Lucy stood with a gun in her hand. “There is no hope for
you
.”

The first bullet went straight through the middle of the TV. Glass shattered and smoke poured from it. Cheslav rolled out of his chair and ducked behind it.

She’s not a good shot
, was all Vlad could think as she fired two more rounds. One hit Cheslav’s chair where his head would’ve been. The other shattered the window behind it. Lucy paused.

A cold gust of air wove through the room from the broken window. Snowflakes drifted in, melting the moment they landed. Vlad became aware of the silence, then his own labored breathing.

“Is he dead?”

Vlad had been crouched low to the ground, fearful of catching a stray bullet. Now he stood and turned to Lucy. Her hands shook, the muzzle of the gun bobbing wildly. Her lip had stopped bleeding, but left her mouth and chin bright red.

“I don’t think so.” He took a step to the left and peered around the chair. He quickly spotted Cheslav’s back hunched over. He was a big man and couldn’t make himself small enough to hide.