Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
I remembered the two of us holding each other beside Master Sun’s grave, and I pressed myself to him, hugging him tight. “That’s terrible,” I told him.
He nodded stiffly. “But it wasn’t the worst thing that happened to us.”
He turned his head to look at me, our faces only a few inches apart. We were close enough that he could speak in a murmur, and I think that was the only reason he could get the words out. But we were so close, I could see every bit of pain in those pale gray eyes, and it was absolutely heartbreaking.
“It wasn’t just the guards,” he told me. “The other kids were all violent offenders. There was one, called Svetoslav, eighteen, a big tattooed piece of shit, who hated me as soon as he met me. He tried to break me from the very first day. He didn’t just want to hurt me; he wanted me to crawl to him. But I wouldn’t give in. Our father—” His voice cracked. “Our father always told us that if you lose your dignity, you have nothing. So I wouldn’t give in, even when he beat me almost to death. So, after a few months, Svetoslav found another way.”
He swallowed. “They came for me after lights out. Dragged me to someone’s cell. I thought they were going to kill me.” He closed his eyes for a second. “I wish...I wish they had killed me. But they locked me in there, alone. Then Svetoslav struts around the corner and I assume he’s there to beat me. I stand tall. And then I see he’s dragging Valentin.”
I could hear Gennadiy’s breathing speeding up as decades-old panic resurfaced. “I start trying to talk to Svetoslav. Telling him that it’s okay, I’ll bow down to him, to not take it out on Valentin. But he just ignores me. He drags Valentin into the cell next to mine. I can see them through the bars, but I can’t reach them. Valentin’s trying to fight; he’s being brave, but he’s only twelve. I start pleading with Svetoslav not to beat him, saying he’s just a kid, but he ignores me again.”
Gennadiy stopped. Closed his eyes again. The room went silent.
“And then,” Gennadiy said, his voice like a wire drawn too tight, “Svetoslav starts pulling Valentin’s clothes off.”
I felt my stomach drop through the floor.
“I scream no,” said Gennadiy. “I keep screaming it and screaming it, until my throat is raw. But Svetoslav doesn’t stop. I promise to do anything he wants. I tell him I’ll bow down to him, I’ll be his fucking slave. I say...I say do it to me, instead. But Svetoslav isn’t interested anymore. He wants me to see what happens when I defy him. He wants me to be an example to all the other kids: don’t be proud, or this will happen to someone you care about.”
Gennadiy’s face had gone pale, and his eyes were distant. He was there. I tightened my arms around him, rubbed him gently, trying to anchor him here, in the present.
“Valentin’s screaming,” said Gennadiy. “Screaming in pain and... screaming for me to help him. And I’m standing pressed against the bars, reaching into their cell, fucking clawing for Svetoslav, but I can’t reach. I can’t help him. I can’t help my baby brother.”
He wasn’t crying. I think he was too focused on struggling through the story to cry. I was crying for both of us, silent tears coursing down my cheeks.
“I killed him,” said Gennadiy. “A week later, I got Svetoslav alone in the showers, and I broke his fucking neck. But it didn’t change anything.” He met my eyes, and the pain in his face was beyond anything I’d ever seen. “I let it happen, Alison. I let it happen to my baby brother. I was six feet away, and I couldn’t stop it.”
He hiccoughed and sniffed, and now the tears did come, flooding his eyes and spilling over, and I clutched him tight. “It wasn’t your fault,” I told him gently. “It wasn’t.”
I kept holding him, and after a while, I felt his body ease a little. But when he drew back so that he could look at me, the pain in his eyes was still there. “I’ve told myself that so many times. But it doesn’t help.”
I nodded slowly. “Maybe what you need is to talk about it with Valentin.”
Gennadiy’s eyes went wide with horror. Then he shook his head fiercely.
“It might help, even though it’s been a long time. What did he say when it happened?” I asked.
Gennadiy looked away.
I frowned. “You didn’t talk about it?” Then, with dawning horror, “You’ve never talked about it?!”
Gennadiy scowled. “We don’t talk about things like that.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant men or Russians, or Bratva. Probably all three. “Gennadiy…” I took his face between my hands. “Listen to me. You have to.” He tried to look away, but I wouldn’t let him. “This has been eating you up since you were a teenager, and probably eating him up, too!”