“They say you really can’t remember anything that clearly at four, but I remember every detail. All of it. What we were all wearing. The weather. That watch of Sorbacov’s. He took it out and looked at it when they were beating my mother as if it was boring him. Her screams. The blood. He was annoyed when some of her blood splattered on his shoes.”
He tried to push the demons back, the ones escaping from the doors he kept closed and nailed shut in his mind. “I showed a unique ability for making bombs. It was insane, and no one could explain it. I tinkered with tools and could take apart and put things back together, and Sorbacov noticed. He brought in several instructors, and they would lay out simple bombs at first, little ones, and he would stand behind me while I put them together. I didn’t know what they were. It was fun. A puzzle.”
He stopped walking and faced her, looking down at her, pleading for understanding. “We were raped every day, repeatedly. Beaten. Not just with fists. Forced to perform all kinds of acts. To sit at a bench and put together a puzzle was a respite; it took my brain somewhere else, away from pain, away from something so horrific I could barely keep from going insane.”
Player had no idea why he expected Zyah’s dark eyes to hold censure, but he did. He felt guilty enough for both of them. He always would. Instead, those dark chocolate eyes of hers, so beautiful, held compassion for a little boy; not just the little boy but the fucked-up man as well. He didn’t deserve it, and she’d understand why in just a few more moments.
“Sorbacov was in a particularly sharing mood over the course of a week, and I was in a bad way. His friends weren’t gentle, so much so that he even made them stop a couple of times and I found myself feeling grateful to him.” He hated himself for that.
He stared at the crashing waves as they broke over the rocks just before they made it to the bluffs. He’d not had his fifth birthday, and he loathed himself for being grateful to Sorbacov, the man who’d had his mother beaten to death and who’d raped him and given him to his friends to rape, just because the man had told his friends to be more careful of him.
Player turned his face away from her, afraid that terrible burning sensation behind his eyes was something he would regret forever. “I was told to build a series of bombs over the next couple of weeks, and I was so happy. I could barely walk. Everything hurt, and I knew as long as I pleased him, built each one faster than the last, he wouldn’t give me to his friends, even if he used me himself, which he did, every time I finished one of the bombs.”
He swallowed down bile. “I made five bombs. He told me for my birthday, he was taking Czar and me to a party. It was a big deal. There was going to be all kinds of good food and cake and ice cream. I would just have to do a couple of things for him and then I could eat anything I wanted. I could even bring food home for the others.”
They began walking again in silence, Player threading his fingers through Zyah’s. He needed to feel close to her at least for these last few moments. They had crossed the street and were following the path that led through the grass of the headlands to the bluffs overlooking the ocean.
The sound of the sea rose up, and he realized he loved being close to it because it felt cleansing. The roar of the waves drowned out the voice of guilt in his head that told him he was never going to be good enough for the world Czar wanted them to fit into. He could never forgive himself for his sins, the sins he’d committed when he was five years old and kept committing for the sake of his own survival.
“I carried each of the bombs into the party wrapped like a gift and gave them to Czar. When all five were in, Sorbacov took me to a table and introduced me to a family. They were very nice. He said I was a friend of his family. He had told me to use my manners and to say exactly what I was told: My name, Gedeon Lazaroff, which is my real name. That I was a friend of the family, a friend of his son, Uri. Czar joined us at that table, and if I started to say anything I wasn’t supposed to, he would grip my leg really hard.”
Player realized he’d never told Zyah his name. “I should have told you that the first time I met you, that my name is Gedeon Lazaroff. I did tell your grandmother. I think she knows all of our names, but before anyone else, you should have been told.”
She tilted her head up at him and smiled. Yeah. He should have told her. That meant something to her.
“Sorbacov sat at the table talking to the adults. There was a boy about twelve, and Czar talked with him, although I noticed Czar was quiet and kind of stilted. Mostly, he looked after me. I talked to the girl. She was eight or nine, and she had a book.” He took a deep breath. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It was the coolest book I’d ever seen. She showed me all the pictures and read some of it to me. Sorbacov had told them all it was my birthday, and she was very excited for me. I really liked her. Her name was Irina.”
He swallowed down bile again and stared at the white foam as it shot into the air. “Sorbacov got an urgent call, and we had to leave early. She gave me that book and wrote, ‘Happy birthday from Irina.’ I carried it out to the car. The driver pulled the car to the curb just up the block where we could still see the big hall. Sorbacov took out his pocket watch. I’ll never forget that. The way he smirked when he looked at that watch.”
His hand tightened around Zyah’s. Again, he stood silently, working up the courage, although she had to know the rest.
“The explosions rocked the ground and our car, the bombs going off almost simultaneously. Dirt and debris filled the air. Rubble, bricks and cement hit the ground. We could see the flames glowing orange and black, and Sorbacov had the driver go back. He was smiling so big. He got out and started laughing. He made Czar and me get out and walk up to the ruins. We could see some of the bodies. I could see Irina’s dress and part of her leg. Czar put his hand over my eyes and dragged me back to the car. He kept telling me not to cry. Over and over, he told me not to let Sorbacov see me cry.”
“Player,” she whispered and rubbed her head against his chest. “I’m so sorry. That must have been so terrible for you. How very traumatic.”
That was the last thing he’d expected of her. “When we got back, the others took the food Czar gave them and Demyan, Absinthe’s older brother, grabbed the book and began to read it. That day, Alena had slipped out of the dungeon. We called it that, but it was really a basement. She was so little and thin. Starved like the rest of us. She could slip through this crack and go out into the forest and harvest roots and berries and sometimes mushrooms. These mushrooms were different.”
He gave her a faint grin. “All of us started having hallucinations, but all of mine had to do with what Irina had read from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” He rubbed at his pounding temples. “I started seeing the things in the story, all the different characters running around in the dungeon with us. Everyone thought it was so cool and funny. After that, they wanted me to do it every time things were at the very worst. That’s how the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland characters came about, and that’s why I detest them. That’s why my brain always goes to making bombs. They saved me, and it’s my go-to when I’m in a bad place.”
“Player? What did you see that first time, when everyone else was laughing about the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland characters running around the room but you saw something that scared you? What was it?”