The Killer’s Vow by Aria R. Blue
Simon
8 years old
8 years old
“Mama, will you stay with me?”I ask, begging my mother with my eyes.
She kisses the top of my head and presses her cheek against it.
I love it when she does that.
“You know I can’t, zaychik,” she says, using the endearment from when I was a small boy. Little rabbit.
“Please, Mama?”
“You’re safer here,” she says, her aquamarine eyes scanning the big scary building behind me. They call it the Institute. “And besides, you’re a big boy now, aren’t you? You know where you’ll always find me.”
I touch the skin over my heart.
“Here,” I say, trying and failing to hide the trembling in my voice.
“Here,” she says, touching her chest as she smiles softly at me.
My mama is the prettiest girl ever.
She’s also the kindest. She’s nice to the ballerinas even when they mess up their dance sequences or forget to practice at home.
“Where will you go?” I ask.
She sucks in a shaky breath. “I’ll be dancing, moj mal’chik. I’ll dance for you and for me.”
She’s not telling me something.
She thinks I’m still a little boy, but I’m big now.
“Why can’t I come with you?”
“I’ll come back once it’s safe again, okay?” she says, cupping my cheek lovingly. “I’ll come back for you.”
She never came back.
I waited for her.
I stood by the windows and watched the cars and families come and go.
As I watched the seasons come and go, I turned bitter.
Mama lied to me.
She left me at the orphanage.
One summer morning, I was at the playground pulling grass from the earth when they handed me the polished wooden chest. I cradled it against my chest when they said that it had my mother’s belongings inside it.
I was told on that bright summer day that my mother was no more.
There are five stages of grief.
But for me, there was only madness.
I picked fights just to feel something. I ruined relationships just to have something to do. I wreaked havoc because havoc is who I became.
Life at the Institute was brutal if you didn’t have somebody on your side.
And I had turned into an angry lone wolf.
One time, I messed with the wrong crowd—boys from a gang who were twice my size and didn’t care about anything but their precious toys.
Toys I stole from them.
They sneaked into the children’s common sleeping hall one night.
“Where did you hide them?” their clique leader asked in Russian, yanking me up by my hair.
“Let go of my hair,” I yelped.
A blow landed on my mouth. “Keep your voice low or else.”
“Or else what?”
“I’ll aim my fist to your little nuts the next time.”
These boys, on the brink of adulthood now, have been in the Institute for all their lives. In other words, nobody wanted to adopt them. And as a result, they were filled with hormone-enhanced bitterness for the whole world.
I should have kept my mouth shut and given them their silly toys back.
But I wanted to push their buttons.
Just to see how far they’ll go.
“I threw them away,” I lie.
“Search his stuff,” the gang leader orders his cronies.
By this point, some of the other boys and girls had woken up. The rest were pretending to be asleep out of fear.
The older kids and the younger children had different sleeping areas. After the age of twelve, girls and boys had separate rooms.
I don’t say a word as they rip through my only mattress and bedsheet.
They throw my clothes around and break everything that can be broken.
And then they find my chest—the only thing I have left of my mother.
“Give that back,” I scream.
The delicate key that opens the chest is in my pocket.
A boy takes a hockey stick to my crotch. I howl in pain, and they hit me again.
“We told you not to scream like a little girl,” he hisses, shaking the small box next to his ear. “What are you hiding in this anyway? Is it everything you stole from us?”
“It’s not yours,” I say, a blind rage starting to take hold of me.
“Neither were the cards or the fishky,” he says, speaking about his beloved milk caps, the small circular paper and plastic caps the older boys played games with.
“Or my Tetris,” the gang leader says, loud enough for everyone to hear.
He’s the only one in the Institute who has his own video game device, and he likes to boast about it every few days.
“It’s not in the chest,” I say, starting at the hands of the boy who’s holding it.
“Break it,” the gang leader orders. “Let’s all see what he’s hoarding inside.”
“No.”
“Then give us our things back.”
“I stuffed it up my ass. You’re welcome to retrieve it.” There’s that part of me again, wanting to see how fast I can trigger people.
This earns a few giggles from the other kids. Their response spurs me.
I stand tall even though I know full well that the big boys can break my arms like they’re twigs.
The gang leader’s eyes flash.
Without taking his eyes off me, he issues a command to his cronies.
The wooden chest splinters into a dozen pieces. And all that’s precious to me falls to the floor.
“What the hell is all this?” Their lips twist as they kick my things around with their feet.
I lunge to the floor, scrambling to collect all that I can.
Her ballet shoes.
Her engagement ring that never became a wedding ring.
The finger puppets she used to tell me the best stories.
The framed photograph of her.
Everything that once belonged to my mother is being kicked around like soccer balls.
They make a game out of it.
Just when I approach an item, they kick it out of my reach. They laugh and hoot as my slow reflexes and shorter limbs fail me every time.
I look up at the gang leader.
My voice is hoarse as I say, “It’s my mama’s.”
The wicked grin falls from his face. He holds a hand up to stop his friends.
“Blyat, I didn’t know. We’re sorry,” he says, quickly picking everything back up and shoving the items against my chest.
There’s an unspoken rule at the Institute.
You don’t make fun of other children’s parents. You just don’t.
That’s where the line is drawn.
Because we’ve all been through similar struggles, we understand how painful those old scabs can be when picked at.
The older boys mutter their apologies and turn to leave.
“Wait,” I call.
I pick myself off the ground and run to the bathroom. I hid their stuff behind a loose tile in the wall.
I emerge back into the sleeping hall.
“I’m sorry I stole your stuff,” I say, handing it all back to them.
The gang leader pats my shoulder before he leaves with his beloved Tetris. His crew follows him out.
I turn around to look at the other children.
I’m the oddball, but they’re all scared of me. Every single one of them turns away…except for a girl with bright red hair. The new girl who always dresses like she’s at a funeral.
I wait for her to look away.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, she hops off her bed and walks over to me.
She thrusts her hand out at me, holding something in the palm of her hand. “Gum?”
I glance at the Turbo bubblegum.
It’s my favorite flavor, too—peach.
I wait for her to snatch it away. That’s what most of the kids here do. They dangle things in front of your face and snatch them away when you reach for them.
“You can keep the sticker inside it too,” she says, shrugging as if it’s no big deal.
But it is.
Personal possessions are never shared. When you have very little to begin with, you learn to hoard and ration.
I take it from her.
Still suspicious, I open the package and pop it into my mouth.
The taste of peach explodes on my tongue.
“What did you get?” she asks.
I flip over the gum wrapper to look at the insert. Turbo bubblegums come with inserts of fast cars and bikes.
“A Jaguar,” I tell her.
“Nice,” she says. And then she declares, “I’m going to drive a Porsche one day.”
I liked her already.
Not just because she shared her gum with me, but because she came over to talk to me.
I didn’t realize until she came along that I’ve been lonely.
The red-haired girl flops down on my bed. “But I also like BMW bikes. So I might get one of each...Was your mama a ballerina?”
I nod, running my thumb over the well-worn ballet pointe shoes with their soft pink ribbons still attached.
“She used to teach it to kids too,” I say.
“My mother was an alcoholic. All the vodka destroyed her liver,” she says. And in the same breath, she extends her hand. “My name is Rebekah.”
“Simon,” I say, shaking her hand.
She stood to her full height.
Rebekah was two inches taller than me. But her smile was wide, and her eyes sparkled with mischief.
She had a big mind and bigger thoughts.
She talked to me, challenged me, and made me laugh.
In a place where kids had to look out for each other to survive, she soon became family.
“You and me, we’re going to rule the world, Simon,” she declared one day over a mouthful of chewing gum.
We were sitting next to each other on the swings.
Rebekah secured the coveted spots for us. She might wear her hair in pigtails, but she was fierce when she wanted to be.
“Like the president?” I ask.
“No, that’s boring. I’m talking about unlimited power.”
“What will you do when you rule the world?”
“Whatever I want to,” she says, tipping her head back to look at the sky. “That’s the whole point.”
Even then, I could sense that she had a darkness inside her.
But she wasn’t born with it. It was an emotion placed inside her by someone else’s hand.
There was a reason she only wanted to wear fancy black dresses with black gloves. She would rather freeze in the cold than wear more comfortable clothing of a different color.
She blows a bubble toward the sky and traps it in her mouth before popping it loudly.
And then she jumps off the swing.
“Let’s take a walk,” she says. “I want to steal some more rugelach.”
This was her favorite pastime.
She had a penchant for stealing Russian pastries.
The head chef adored Rebekah. He would have given it to her if she had asked nicely, but my friend preferred to steal instead.
And I was always hungry, so I was her willing accomplice.
We were partners in crime.
Ten minutes later, we were both stuffing our faces with the stolen delight. White sugar powder dusted our faces, and our cheeks were flushed.
It was such a divine rush.
Even I had to agree that stolen pastries tasted better than regular pastries.
After we finished, we wiped our sticky hands on our clothes. Rebekah took out her rainbow Slinky and played with it as she hummed to herself.
“If I ever get out of this place, I’m going to take you with me,” she announces.
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s no fun to steal alone.”
I nod. “Me too. I’ll come back for you too.”
She grins at me. “I know you will.”
I look at the holes in the black lace sleeves of her dress. It was at least three sizes too big, but she wore it anyway.
I finally ask her the question I’ve kept to myself for months. “Why do you only wear black?”
“One should always remember the important things,” she replies vaguely.
Even then, I knew how to extract answers from people.
The trick is to remain really quiet. It gives them the space to open up.
And after a long pause, Rebekah adds softly, “Something bad happened at my parents' funeral. I was wearing black then. And I want to remember that day forever, so I will always only wear black.”
But her gum was pink, and her Slinky was rainbow-hued.
Every other kid declared her to be a freak, but I found a kindred spirit.
She was a little crazy and a little sweet, but above all, she was my friend.
My best friend.
It wouldn’t be a few years until Vladimir came along, searching for broken children from the Institute who’d do anything he wanted them to.
He would find me, and he would hold my shoulders.
And then he’d ask me how much I was willing to sacrifice for a taste of glory.
I sacrificed it all.
But I don’t know if I should have.