She shoves Viktor’s feet off the coffee table. He grins at her.
She slams down the paper. Kiro’s commitment order. Vacated. “Your brother is never going back to that place,” she says. “Ever.”
An unfortunate choice of words. I’d love him to go back there. I’d love him to be anywhere I could find him, rather than out in the vast wilderness, unaware of the danger he’s in.
“They’re already moving against the committing officer,” she says. “I think the director’s dirty, too. Dr. Fancher.”
“Good work,” I say. She’s amazing. She just started her own solo practice down in Chicago and already she’s kicking ass.
“You’re going to find him.” She eyes the camping shit all over the floor and then Viktor. “That’s what you’re going to wear out there? A wise-guy suit and necktie? Shiny shoes? You know it’s wilderness, right?”
“He’s not going,” I say. “He’s still recovering.”
“What’s your excuse?” she asks Yuri.
“This is what I fight best in,” Yuri says.
I snort. The Russians love their suits.
She picks up a Tavor with holographic sights, the latest in semiautomatic weaponry. “You’re bringing this to the wilderness? It weighs a ton. You think you’ll hike with this?”
“When you need one, you need one,” I say.
She puts it down. She hates guns. Once we get Kiro back, things are going to change.
“Everyone in the world is chasing your brother. How will he know you’re the good guys? His brothers?”
“Ourbratikwill know us by the path of blood we paint on our way to rescue him,” Viktor says.
I smile. I can’t wait to meet him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kiro
We make goodtime, moving over land and water. At times we’re so hemmed in by the trees that you can’t see the dusky sky. Other times the vista opens so wide, you feel like you’re on top of the earth.
We cross a lake.
“You’re not breathing,” I say, slipping the paddle into the dark water, stroking us onward.
She sighs.
“You smell it? The leaves? The moss?”
“I smell…no smell.”
I frown.
“No, it’s a good thing,” she says. “A relief.”
“Because of the Fancher smell?”
“Yeah. For a while there I thought I’d never escape it. That antiseptic smell. I sometimes almost felt like it chased me. Like it went everywhere I did.” She gets a haunted expression, like she used to in the institution. “I hope I never smell it again. That smell, it’s just so…” She seems lost, suddenly.
Getting lost in my head was a way of surviving. I would lose myself in memories of running with the pack. Of lying on the forest floor. The trees. When she gets lost, it’s not good.
“Hey.” I grab the extra paddle and pat the space next to me. “Come here.”