Page 77 of Assassin Anonymous

I pick a spot on the wall, a little water stain on the wallpaper, and make it my entire universe. Something to keep me steady as the words flow out.

“Soon as I saw that positive test, knowing I was having a kid, I had this vision of decorating their ceiling with those little glow-in-the-dark stars. One of the bedrooms I spent some nights in as a kid, it had stars like that. They made me feel safe, because it reminded me there was a whole universe out there. That the world wasn’t so small. That one day I might escape…”

Astrid starts to say something, then thinks better of it, and for that I am thankful.

“My son was born on August nineteenth,” I tell her. “His name is Bennett. I have no delusions that his mom will let me into their lives.”

There’s a bottle of water on the nightstand. I pick it up and down half of it, then turn the bottle over in my hand.

“So then I did quit. Got into a twelve-step program for reformed killers. Kenji was my sponsor. First time I ever had a best friend, and he might have sold me out, or maybe he didn’t. At this point I can’t tell. Either way I need him and he’s not here. The man who attacked me was a Russian named Viktor Kozlov. The Beast. I made a deal with the devil to find out. Probably jeopardized my recovery in doing so.”

I put the water bottle back down and put my head in my hands.

“I want to kill someone. Anyone. Literally, anyone. I mean, not you. But I want to feel someone’s life end in my hands. When I did that, I felt powerful, and now I feel powerless, and power is better. There’s nothing in life that compares to death. In recovery we talk a lot about whether killing is a compulsion, and part of me never wanted to believe it. I’m not addicted, I kept thinking. But I was. It’s how I was trained to communicate with the world around me. It’s the only thing I know. It was how I proved I was a man…”

I consider looking at Astrid, but I’m not ready yet.

“I’m tired. And this is hard. If I find Kenji, and he did betray me, I may end up killing him. The only way to stop Kozlov is to kill him. A Russian power broker is going to call in a favor soon and probably make me kill someone. All roads lead to this. I’ve been running from who I am. You told me to tell you the truth. There it is.”

I finally turn to Astrid.

The expression on her face is blank.

Then she reaches her hand to me.

I take it, feel the warmth of it, her skin, and then I pull her toward me, and I kiss her, knowing that this might be the exact wrong thing to be doing, but I need to feel something, to feel accepted by someone in the searing light of my sins, and to my relief, she kisses me back.

—

I wake to the sun in my eyes and an empty bed.

I think maybe Astrid is in the bathroom, but the door is open and the light is off. The room is empty. Her clothes and bag are gone. I get up from the bed and feel a tug on my stomach. There’s a fresh bandage on the knife wound. I look for the signal jammer on the bedside table, and it’s gone.

There is a lot happening, but for a moment only one thing matters: I’m alone. Astrid is gone. I sat here and cracked open my chest and spilled out my soul and she left. I sit in the silence as it closes in, reminding me what the truth has cost me.

No, not silence. There’s an echo reverberating in my chest. I cock my ear and listen.

It’s the most savage part of me and it’s saying: I told you so.

I slide down to the floor, my back against the bed. P. Kitty jumps into my lap and I tell him, “It’s gonna be okay.”

Except I’m not saying that to him, I’m saying it to me.

And it’s not sinking in.

The shaking starts in my chest until it travels through my body, and then I’m clutching P. Kitty, sobbing into his fur, holding him for dear life, because without him, I have nothing. And to his credit, he just stays close and purrs into my skin.

—

Ms. Nguyen doesn’t answer her door. She’s probably out grocery shopping, or doing tai chi with the other ladies down in the park. I consider leaving P. Kitty in his carrier outside her door, but I don’t want to abandon him like that. What if she’s gone for longer?

I head up to my apartment. As soon as I walked in the front door of the building I smelled the smoke, and it intensifies as I climb the final set of stairs to my loft, which takes up the whole top floor.

The door is busted open and crisscrossed with police tape. I step into the remains of my living room. Everything is black scorch and white ash. I put P. Kitty down at the entrance, and despite the destruction he knows he’s home. He scratches the caged door on the front of his carrier and yowls, but I don’t want to let him out. Too easy to lose him, or for him to get hurt.

“It’ll be fine, buddy,” I tell him. “Ms. Nguyen is going to give you a better life. More snacks, for sure.”

The bookshelf is in ruins. I look for the paper crane Kenji gave me, but it’s gone. After retrieving the password inside I did my best to fold it back up, though it didn’t look as neat and precise as when he gave it to me. Now I can’t even find the ash, like it never existed.

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