Page 67 of Crowned

Katya’s parents are tucked up safe in bed when the entire downstairs goes up in flames.

I watch the house burn from the road. The fire engines arrive and men with ladders help Mr. and Mrs. Lugovskaya safely away from the flames.

I swear and beat my fists against a tree trunk, fury raging inside me hotter than any fire.

They’re not dead.

But one day, they’ll be bleeding out and struggling for their last breath, and I’ll show them as much mercy as they showed Katya and the baby.

I turn away, and with cut and bloodied feet, I walk out of town and don’t look back.

* * *

I manageto avoid the police for two years, but they catch me just before my nineteenth birthday and throw me in prison for arson. The Lugovskayas were at my sentencing, victory and self-righteousness lacing their expressions.

I glare at them the whole time, even when the judge is addressing me. At one point, I’m reprimanded for “intimidating the victims” but I still don’t look away.

I’m not trying to intimidate them.

I’m vividly imagining their blood and screams as I kill them.

They must realize what my expression means because, as I’m led past them on my way to serve sixteen years, they both turn pale. It doesn’t matter if I have to dig my way out of prison with my fingernails, I will find them before they die, and I will make them wish they’d never been born.

Sixteen fucking years for burning a mansion down, and they are free while Katya and the baby are dead because of them. This world isn’t fair.

From now on, if I ever see something I want, I’ll make it mine.

After five weeks in prison, the rage is still burning within me. There are too many dark hours, cruel thoughts, and nightmares. I can hear a baby screaming all the time. I heard once that they break enemy soldiers by putting headphones on them and playing the sound of infants screaming for hours on end. I’m beginning to believe that it works.

I can see Katya bleeding slowly to death. I have dreams about unconscious women. The girls from my high school in their beds. I’m watching them and creeping closer and closer, not sure if they’re asleep or dead. If it’s Katya, she’s always dead, blood dripping from her fingers and maggots crawling over her flesh.

Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat.

Sometimes I open my eyes and my dick is hard.

The best dreams are when I know the women are asleep. There’s no blood until I shove my cock in them and draw it out and it’s smeared with red. I fuck their unresponsive bodies until I’m right on the brink. Then they wake up and catch me, but it’s too late for them to stop me. I’ve got what I wanted from them, and I slip away into the dark.

During the day I distract myself by watching the other inmates. Most of them look like they couldn’t count to ten. One man is different, though. He’s taller than me, blond, well built. There are already several tattoos decorating his arms and chest, some that look like prison tattoos and others he must have got on the outside. He was in a gang. If he’s in here, he probably took the fall for them.

Every other day it seems like someone is trying to kill him. I start following him around and watching him because seeing him in action is fucking glorious. His expression is always bored and stony, as if he’s not thinking about anything in particular and he doesn’t notice the one or two guys lurking in the shadows whispering to each other.

They close in, and at the last second the blond man parries some poor attempt to stab him in the kidneys. He takes the weapon from his attackers, slashes their clothing or faces, or if they’ve attacked him before, he drives the weapon into their necks and kills them. Then breaks the makeshift blade with his bare hands and throws the pieces to the ground.

I walk away grinning and shaking my head. He’s fucking magnificent.

I hear the other men talking about him. They call him Pushka.

One day while I’m watching Pushka, it’s not just one or two guys after him. It’s five. He seems to know it as well because I see him swallow, the only outward sign of emotion I’ve ever seen from him.

He’s not scared. But he is worried.

Three guys jump him at once, and if it were just three, Pushka could hold his own. But two more are closing in. They pass right by my hiding spot. It’s none of my business who lives or dies in here, and the code of this place tells me I should keep out of it. But fuck those rules. I told myself I’d take what I want from now on and I want this man to live.

I trip up one of the men, take his blade—a toothbrush sharpened to a point on the concrete floor—and stab the throat of the other man. Nothing much happens except that his eyes go wide and he makes a choking sound. Then I pull the blade out.

Suddenly, there’s so much blood.

Gushing from the man’s neck. Pouring over my hand.

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