Page 40 of Corrupted Guilt

Also good.

We pushed through the doorway, me in the lead now, and kept one hand up, obscuring our faces. I took the two-inch Smith & Wesson revolver from my pocket and held it at my side. If we came across anyone, this would scare them away. We left it loud, too, so the three shots I have left could scare the hell out of several people.

Two kids were in the hallway, I showed them the gun. “You don’t have any part in this,” I said. “No reason to get dead.”

“Holy Jesus,” the kid said, crouching down, hands outstretched as if they could stop a bullet. They were no danger to us.

I had a key for the big glass doors in this building. Closed as it was. I went down on one knee, because the glass doors had their locks down at the base, and quickly unlocked the nearest door. I pushed it open and rose in the same movement, heading outside and across the sidewalk to the waiting black Chevy Suburban with black windows.

I put Katya in the back seat, and she immediately curls into a fetal position, looking puzzled. She said, “I have to go home now.”

“Snap out of it,” I tell her. “We don't have time for that.”

Calm and reasonable, she said, "We must never speak of that. Will you promise me?"

"I promise," I said. She was still crazy, but she was being quiet crazy, so it was all right. "Lay down," I tell her.

“But I have to go home," she said.

“But they want to talk about it at home," I told her. “Better if you stay here.”

“Oh,” she said. “Then I'll stay for a while." She balled herself up again in the fetal position and gazed out through the windshield.

I set a course for one of Viktor’s safe houses. All mine were further away and I figured she needed something familiar right now — and we weren’t going back to the apartment until it was checked out and cleared and safe.

We rode in silence; she stayed curled up the whole way.

When we get to the safe-house, I get out and open her door, “Let’s go in, Katya,” I tell her, as gentle as I can be.

She turns her head to look at me but I’m not sure my words registered. She was a good-looking woman, but fear and trauma had made her angular and jagged.

“You can’t check out of life right now. You need to keep moving, like a shark, there’s still danger and if we stop moving, we die. Come in, get up.”

She can hear me, the words register somewhere in there, but she just lifts herself up from the seat and that’s about all she can do. It’s her head, not her body but she needs to be stronger mentally. And soon.

Physical exhaustion she can learn to push through, but the mental part is harder to push through and get better at. Not being strong enough mentally is also the main thing that might get her killed in the future. It makes her a risk to me for as long as I need her— and if I must rescue her like today. The more Imust put myself in danger for her, the more people I must lose on her account, like Tasha, the less worthwhile she becomes as an investment.

If she can’t or won’t get better, get tougher, I might have to liquidate her as a bad investment.

She thawed slowly, straightening, her arms losing their tension, her face relaxing back toward something I recognized. She said, “Who-” and stopped because her voice was rusty. She coughed and cleared her throat, ducking her head in a gesture I knew, and looked up at me to say, “Who were they? What did they want?”

“You know it was Petya, again.” I tell her. I can’t be the soft protector for her now—or ever. She has to get tougher and me going easy won’t help her.

I take her in my arms and carry her inside, as I carry her, I notice she’s straining to breathe, like her throat is cinched tight. “Easy, Kat, relax.” But no matter how hard she swallowed, the sharp constriction wouldn’t go away, she was struggling for air – hyperventilating.

I gripped her close to me, steadying her. “What is it?”

She shook her head, struggling not to feel, not to give into those fears and emotions painted on her face.

“Tell me.” I said and gave her a soft, urgent shake.

I sat her down on the bed and fetched a cup of water from the bathroom. “Drink,” I order her. “Slowly.”

She looks at me, I see the pain and fear in her eyes.

This day is going to haunt her for the rest of her life, just like Dmitry’s death has. I doubt she ever really came to terms with that one, though. This one she has no choice but to get over it.

She drinks slowly like I told her, when she goes to tip the glass down, I hold the end up. “Finish it, slowly. You were hyperventilating, this will normalize your breathing.”

---