THE LAMP AND THE SOUP  

KAIN

I sit in the dark security room and watch her on the monitor like some kind of twisted movie.

She’s tearing the bedroom apart. Drawers yanked open, clothes flung everywhere. What's left of the lamp base she tried to smash into my head earlier, gets kicked across the floor. She’s digging through everything, desperate, like if she just looks hard enough she’ll find a weapon, a key, a way out.

There’s nothing. I made sure of that. No knives, no sharp glass, nothing she could use to hurt herself or me.

Her parents, fuck. I can’t even call them that anymore. Viktor raised me after my real dad disappeared, pulled me out of the orphanage like some charity project. But he killed Sonya. He killed our baby too.

She was only three months along when she called me crying happy tears. That phone call is burned into my skull. That’s why I ended every single one of them at that table. I felt nothing while I did it. No guilt. No second thoughts.

Except when it came to her.

Tatiana’s face fills the screen again. Those grey eyes, wide and bright even through the camera. Same eyes that stared up at me across all that blood. They look just like my mother’s. Lana. She looks even more like her than her mother did. That’s the only reason the gun came down. Those eyes used to belong to my mom. She’s been gone twelve years now.

Viktor didn’t even wait for her to die. He jumped straight to her twin sister, Yeva, moved her and little Tatiana in while my mother was still wasting away in bed. I was fourteen when I left. Walked out against his orders the day they arrived. Never looked back.

On the screen Tatiana’s back stays straight, chin up even while she’s raging. Her mouth is moving fast, I bet she’s screaming every curse she knows. She’s nothing like my mother. Not really. Mom was soft. Quiet. A character flaw viktor manipulated to the fullest. This girl is all fire and sharp edges.

I stand up and grab the tray from the counter. The kitchen still feels like Sonya’s even though she’s been gone two years. I made my mother’s old recipes tonight, measuring everything from memory the way she taught me. I don’t know why I bother. There’s no one left to explain it to.

I head down the hall and unlock the door.

She’s standing right in the middle of the mess, fists clenched the second she sees me.

“Back again,” she says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me. Do all kidnappers have such weird visiting hours, or is this some special package?”

I don’t answer. Just set the tray on the dresser, the only spot she hasn’t trashed yet.

“Let me guess,” she keeps going, stepping closer. “Poison? Or is this the slow kind where you starve me until I catch Stockholm syndrome and start writing you love letters?”

“Eat.” I didn’t make it for me.

She looks at the bowl of soup. Then she leans down and spits right into the middle of it. Just… spits. The little glob sits there on top, shiny and gross.

“Oops,” she says, all fake innocence. “Clumsy me. You know what they say about girls whose parents get murdered in front of them. We’ve got terrible table manners.”

“Nobody says that.” I turn to leave.

“Wait.” Her tone shifts. “The cut. On your hand.”

I stop and glance down. The fresh pink line across my palm from when she swung that lamp. I’d already forgotten about it.

“You did that,” I say.

“Did I?” She smiles, small and mean. “At least I drew blood. Tiny as it is.”

She steps even closer, eyes locked on mine.

“Kill me or let me go,” she says, voice low and shaking with anger. “Or I swear to God I’ll become your worst nightmare.” She glances at the lamp still sitting on the side table. “That lamp’s still in one piece.”

She says it like I should be scared of her. Part of me almost wants to laugh.

"I'm not going to hurt you. If I wanted you dead, you'd be on that dining room floor with the others." A pause. "But if you run out that door right now, someone else will finish what I started. Someone who won't hesitate."

Her round eyes go wide as she took in the severity of my words.

“It’s better for you if you get used to these four walls soon.” I continued. I can't remember when I spoke this much in the span of a minute.

I walk out, close the door, and lock it.

I stand in the hallway longer than I should. My hand throbs a little. Small pain. I’ve had way worse.

From inside the room her voice comes through the wood, loud and raw.

“Let me out!” She pounds on the door with both fists.

I don’t move.

“I’ll kill you, you hear me? I will kill everyone you care about and send them to the afterlife just like you did mine!”

Her voice cracks at the end and turns into a sob.

I walk away down the hall.

She’ll need her strength if she’s going to keep fighting me like this.

I head back to the kitchen to make her another tray.