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The Vision She Hid 118
The meeting room didn’t expect us to make it in time. It produced a sigh of shock and disbelief when three of us busted in, Elky leading, and not in the best mood. Chandeliers drooped from the ceiling, dimmed just enough to make grumpy old men look handsome and dangerous. A long Georgian mahogany table ran the length of the room like a spine that had learned how to seat power. On the walls, Elky’s ancestors stared down at modern criminals: admirals and abbots, a duchess with a throat like a plaster column, two men who’d probably conquered something worth the effort and a third, 20th century guy who’d definitely embezzled something big. The room felt timid. The portraits had more vertebrae than most of the men in the chairs.We came in as three—Elky in front, me in his orbit, Anastasia a step off my shoulder with the calm of a woman who’s made peace with what she did. The elders looked up in the synchronized motion of vultures deciding a carcass had finally stopped pretending to be se
The Vision She Hid 117
THe time for sentiments expired with the sound of sirens. It started as a rumor in the fog—thin, metallic, disturbing sound. Then they found their loud voice and got arrogant. The sound was accompanied with long red knives of light, sawing at the dark, Doppler whining off the wet concrete. The light strobes bled through the vines, turned the graffiti into moving wounds, and made the rust sweat.Elky didn’t look surprised. He looked prepared.“Positions,” he said into the radio, voice flat as an old invoice. “Two on the catwalk. One at the loading bay. Kill the lights upstairs—keep the bulb in the office; I want the decoy to breathe. If they breach, fall to stairwell B. No one dies or gets too loud.”Men answered in clicks and monosyllables, the tongue combat uses when deadline wears reinforced boots. Our men moved fast, flickering out of the gloom—the loyal few with the eyes of men who had outlived persistent trends. The old factory building took them in like an old cathedral remember
The Vision She Hid 116
Nobody listened, and nobody moved. I made an effort. I decided against crying. Now they were telling me I had to listen what my mother had to say. That ruined office of hers had the acoustics of a confession booth, making it a perfect place for reciting family history and other felonies. The lonely bulb buzzed, heroic and underpaid. Outside, the old factory breathed in that slow, damp way old buildings do when they knowingly outlived their owners. Water ticked somewhere in the dark like a patient metronome at my ballet lesson. I felt the countdown flexing on the back of my neck — 03:26:19 — the kind of number that walks into a room and sits in your chair, wondering why you are not in a rush.Anastasia finished binding her wrist and set the journal on the desk like a judge puts down a gavel. Her face, under the swelling, had the calm of a woman who has burned bridges and kept the ashes in a Chinese ginger jar. Elky stood just beyond the circle of light, a shadow with pockets, eyes numb
The Vision She Hid 115
The ruin around us breathed mildew and salty tears, but when I closed my eyes it smelled like bergamot and laundry starch. Memory is a lousy film noir; it keeps adding bay windows to rooms you only used once. I leaned against the well-lived desk. My mother just told me I was just a medical experiment with nice legs, and the desk’s wood grain turned into the kitchen table from another country, another decade. I remembered sun playing on glass. Lace curtains trying to teach the breeze how to behave. My mother was called Anastasia then. It wasn’t a codename yet, nor a cautionary tale. She was brewing Jasmine tea in our kitchen like it could fix all troubles in my little world.She used to cool the cup with two spoons of honey. “Sip, little dumpling,” she’d murmur, and my name in her mouth made me feel invincible. The tea was honey-sweet, with a bitterness that only arrived after the second spoon. I thought that was what love tasted like—warm up front, bitter sweet in the afterthought. Ye
The Vision She Hid 114
That tiny office had once been important. You could tell by the way the rot refused to take it all in starting at the door. Still, grey mold curled along the edges of the plain green wallpaper in patterns that looked like failed maps. A steel filing cabinet leaned sideways, drawers open, as if it had been mugged and no one had called the cops. Glass crunched under our boots—the remnants of the unlucky windows that had lost their argument with bricks.My mother sat at her old desk like she owned the lease on suffering. Rope burns painted her wrists raw, but she worked at them with the calm precision of a woman cataloging museum new finds that were nothing to do with her own flesh. A strip of gauze from a Elky’s med kit lay on her lap. I made a few unsure steps, offering help. She shook her head, stopping me. She wound the gauze around her arm with neat turns, each tighter than the last. Her face was battered, the right eye swollen, but her gaze had the kind of focus that made you feel
The Vision She Hid 113
The old factory rose out of the fog like it aspired to be a cathedral but settled for a morgue. It had nasty concrete ribs, vines for veins, and empty windows black as missing teeth. Sixty years of weather had gnawed at its bones, but the place still hummed with the kind of silence you only hear in graveyards. Nature had done her best to erase the past, but sins age slower than ivy.We parked short of the gate. Elky cut the lights and let the SUV die with the kind of finality that make you regret not writing a will. He slipped the pistol into his hand, checked the chamber with the same care other men check wedding rings, and nodded. That was his version of a love letter.I followed him, bandage tight under my coat, gun reassuringly cold in my palm. The fog licked the crumbled edges of the building, swallowing the colorful graffiti in pale tongues. Someone had painted a halo on the south wall, years ago, but rust had turned it into a noose.“Just be quiet,” Elky whispered. As if I was
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