Chapter Text
Yassen watches Julia, Julia watches Alex, and Alex watches the stark white ceiling with unseeing eyes flickering over the expanse, as though a meteor shower snuck its way inside the compound and took its show to a captive audience.
“How is he?” asks Julia, fogging the glass of the window. The infirmary is cold; the air that trickles out from Alex’s lips is white and puffy like a cloud, like he’s a fire-breathing dragon set on ice to tame its potential. Here in the observation room, it’s stiflingly warm.
“He’ll be fine,” Yassen replies. Even in the humid heat, he doesn’t sweat. Nor does Rothman.
She smiles. “Good. That’s good.”
“Do you have nightmares?”
Yassen huffs a laugh, a sardonic thing, tugging the blanket over Alex’s chest. “No.” The scratchy fabric won’t lie flat; he grunts, tucking the edge under the thin mattress. Still no luck. “Do you?”
“Sometimes, yeah,” Alex admits. His face is washed out and drawn; it’s almost time for his next dose of painkillers. Best not to forget. “Do you ever wish you did?”
Frowning, Yassen pulls away. He doesn’t do so in punishment, but he sighs when Alex’s lip wobbles regardless. It’s always hard to tell what’s the meds, what’s manipulation, and what’s pure Alex Rider charm.
“Why would I wish I had nightmares?”
“To make you more…human, I don’t know.”
“Do you not think I’m human?” Yassen sits on the edge of the cot, mindful not to put pressure on the boy’s leg. The air cast is ungainly, but it keeps him mobile. On the one hand, it’s a blessing: Alex Rider stuck in bed is a frightful thought. On the other, it’s a curse: a limping spy is a thoroughly irritating one.
Alex shifts, getting as close to comfortable as he can manage. “I didn’t say that. I think sometimes you don’t think you’re human.”
“I know my limits.”
“I didn’t say that either. You’re deflecting.”
“Or,” Yassen says pointedly, “I’m trying to…wind down. You need to sleep.”
Alex mocks his words back to him, grinning at his scoff. “I’m not tired.”
“Tough. Sleep.” Beseeching blue eyes stare up at him, and Yassen knows exactly where this is heading. It’s become a routine over the past week. Routines are dangerous to have in this life of theirs; he’s started to let himself look forward to it.
“Tell me a story,” Alex demands.
Rather emphatically, Yassen says, “No.” He stares unblinking at Alex’s pitiful show of childishness; it’s a quietly aching, broken relief. After everything, he still allows himself to be young. Even if it’s the pain, or the drugs, or all a show, he wants a bedtime story. And Yassen will, after a time, tell him one. “Focus on your breaths. Breathe in for—”
“Four seconds, yeah, I got it.” Alex rolls his eyes, breathing in despite his annoyance.
“Good. Hold for seven,” Yassen says, cutting a smile at Alex’s glare, “then exhale for eight.”
At the end of Alex’s long breath out, he sighs. “Does this ever actually work?”
“You tell me. In for four.”
After nine repetitions, Alex is, as always, out like a light. Yassen flicks the tangle of blonde hair out of his eyes, nabbing the readied syringe off the bed frame. The boy doesn’t so much as twitch as the medication enters his bloodstream.
Ostensibly, he lingers to keep an eye on Alex’s breathing. Which is an excuse, sure, both to Rothman and to Yassen, himself. A round of prednisone knocked the first hints of pneumonia out of crackly lungs, and all of his scans have been overwhelmingly reassuring. Still. Alex asked him to stay. He doesn’t quite know how to do that, but he’s doing his level best. He doesn’t make a habit of lying to himself; just this once, he permits the indulgence. This is for Alex’s benefit. It’s his new mantra.
Carefully standing, Yassen pulls a blanket out of the wardrobe. He sits on the floor in the corner, propped up against the wall, and he starts his tale.
“It was shortly after we met, if I remember right. Your father knew, a little, at least, about Sharkovsky. I found it hard to eat, but I let it slip that I’d never had ice cream before. He brought me strawberry. I hated it. So he tried again, this time it was…chocolate, I think. I hated it more.”
On and on, he speaks until the story is over, or he falls asleep first. It doesn’t matter which. He doesn’t have any nightmares; he never does. He dreams, instead, of John, with little Alex by his side.
“I’m coming with you,” Alex says.
“No, you’re not.”
Close to stomping his feet, Alex visibly composes himself. His eyes are clear when he looks back to Yassen, his jaw set. “Why not? I’m here to learn, aren’t I?”
“Why? Imagine a kite.” At Alex’s broadcasted confusion, Yassen takes no small amount of pleasure in telling him, “You are as high as that kite. Sit down.”
It’s a battle of wills, though one side of those wills is doused with morphine, and already unsteady on his feet. Alex sits with a thump and a sneer. Yassen smiles peaceably down at him.
“Good,” he says. “Stay.”
“‘m not a dog.”
“No? Well, I was going to give you a treat, but…”
Alex snorts. “Don’t quit your day job.”
The ‘day job’ aspect is the main source of trouble. Rothman hasn’t sent Yassen out on further assignments, but he has responsibilities here. Namely, training the recruits. She doesn’t quite trust him anymore, that much is clear, yet she insists that he keeps up with his work. It leaves a window in Alex’s defences; neither of them particularly like it. The winds of change have found Malagosto. It’s uncertain who they favour.
Soundlessly stepping out of the door and into the hall, he hears some less than soundless footfalls tottering behind him. “No treat for you.”
“How ever will I survive?” Alex jeers.
Does Yassen give up, or does he give in? “Stay out of sight. You might as well make use of this opportunity.” He slows down for Alex to catch up; he doesn’t look at him.
“What class is this?”
“No class, private lessons. Yoga.”
Alex snorts. “Yoga,” he says slowly. “Can’t say this is the typical yoga retreat. I’m not sure how much ‘legs behind the head, balancing upside down’ I can do.”
“Perhaps you should have considered this.” Coming to a natural stop at a large wooden door, Yassen frowns. “You will work on your breathing,” he decides.
“Oh I will, will I? What, have you figured out a way to weaponize sleep breathing? If I concentrate on my breaths I’ll fall asleep and lull my enemy into a false sense of security?”
Amused despite himself, Yassen laughs. “If anyone could do it, it would be you. But…no. You breathe very loudly.” He cracks open the door, stopping Alex with a hand on his chest. “Stay in the shadows. Do not let yourself be seen, and most importantly—”
“Don’t be heard, got it.” Alex tosses his head back, momentarily shifting his fringe from his eyes. It falls again in an instant.
Yassen tuts, reaching out to brush it away. Sometimes he wishes Alex would flinch.
“Good,” Yassen says, peering down at the floor. “Now do it again. Do it right.”
Alyona slides gracefully to her feet, face blank, covered with a light sheen of sweat. She doesn’t complain, she doesn’t raise a fuss. She settles into mountain position, head held high, arms to her side, simply existing.
Yassen checks his watch, fidgeting the band around his wrist. In truth, Alyona has done her routine flawlessly with every attempt—all eight of them, so far. He’s merely killing time, putting in enough effort that Rothman won’t complain about his inactivity. Alyona probably knows. She bends down at the waist, legs straight, head tucked by her knees with her palms flat on the floor. Inside, he imagines she’s roiling with frustration at being stuck on the compound, not set free in the world. Outwardly, she’s placid and impassive. She’s ready for bigger things.
“Why do you waste all of our time with this?”
If he were a lesser man, Yassen’s face would find a sneer. He’s no great man, and if he cared enough about the concept, then he’d decide he’s nowhere even near good, but his self-governance is unparalleled, even by SCORPIA’s standards. “Nile,” he greets with a blank nod.
“Yassen,” Nile smirks. “She should be practising long-range shooting. Her scores haven’t improved since last week, but here you two are, dancing.”
Alyona walks her hands forward, uncaring of her new audience, holding position in an upturned ‘V’ without a trace of shaking or fatigue.
“Brute strength may work for some,” Yassen says, flicking his eyes to Nile, “but Alyona’s talents lie in grace. She excels at distance shooting, in any case. Why are you holding her back?”
A soft shuffling trickles out from a dark corner; clearing his throat, Yassen draws Nile’s attention to himself once again.
“If anyone is holding her back,” Nile says, “then it’s her. Isn’t that right, Aly?”
“Yes, sir,” Alyona says evenly. In an instant she’s on her head, body held effortlessly in the air. She barely appeared to move.
Nile scoffs, crossing his arms. “We have a fair few weak links right now, wouldn’t you agree, Yassen?”
“I believe that you would understand weakness most of all. Have you climbed the tower recently? Marvellous view, isn’t it?” Yassen holds back his laughter, calms the beast that crows its victory for the jab. Nile and heights. Not a match made in heaven. He doesn’t like to stoop so low; Nile lives in the depths. Quite literally.
Flaring his nostrils, Nile bites out, “As a matter of fact, I have. Invisible Sword is almost ready. The cathedral, the tower, is ours. Julia would like to speak with you about it when she returns tomorrow.”
“Of course.”
“She requested that the…boy toy,” Nile spits, “sees her tomorrow as well. Pass the message along, will you?”
Lip twitching in distaste, Yassen checks his watch. “You can go, Alyona,” he says softly, still facing Nile—he hears the gentle patter of her feet finding the floor, waiting until the door thumps shut behind her. “What does Julia want with Alex?”
“She didn’t say. Still, she asked. I expect him to be there. Alone.”
“Is there something that you would like to say to me?”
“I don’t think it needs to be said, does it? You think I have a weakness? Yassen Gregorovich…looks like he’s finally found his heart. And it breathes too loudly. There’s no use hiding, Alex.”
Silence, true silence, this time. Too little, too late. Yassen whistles sharply, a clipped noise that saved his life on more than one occasion on his missions with John; Alex responds to it as promptly as his father did. Yassen can practically feel the protests that curl on Alex’s lips—‘Not a dog.’ Obedient all the same, when it suits him.
Unrepentant, he limps into the light. “So sorry about my breathing, it must be the pneumonia. Now, how did I get that again, Nile? I can’t seem to remember with the concussion…”
“So smart, so witty, aren’t you?”
“I like to think so,” Alex says with feeling.
Storming off, Nile calls out over his shoulder, “Alex will meet with her first. 09:00. Don’t be late.”
Alex deflates in relief, his bravado falling fallow.
“That was very foolish,” Yassen says. “You should not provoke him.”
“You did.”
“Yes, well. Simple pleasures.” Yassen slates his hand on Alex's shoulder, squeezing lightly, and pulling him in, Yassen ushers him out of the room. He finally found his heart. It terrifies him. “Come, you should rest.”
“All I do is rest,” Alex mutters; he leans into Yassen’s hand regardless, slumping with exhaustion.
“No, no, please…”
Yassen’s eyes fly open, his limbs tightening with tense readiness; not coiled like a serpent but wound up like a greyhound at the gates, ready to run at the crack of a bullet. He scans the dim room, taking in the closed door, the untouched ventilation ducts, the lack of movement disturbing the stale air. He hears it again, whimpering: “No,” and, “Please stop,” and, “Stop,” but never ‘Help.’
“Alex,” he whispers, swinging his legs under himself and pushing up to stand on his knees. It’s undignified, the crawl-walk he adopts to approach the cot, but he’s seen what happens when an assassin is woken abruptly, and he doesn’t want Alex to exacerbate any of his injuries by slamming into consciousness swinging. Never having taken a life in cold blood, an assassin Alex still is—his instincts rival those of a professional.
The boy’s lips twist into a grimace, pulling back, snarling, showing gritted teeth. His fingers tighten around the blanket, tendons gleaming white through bruised skin. He looks like a cornered animal. He looks like he’s in pain. It’s a negligible consideration; even still, it’s unpleasant to watch, and he needs decent sleep to heal.
“Alex,” Yassen tries again. Alex’s nails scrabble at the stitches on his head; he grunts, hisses, twists in the sheets. Yassen leans back on his heels, adjusting the angle of his body—he has to time this right. There’s no doubt in his mind that he will, but even if curiosity killed the cat, cockiness was the driving engine. Carelessness walks hand in hand with it. In one darting-lashing-striking movement, Alex’s wrists are locked in his grip, his other hand pressed over his mouth. “Don’t shout,” he whispers as Alex falls still, face shuttered but undoubtedly awake. “Find yourself.”
Alex cracks his eyes open, flexes his arms. Sleep-soft and warm, he grumbles, relaxing back against the bed. His tongue flicks out to wet his lips; freezing, he finds Yassen’s eyes in the gloom. “Sorry,” he mumbles from behind his muzzle.
Removing his hand, Yassen wipes his palm off on the blanket. He shrugs. “You’d be surprised how many people do that on purpose.”
“When you’re killing them, you mean.”
“Yes. Or kidnapping, but…yes.”
Alex draws in a deep breath, chest shuddering as he lets it out. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight; he’s learning. And then he throws a curveball. “Why did you kill my uncle?”
‘No,’ ‘Please stop,’ ‘Stop,’—“Is that what you were dreaming about?” At Alex’s jerky nod, Yassen sighs, pulling himself up to perch on the edge of the mattress. “You asked me that before. With—”
“Cray,” Alex spits. “I remember. You said…you said he made a mistake, that he trusted the people he worked with. Now you’re asking me to trust the people you work with, to become one of them.”
It’s not an unfair point. Yassen doesn’t entertain it.
“How can it be so simple for you?” Alex asks. “If you really were my father’s friend, how could you kill his brother?”
“You’re making it personal again. This…”—gesturing vaguely around the room, Yassen ties an imaginary rope around SCORPIA, cinching it tightly around them both—“this isn’t about me, or you. It’s about the mission. You complete the mission they give you. Even when you know the target. History means nothing.”
‘Where do we go from here, Yas?’
It was the last time anyone called him anything but his name, what has become his title. Yassen Gregorovich, assassin. No more Yasha; he died long ago. No more Cossack. No more Yas.
Alex brushes it off. “Did you want to do it?” he asks.
“That didn’t matter. But…no, I didn’t.”
“What did you say to him? What did you say right before you killed him?”
“I told him I was sorry.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you kill him?”
Yassen tips his head up, budging further up on the bed to lean against the wall. He's had his four hours of sleep, so why is he so exhausted? “I told you, it was the job.”
“Would you kill me? Would you kill me if they told you to?”
And Yassen can only think of the nanoparticles already swimming in Alex's lungs; he didn’t put them there, but he drove Alex to come here. He killed him already. If it came down to it—“No,”—this would be the only job he couldn’t carry out himself. It’s probably a moot point. It’s definitely something he shouldn’t have confessed. A burden unlatches from his chest all the same, slipping out like a stiletto knife after it dealt a mortal wound.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” Alex admits quietly. “It should be easy, yeah? You’re a murderer, for nothing more than money. You killed my uncle. You worked with Cray, Grief.”
“You’ll work for similar characters if you stay here, Alex. Do you still believe in good and evil?”
“I’d like to.”
Yassen lifts up Alex’s ankles, settles them over his lap. Alex's eyes dance closed, fight to open again. He looks young. “Maybe that’s what you have to change. Maybe that is what you have to let go of.”
“Will I still feel guilty, then?”
“For what?”
“For not hating you.”
How much easier it would be if Alex hated him. How much simpler for them both.
“Get some sleep,” he says, instead of anything close to what tumbles through his mind. Alex is already snoring.
“He is not ready,” Yassen says, hands clasped behind his back. “His injuries haven’t fully healed, and he hasn’t finished his training.”
“Yes, he has barely even started it.” Julia keeps her eyes on the report spread before her, pages of satellite images and diagrams showing molecular structures.
“It would be a mistake to send him out. He has a concussion, Julia.”
Inclining her head, Julia muses, “Perhaps.” She beckons him closer, sliding a tablet across the desk. “But…he disagrees. He wants a mission.”
“He wants to prove himself,” Yassen says distractedly, swiping through pages of Alex’s plan to infiltrate a large home in the middle of no-man’s-land on the island. “This does not mean it would be wise to give him the opportunity to do so. He’s unstable. He might fail.”
“That’s always the risk. If he’s to live the life his father wanted, then he must learn this soon.”
“I don’t think—”
“No,” Julia cuts in, pushing her chair out to rise. She saunters closer, staring undaunted up at Yassen. “You don’t think. We pay you to act. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you to go with him and show him what he needs to see.”
Yassen comes to a realisation right then, putting together pieces that spelled out disaster long before they fell into place—the nanoparticles in Alex’s lungs, the ominous cloud of doom that smells of ozone and reeks of blood hanging heavily over Malagosto. “You want him to fail.”
“I want him to understand. I’m no fool, Yassen. I know he won’t be able to pull the trigger. But he trusts you, God only knows why.”
“This will break that trust.”
Julia laughs, tossing her head back. It’s an overblown motion, overacted. “It might. It might. And you know what? Maybe that will teach him something, too.”
“This game you play…it is very dangerous.” Yassen passes the tablet back to her, mind running through the security features Alex missed, already strategizing about how to subtly nudge him towards seeing the potentially deadly mistakes.
“For whom? For you?”
“For you. Don’t forget what he has accomplished. He brought down Grief and Cray almost single-handedly. Don’t make an enemy of him.”
Sapphire eyes blink slowly back at him, rather like the tiger Julia keeps at her home in Venice. Languid, pleased, gluttonous. They glint, catching the warm light of her office; she has already made Alex her enemy. Yassen wonders just where this is going.
“Get him ready. Do your job, and never forget your place. This is only the first step, after all.”
“And after that?”
Julia hums, taking her seat. “You’re dismissed.”
Swallowing down his frustration—not quite new, but never before so all-consuming—Yassen turns heel and makes his way back to Alex’s quarters.
He knows the basics of Invisible Sword, the ticking time bomb just waiting for the push of a button, the pulse of waves cast out from the cathedral in Bath. He knows the forecasted death toll, the bodies that will litter the streets. What he doesn’t know is why Julia is so insistent on Alex being involved, to the bitter end—why she won’t involve Yassen.
Another lie. He’s always been good at those; obfuscations and untruths, veils over eyes and last minute betrayals. He—the only member of SCORPIA, apparently, to have any semblance of reins over himself—finds his calm by accepting everything that happens as reality. To lie to oneself lends no peace, no centred confidence. Julia won’t involve him because she knows. She knows he won’t kill the boy. Crucially, Rothman also sees. Just what she finds is hard to say, but she clearly isn’t overly fond of it. Yassen has his task, and he’ll complete it. Julia has her plans, and as for Alex? It seems he is, as is his norm, right in the heart of all of this. The crosshairs are faintly tattooed over his chest, if only one cares to look.
Yassen nods vacantly at Syl, walking towards him from the direction of Alex’s room, pushing against the wall of the narrow hallway to let her pass. She dips her head, stately, sure, a private smile lifting just the corners of her mouth. She pauses, nearly too far away to be heard.
“Keep him safe,” she murmurs. And then she’s gone.
“I intend to,” he whispers to the air, to the ghost that lives in his shadow. He knows he’ll never be free of the Rider’s, now. They’ve been etched into his DNA, woven through the cage of his ribs, twisting around his lungs until every breath is a reminder of responsibility, obligation.
Pushing into Alex’s room, he snags the tablet out of his hands and waves off his noise of discontent. The mistakes have already been corrected.
“Good,” Yassen says, concealing his surprise. He should know better by now than to underestimate Alex Rider. “Make a list, everything you think you will need.”
Alex smiles, almost shy at the dreg of praise. “Already did.” Pulling a paper aeroplane out from his desk, he flies it across the room, launching it with the nose pointed up so it loops back around. Yassen snags it out of the air, a jungle cat batting a bird from the sky. “Will I be alone? I mean, are you—or, just, y’know, anyone…”
“I will be with you.” Unfolding the paper, Yassen blinks. “I can’t read this. Who taught you to write?”
“A blind chicken, if you’d believe it.” Alex huffs at Yassen’s unimpressed look, rising with difficulty to take back the list. “C’mon, that was funny. And it’s not that bad, really. See?” Pointing to a scratchy mess of ink, Alex reads, “‘CCTV scrambler.’”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
It’s uncanny how similar Alex’s handwriting is to Hunter’s—John’s. Impossible to decipher, John used to say it was like his own personal code; privately, Yassen had thought it apt. No one, save for the most dedicated code-breakers, would have been able to process the flicked out lines and pooled ink that made up John’s understanding of letters. Alex’s may, in fact, be worse.
Yassen sits on the cot, squeaking the coil springs with his weight. “Alex…you’re sure about this?”
“Yeah, ‘course,” he says; his hands shake as he sets his desk back in order. “What, you don’t think I can do it? It’s just a house, all we need to do is grab whatever is in the safe. Shouldn’t be too hard, yeah?”
“No, no.” He’s not an emotive man. Yassen casts away his apprehension—he has a job to do. So does Alex. This is the life. His protective streak will do Alex no favours, and there are bigger powers at play. The only way to find out what Julia is planning, why she sacrificed Alex to her great plot, is to move forward.
Therein lies the problem: if he could allow himself to accept that protectiveness is fondness and fondness is attachment, he would be paralysed by the fact that moving forward is a life—death—sentence. Once Alex starts, he won’t be able to stop. He’s dipped below the surface, walked the dark underbelly of the world, crawled in and out of the maggot filled maw of the beast. This? Murder? There’s no coming back from it. Alex doesn’t yet know what he’s agreed to. It isn’t a question of morals—Max Grendel is a target, just a heart beating a countdown behind a flimsy sternum—nor is it a question of age, skill, anything at all. It’s a stamp on a soul, and a one-way ticket to a life he’s not sure that Alex quite understands.
Yassen can’t allow himself to accept it. He can’t acknowledge this festering gap in his armour. So he says, “Meet me in the weapons room at 13:00,” and he leaves.
Alex fidgets as the car rises over bumps in the road, crashing down in the divots; Yassen says nothing. Nerves, he assumes, mixed with a good deal of pain. Alex needs a clear head for this. It’s the first time he’s gone more than a few hours without any medication.
“Do you know the house?” Alex asks.
“I’ve seen it before. I have never been inside.”
Alex hums, forehead pressed against the window. “What’s in the safe? I was thinking arms, but that seems too small of a target. Information, maybe? Or like, some, I dunno—”
“Do you have to talk this much?”
“Yes,” Alex beams. His smile wobbles off of his cheeks; his reflection wails of anxious agitation. He’s sweating—the car has no air conditioning. The windows, bulletproof, stay up.
Yassen sighs, turning down a dusty road, lit bright by the concentrated stare of the sun. “You’re prepared. You did your research. Trust your instincts, and do the job.” His eyes dart to the rearview mirror, narrowing at a cloud of debris in the distance. They’re not alone. Two figures ride the bumpy stretch of dirt on a Vespa, small, and oh-so obvious. Amateurs. Children.
“What if something goes wrong?”
“Things go wrong all the time. I believe…Ian taught you a fair amount. Act. Don’t think. It has worked well for you so far.” It’s the wrong thing to say.
“Ian wouldn’t have wanted me to do this,” Alex whispers. “He…gave his life for his country. You took that life for SCORPIA. But then my father…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to feel.”
Following in the footsteps of a dead man, Alex must feel as though he’s shovelling out his own grave. Providing comfort has never been Yassen’s forte; the most comfortable he’s ever been was in cars just like this, in moments, mirror images, of missions. He was always the passenger. He was only two years older than Alex is now. They’ve flipped the tables, upset the seating arrangement. For Yassen, this feels right. And because it feels right, it feels wrong. He, too, has doubts.
“Ian never accepted what happened to John,” Yassen murmurs. “I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Alex sits up, propping his back against the door; the seatbelt pulls at his neck, though he doesn’t appear to notice. “Wait, did you actually know Ian?”
“Not well, but I did.”
“Did he ever mention me?”
“No. He didn’t need to, however. As good of a spy as he was, vomit stains on shoulders are hard to wash out, and quite telling. He wasn’t one to settle down. I figured it out on my own.”
Alex giggles, squinting in the sunlight. “He walked around with baby vomit stains while fighting his enemy?”
“Not fighting. We used to get drinks. He looked tired, in those days. I’d assume you were a handful.”
“Drinks. You two used to get drinks.”
“I told you,” Yassen says, swerving down the last stretch of the road before their destination. “Good and evil…these are not so realistic. There are people. There are tasks. Sometimes those overlap, but at the end of the day, no one fits into a box.”
“Do you expect me to forgive you? There’s no good or evil, so you’re just a man?”
Yassen shakes his head, rolling the car to a stop. He puts it in park, flicking his eyes over the crumbling wall that surrounds Grendel’s house. “I don’t.” He doesn’t particularly want Alex to forgive him. He fears that would be the final bucket of water doused over the boy’s defiance.
“You’re a tough case to crack,” Alex mutters.
“Should I be offended?”
Alex smiles, too toothy, too hardened. “Nah,” he says, “I think being enigmatic suits your whole ‘unhand me or face my blade’ schtick.”
“Now I think I am offended.” Yassen bends over to unlock the glove compartment, slipping his handgun out. As he rights himself, he makes sure that the point of his elbow comes in contact with Alex’s nose.
“Ow!” Alex gripes.
“Be prepared. Just because we are in the car does not mean we are safe.”
“Fine,” Alex grunts. “Pass me the binoculars, will you?”
He doesn’t often have the chance to see Alex in action; usually, he’s stuck marvelling at the fallout. At this stage, he’s merely an extra set of hands, a personal armoury. He has to admit, even with further scrutiny revealing that some of the corrections to Alex’s plans were made by a much tidier hand, the incursion plot is solid, well thought out. Yassen is, albeit reluctantly, proud of him. Of course, the boy only knows so much. He dismantles the alarm system with ease, but a life sits at the end of this path he’s drawn out, and it has an expiration date. Reaching the top of the stairs, Alex swings the final door open. Yassen hangs back.
“You lead the way.”
Alex’s perusal of the room is loud, indelicate. His breaths are quiet. “Bingo,” Alex says, and then the penny drops.
“Bit late for visitors, isn't it?” Max says. A click, and ribbons of light flash through the doorway. “So, Julia's given you your first field mission.”
He can hear Alex’s fidgeting as clear as day; a picture paints itself into being in his mind. Broken confidence and shattered fears, dripping out of Alex’s core and steaming the air in a miasma of uncertainty. The boy won’t be able to follow through, that much is sure.
“Where is it?” asks Alex.
“Where is what?”
“The safe.”
“There is no safe,” Max says, kindly, the grandfather he’s let himself become. “Whatever information exists, it's all in here. And Julia knows that. But you don't, do you? Alex, tell me, did you come here alone?”
Yassen takes that as his cue, striding in and appraising the room. It’s fitting to Max's tastes. Old-fashioned, but charming, in its own way. What once were rich fabrics cover sagging furniture, and the wallpaper that struggles to cling to the walls might have, at some point in the long-forgotten past, been close to decadent. He didn’t lie about this; he’s never been inside.
Grendel shifts in his seat. “Yassen,” he says, voice resigned, yet bizarrely hopeful. His eyes snap back to Alex. He must see an exit strategy in the boy’s reluctance.
“Max.”
“Sorry,” Alex cuts in, “what's going on here?” He sounds afraid; he looks betrayed.
“Come,” Yassen tells him. Alex walks over, apprehension, anger in the lines of his face. Yassen offers him the gun. He takes it hesitantly.
“Are you going to shoot me, Alex?” Grendel says.
Alex hitches a swallow, keeping the safety on. “What—but. I thought…the safe, we’re here for the safe.”
Yassen turns Alex so their sides are to Max; he watches out of the corner of his eye, most of his awareness focused on the boy. “There is no safe. This is the job.”
“You lied to me!” Vibrating with rage, Alex shakes his head. “I won’t kill him.”
“Then you’ll fail.” Yassen reaches over and flicks off the safety. “This is what you’re here for. You want your revenge?” Circling around Alex's back, Yassen takes his wrists and pulls up, their combined hold raising the gun. “Learn how to pull the trigger.”
“I’d rather fail. I’d rather die.”
Grendel smiles; it’s a death mask. It’s the grin a corpse wears as it desiccates under the sun, swinging from a noose, skin pulled tight. “That’s right,” he says, drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair. “You don’t need to kill me. You can still walk away.”
The gun waver’s in Alex’s grasp. “What have you done? You must’ve done something, otherwise why would I be here?”
Max laughs, patronising. “Send a boy to do a man’s job…” he mutters. “You know, I think Julia wanted you to fail. Why else would she send you in here without telling you about me? Why would she send you with your guard dog?”
“Don’t let him get to you,” Yassen murmurs in his ear. “Do the job. That’s all it is, a job.”
Shaking, now, Alex plants his feet. “I don’t…I don’t want to do this.”
Yassen takes hold of the gun, his arms still wrapped around Alex.
“Then don’t,” says Grendel in defeat. “Can’t blame me for trying.” He sets his shoulders, crossing his legs. “It won’t make much of a difference in the end.”
“What?” Alex asks.
Adjusting his stance, Yassen offers Max a final dignity: “Would you like to finish your drink?”
“No. Thank you.”
Nothing is more natural than death. A haggard exhale, slack limbs, a drooped jaw—it comes for everyone. It's quiet. A gun, on the other hand, is alien to the natural world. It’s rare to find nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, BANG!—calamity is, on Earth, often preceded by warning signs. The Beretta 92FS in Yassen’s hands has a modified trigger pull weight of just over two pounds. The only sound that announces its firing is inaudible to the human ear, until the firing pin strikes the primer and lights a blast of gunpowder, rocketing the bullet into…well. Directly into Max’s heart. Used to the after, the ringing, the rush of blood through fine veins and vessels, Yassen looks at Max Grendel, dead. Alex stands unmoving in the cage of his arms.
It doesn’t take long for—
“How could you?” Alex starts, desperately fighting his hold. Yassen doesn’t let him leave, tugging him around, pulling him into a hug.
“This is what you had to see, to learn. This is what we do.”
“He was one of you.”
“He was our target, Alex.”
“He was unarmed! I trusted you,” Alex cries, muffled by his shoulder. “Let me go! Let me—get off me!”
Yassen hushes him, bundling him up tightly. “Listen,” he whispers, quietly enough that Alex has to calm in order to hear him. “Listen, listen. Take a deep breath. Tell me what you hear.”
“I don’t—” Alex struggles again, grunting at a prod to his cracked ribs, settling when Yassen doesn’t budge. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Then the job is done. This is your peace.” Yassen grips him by the biceps, pushing him back and seeking his eyes. “It’s done. Your father always said—”
“I don’t want to hear about what my father did after he murdered someone.” Finally breaking free, Alex takes off unsteadily down the stairs.
Yassen doesn’t chase him. He hums a nameless tune, mind spinning, wiping down the gun and placing it in Max's hand. He is nothing more than his pulse, steady, tha-thump tha-thump. He’s tranquil. Not a god, not the hand of death. He’s a man who achieved his goal. It's the first and last thing John ever taught him.
After a minute, he leaves the house, hearing distant noises. He can make out Alex's voice, rustling bushes to his left. He stops, tipping his head towards the sound: reedy breaths, soft panting. A kid. One of Alex's friends. He lets it be; a foundation is laying itself down, brick by brick. He can’t stop it now. He can only hope—and how dangerous, to be stuck in the whims of hope—that the foundation will prop up a future instead of a mausoleum.
Alex’s voice trickles from behind one of the stone walls surrounding the house, just beside the car. “I messed up. Okay? I really did. You don't understand. You have to go.”
The next voice is vaguely, distantly familiar. It’s Yassen’s job to remember such mundanities. “No, no. Not without you. Okay?” The voice belongs to Alex’s schoolmate, Tom Harris.
“You can't help me. Go. Go!”
Waiting until the other boy has made his escape, Yassen swings around the wall. “Time to leave,” he says, careful not to acknowledge the susurrus that grows softer with every second. Alex trembles, planting himself in front of the shrubs one of his friends is hiding in. “Unless…you have something to tell me.”
“No.” As snappy as a firecracker—Yassen is well used to Alex’s anger. Less so with having to live with it in close quarters. “I trusted you,” Alex whispers, as though he isn’t himself a liar.
Yassen says nothing. Alex flinches when he steers him towards the car.