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Siper climbed the window, a pair of frantic hands pushing her out, the sun outside a cold, blinding white that obscured the intruding presence at the foot of the house.
“Go, go!”
The incessant doorbell ringing stopped, her mother opened the door for the two military officers rooted sternly on the front porch.
“Mrs. Simno?”
“Yes?” Her mother’s feeble voice arrived distant and meek.
“I’m lieutenant Banna, this is officer Kardinsky. Is your daughter Sonia home?”
“Did something happen to her?”
“It’s better if we talk inside, ma’am.”
The moment she welcomed them in, Siper leapt down to the ground, muttering a long slew of curses under her breath.
Out in the open, she tiptoed to the back of the house, walking closely along the walls, ear tilted to catch the muffled words coming from inside.
Barefoot, heart pounding in her chest, certain she won’t be seen, Siper bolted towards the forest.
The trail was wet with the morning rain, her toes collecting mud and dry leaves as she ran among the sullen, black trees, blood rushing in her ears, head so heavy she almost fell, catching herself on a mound of rocks and bending down to watch the meager contents of her stomach splatter on the forest floor in one uncontrollable heave.
Fuck, fuck, fuck .
A military commission? She should have fucking known. Of course they weren’t going to let her escape without consequences. They were going to come back, unannounced, without warning, over and over again until they caught her. And if she stayed in this town for long, they would.
Siper coughed, pulled herself up with hands to her thighs, and turned back. It was impossible to see the house from here. The fear in her body had carried her far enough, but she knew she couldn’t stay here forever. She sat on the ground to catch her breath, her fingers sinking in the fuzzy, tender lichen blanketing the stone mound, the chilly forest wind sending the stench of her own putrid vomit back to her.
It was a grave mistake to have come back here–her rash lack of foresight could prove fatal.
She could wait for nightfall, or she could wait for her own family members to retrieve her, although she could imagine them appearing in the dead of night with guns to her head, once they learned the full truth.
Siper snorted. Did something happen to her? Her mother sounded convincing enough, she supposed. What the old woman didn’t know might make her act even more convincing.
With no money to earn her keep and military hounds after her, she wouldn’t be welcome, the house emptied of her as soon as she had stepped foot out of it.
Yet, she couldn’t leave town. Not in this state, anyway, and not without some money first.
«»
Old beer bottles littered the porch, the floorboards creaking, the big oak of her childhood decapitated, only the old, torn mosquito net standing between Siper and the cesspool of poverty she called home.
She would kill for a cigarette and a place by the firelit stove, instead a beer bottle was hurtled at her so fast Siper barely managed to avoid it before it smashed against the wall next to her head.
Staring at her with utter, shaking resentment, her mother was ready to toss another bottle at her. “We didn’t get a dime for all your goddamn trouble.”
“Let me explain.”
“Get out!”
“I’ll tell you wh—”
“GET OUT.”
The shriek was so sharp, so loud it burrowed in her bones, overtaking the sound of green glass shattering once again against the wall. Siper picked up the broken neck of the bottle and tossed it out of the open door.
“Let me get my cigarette pack at least, goddammit.”
«»
“Auntie, did you really kill a man?”
Siper looked away from the lighter patch of paint on the deteriorating wall, what was once mounted upon it now a trophy belonging to someone else, the mantle under it, as well, empty but for one object, as always their thoughtfulness only extending to what couldn’t be exchanged for money—a picture of a grinning teenage girl brandishing a gold medal.
Beer swished bitterly in her mouth as she met the curious gaze of the child sitting cross-legged on the tattered carpet, staring at her expectantly.
“Who’s saying that?” Sal cut in sharply from the kitchen sink, turning with horrified, exhausted eyes to stare at her curious son.
His eyes fluttered. “Everybody.”
Siper gestured with her chin towards the strewn textbooks on the coffee table. “Finish your homework and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Stop this.” Her sister slammed the wet towel over the sink, wiping her hands on the back of her jeans. “Finish doing the dishes, I have to go.”
“Where?” Siper asked, turning to follow the other woman as she took off her apron and left the kitchen.
“Work.” Sal pivoted, walking past Siper to collect her jacket off the couch.
“Take the day off,” Siper said, jangling the beer can in front of her sister. “Thought we could drink and catch up. It’s been a while.”
Coming to a sudden stop, Sal turned to her with a hollowed glare, her eyes cold and sunken. “If you haven’t noticed, there’s eight people in this house and only one of them makes money.”
“I miss you.”
Unmoved, Sal bent down to pick her shoes. “And I’ll start missing you when you find a job.”
“I’m looking for work, okay?”
“Of course you are.”
“I am!” Siper yelled, watching her sister wear her shoes hastily and welter at the rack by the front door in search of her bag.
“Good luck then.” Sal opened the door, then stopped to address her again. “Don’t get drunk in front of my child.”
The door slammed shut.
«»
A rabbit. An eggshell. A gun.
Lying on a bed too small for her frame, cigarette smoke wafting in thick circles over her head, Siper stared at the peeling paint of her old bedroom, jaw tense as she attempted to ignore the voices of what sounded like a hundred children running outside her door. Her other sister was rummaging through the closet and drawers, sniffing clothes, piling them in a basket.
A smelly t-shirt landed on her face as soon as she flicked the cigarette butt out the window.
She missed the grainy silence of the desert military camp.
With a heavy laundry basket pinned against her hip, Siper opened the door and tried navigating her way through a platoon of feral rugrats occupying the hallway, parting them away with her foot, and it took her a moment too long to realize another adult was in the hallway with them.
Unlike her, his presence alone was enough to scatter the children out of sight.
They haven’t been alone in the same room since her arrival.
Instinctively, Siper stood closer to the wall, intending to let him through, but he didn’t move. Instinctively, she didn’t meet his gaze, feeling it poring over her, through her. When he neither passed nor addressed her, she made to continue walking.
He stepped in her way.
“I can get you a job with a buddy of mine,” he smiled, nearing closer, glancing down at her gray slacks. “Needs different kinds of clothes, though.”
She finally looked at him. “Tell your ‘buddy’ he can fuck himself.”
His mouth twisted. “Pride won’t do you shit. Can’t have you leeching off this family again.”
Anger made her weak in front of him, so she braved a scoff when he turned away to continue down the hallway. “Can’t handle competition?”
That stopped him in his tracks.
Even when her heart fell, Siper remained steadfast. She held onto the basket, and held her breath. She maintained an impassive expression even when he pressed his chest against hers, throwing her in the darkness of his shadow, trying to cow her against the wall, staring her down.
“Watch your fucking mouth in my house.” He rasped, voice unused, breath stinking.
“This is mother’s house.” Siper retorted. “You don’t own shit, Darwin. Tell me, which girlfriend paid for your ugly tattoo this year?”
He punched the wall next to her head. Years ago, she would have flinched. Siper only readjusted the laundry basket against her hip, challenging him to punch again.
“Is it true, you killed a man?”
“It is.”
His head moved away, then closer again. “How did it feel?”
After a long moment of sharing breaths, of sharing the deathly silence of the hallway, Siper smirked.
“Good.” She said, lifting her chin, holding her head higher. “It felt good.”
He licked his lips, nodded slowly, nodded again, his tongue meandering over his teeth, and she saw, for a second or less, in the grim depths of his eyes, something she dared imagine was fear.
“Meet me at seven at Barney’s,” he spoke finally, pulling himself away from her. “Dress nicely, let your hair down,” he turned around with a mean smirk. “Show some tits.”
«»
The old copper tray glinted a warm, rusty orange in the pub’s dim lights, Siper feeling its dents and contortions over her fingers as she carried it to yet another table, beer glasses foaming at the mouth; a rowdy Friday night, the place stinking with the collective breath of a dozen drunks and their cigarettes.
Third job in less than a month. Next town over. She leaves home at 8 every evening, trekking the forest at nightfall, carrying a skirt and a pair of heels in one hand and a hidden knife in the other. Work until 4 in the morning, then walk back home.
She was trapped, but they didn’t know her here. Here, she was just a waitress; quick on her feet, reliable enough to show up every night, level-headed to keep from punching every man who tried to cop a feel whenever she walked past, plain in a way that warded off attention but not too aloof as to put off customers, and having picked up the habit of eavesdropping, she also learned the correct timing to chime in with a witty remark that was sure to earn her a respectable tip later on.
“I’m telling you!” A scrawny middle-aged grunt slammed his beer glass on the table amidst the roaring laughter of his mates. “It’s for real. A buddy of mine passed it, you wouldn’t believe the kind of life he lives now. It’s like being born again.”
“Oh fuck off,” another waved his hand dismissively, guzzling his drink. “It’s a scam! Who gives out this much money for passing a goddamn test? You’d make more reliable cash sucking dick behind Johnson’s bar.”
Siper moved closer.
“Ever seen the list of the ten richest people alive, though?” Another one of the men interjected. “ Six of them are Hunters.”
The first man agreed with a frantic nod. “With a license, you can go anywhere, do anything. If you pass, you’re completely above the law, nobody could touch you. You’re king.”
“Heard it’s an organ-harvesting scheme.”
“Or a sex-trafficking ring.” Another added. “Highly doubt you’re eligible for either.”
They burst out laughing.
“It’s internationally recognized, goddammit!”
“You can’t even write your own name on the goddamned thing!”
Their drunken cackling shook the table.
“Can I see that?”
Falling silent, five pairs of eyes looked up at Siper, her finger pointing towards the piece of paper on the table, stained and wrinkled under a dewy beer glass.
“Sure, darlin’,” a blond guy handed her the paper. It wasn’t his, and the first man protested but the paper flew higher than his hand. “Give it to someone who can read at least.”
It was an application, still completely unfilled. She glanced at the man. “You’re gonna take it?”
He chuckled awkwardly. “Real tempted.”
“How did you get it?” She asked.
“Good ol’ postal service,” he said, sipping on his drink. “Costs some money though. See the shiny stamp here, sweetheart? ‘tis a mark against copycats and swindlers.”
“Can you get one for me?” Siper smiled at him, waving the application. “I’ll help you fill this.”
The man put his glass down, swallowed, licked his lips. “And what can you get for me?”
Siper didn’t cross the forest back home that day.
«»
“Take the baby, put her in the crib.” Her mother said, maneuvering the infant in her arms to hand it to Siper. “I’m gonna take a nap. My back is killing me.” The old woman began climbing the staircase, her legs moving up as if trekking through mud, but she suddenly stopped. “Did you find a job?”
“Not yet, but I was thinking,” Siper said, placing the dozing baby in a cot. She lifted her head, hearing the sound of disinterested footsteps resuming up to the bedroom. She was finally alone with her mother to talk about it. “I searched this morning for the money I left in the shed, but didn’t find it. I kind of need it now.”
That stopped the old woman.
“Remember, the rest of the money I won from the championship?”
For a moment, her mother said nothing, then sighed with a shrug. “Forget about it.”
“Why?”
“Darwin took it last year, after you left.”
Siper stood to her full height to regard her mother, eyes wide in disbelief.
“But I hid it,” she said. “I hid the money. I entrusted you with it.”
“Well,” her mother floundered, her neck twisting uncomfortably under the scrutiny, an apologetic expression quivering the corners of her mouth and never fully forming. “He said he needed it.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know, Sonia.”
“For what , mom?” Siper yelled.
Her mother took a step up.
“I remember one of the men was hassling him about it, some old debt or something,” she said, playing with her fingers nervously. “I gave it to him. Banging our door in the dead of night, you know how violent they get.”
The world narrowed. Floor falling from under her, Siper saw nothing but the staircase, felt nothing but the frail woman trying to stop her as she stormed up to the second floor in a rage that threatened to crack the walls, that anger again, that hurt again.
Her mother followed her, almost falling to her knees, begging her to stop, grabbling at the edges of her clothes until they reached the room where she knew he was.
There was no door to kick open, no object to hassle her way through, only the room, damp and humid and blue, walls peeling, and him in the middle, holding a baby, muttering a lullaby cut abruptly by her appearance.
Siper stood in the doorway, stared at him, stared through him—the same old tattoos, the same old dark halos, only thinner, eyes duller. Siper stood there for a long moment, watched his expression change, his feet shuffle, the rise and fall of his chest, the apprehension of holding the wailing baby closer to his heart, not to calm it down but as if to shield himself from her.
Shaking hands held into her t-shirt from behind, her mother’s body dissolving in the hallway.
Finally, the baby stopped crying. Finally, for the first time in her life, Siper saw visible fear in that man’s eyes. Fear of her. The look on his face, as if she were holding a gun to his head, but Siper was holding nothing.
“I will never forgive you. I swear to God.”
His lips trembled, mouth moved, but nothing came out.
«»
The poster was so old the paper had turned a sickly, haunting shade of blue, still pinned to the electricity pole after all these years, the missing girl in it long dead. Stomach turning, Siper shifted her gaze from the poster towards the porch of a nearby house where an old man sitting on his chair folded his newspaper and acknowledged her with a nod.
“Is she in there?” Siper asked.
“Been in there for years.”
Crossing the overgrown, untended front yard, she climbed the rickety stairs. Upon seeing the house’s sole inhabitant through the mosquito net, she entered.
The stench of the house hadn’t changed, charred meat and old tea, more stuffed than she remembered it, the swifts and martins of the wallpaper, once suspended in flight, were now graying, shrunken against the mold.
“Are they still keeping the posters up?” She asked.
“Just that one.” Majda looked at her visitor over a thick pair of glasses. “Came to tell me about the poor officer you killed?”
Siper sighed. “I didn’t kill anybody. He died in the hospital.”
“Because of you.”
“You’re angry at me?”
“I’m too old to be angry.” Majda retorted, setting the embroidery hoop between her hands down on the couch. “I feel complicit, though. God knows I feel complicit. How I taught you.”
“Don’t make it about you now,” Siper turned away impatiently, looking at what remained of a place she once thought of as her safe haven. “I need something from you.”
The old woman followed Siper’s gaze towards the collage of dusty picture frames on the wall; one of them, in the center, of a little girl and a middle-aged woman, each holding a pair of dead hares, rifles slung over their shoulders, smiles brighter than the moody October afternoon in which this photograph was taken.
“Sit down for tea first.”
Siper sat at the same old table, sturdier than the house itself, listening to the clacking of china in the kitchen.
“Thought I already gave you everything I had,” Majda started, walking slowly, tray in her hands, pin cushion still wrapped around her wrist. “What do you want now?”
“My old hunting rifle.”
Majda sat down opposite her, chuckling, took a sugar cube and dropped it in her cup. “There you go again, putting me in trouble.”
“The military commission doesn’t know about it.” Siper said, the scent of warm tea the greatest comfort she enjoyed since deserting her outpost in the desert.
“Going to shoot that son of a bitch?”
“Darwin? No. He’s not worth it.”
Majda stopped dropping sugar cubes into her cup to stare at her student. She said nothing.
“What, if I said I wanted it to kill my brother you’d give it to me?”
The old woman frowned, waving the little tea spoon. “I’m an old bitter cunt, not a psychopath.”
Siper looked down. “You’re the one who once said he deserves to die.”
“A lot of people deserve to die, Sonia.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“That’s your name.”
“It’s not the one I put on the application.” Siper said. “I’m taking this thing, called the Hunter Exam. I sent the papers last week.”
A knowing look twinkled in Majda’s cunning eyes. “People get killed in that.”
“So? Better to get killed than die in this town with two saggy tits and half my teeth missing. Nobody’s gonna miss me, anyway.” Siper shrugged, rolling a sugar cube in her mouth. “If I get the license, the military hounds will leave me alone, they’ll leave my family alone. They can’t put Hunters in jail. Worst case, I can pay compensations, reparations—whatever the fuck they call them.” She smiled. “I’ll be a free woman.”
“That’s why you want the rifle?”
“Yeah.”
Majda sat quietly and sipped her tea, then stood up. “Wait here.”
When she returned, it wasn’t just with the sniper, but with something else as well.
The gold medal of 12 years ago.
“The idiot was going around drunk, trying to sell it. He really needed the money, it seemed, wouldn’t be persuaded to give it back, so I bought it from him for cheap. Thought better than to go elsewhere.”
Siper held her lost medal in her hand, choking on something she quickly swallowed. She gave it back to Majda. “It doesn’t mean anything anymore. You bought it, didn’t you? Keep it. Better, sell it. Get yourself a new wallpaper. Get a haircut.”
Close to a sob, Siper snorted. “They sold the deer head, too. Did you know? The one we hunted together. My first big kill.” Bile in her throat, she hated how the cigarette shuddered between her fingers when she tried to light it. “That hurt more.”
Majda nodded ruefully. “That I couldn’t save.”
“Fuckers,” Siper shook her head, blowing smoke from the side of her mouth. She turned to Majda. “Thanks though, I mean it.”
“I did the little I could. Never liked seeing talent trampled.”
“Well it’s been trampled alright,” Siper laughed. “Don’t shed tears about it. I’m grateful, I think. No more trophies to look at and feel sorry, right? I’m free now. I’m free from my anger, and fear.”
With the rifle wrapped thickly and strapped over her shoulder, Siper readied herself to leave, leaning against the doorframe for one last goodbye. “Don’t worry, hag. I’ll be back before you kick the bucket. I’ll buy you a new house, how about that?”
That didn’t seem to amuse the old woman. “I don’t see you coming back, Sonia.”
“I’ll have to buy you a new pair of glasses too, then.” She kissed Majda’s cheek and stepped out of the door. “Thanks for everything.”
“Siper!”
“What now?”
“Don’t get overconfident!” Majda yelled after her, standing in the doorway.
“Sure,” Siper muttered under her breath. “Go sell that piece of shit. Buy yourself something nice!”
«»
Finally, a truck stopped.
“Where are you going?”
Siper pulled the hoodie tighter over her head, trying to make out the driver’s face through the thick downpour separating her from the warmth of his vehicle. “Wherever you’re stopping.”
He nodded.
Rain-soaked and nicotine-starved, Siper hopped in.
It would take her about two weeks to reach her destination, and after that it would take her less to die. In the long, dark tunnel of the first phase of the Hunter Exam, she found herself surrounded by people who did not know who she was, and she supposed none of them would care about the past she left behind, where she came from, the ugly things she’d done.
Here, she was only known as number 80.
Siper ran.