Chapter Text
The official letter had arrived around lunchtime:
Miss Kyra Vashenko-Chao,
42 Reverdy Road,
London,
SE1 5QE,
United Kingdom
And she had felt her stomach drop, recognising the embossed, thick cream envelope with the company seal in one corner, a Singapore franking stamp in the other denoting high priority, tracked delivery.
It had taken Alex about three hours to find her after she'd taken one look at the letter and fled the house, leaving it lying unopened on the kitchen table. Three hours. Not bad. Though she had given him a hint, using his computer that she'd recently upgraded the security system on to book her Uber from his account, thereby ensuring that he, and only he, would be able to track her.
"How did you work it out?" she asks, hearing footsteps approach and knowing it's him.
"The Uber was booked to The Star pub but it’s closed for renovation until next year. So I looked for places in the area you might have gone."
"And?"
"The west side of Highgate Cemetery stops tours at 1pm today and it's past 4pm now – but there's an easily climbable wall at the end of Chester Road."
"Well done spyboy. You’re like a ninja…”
He grins at her, waiting for the next bit.
“… a really, really bad one.”
He laughs. “You know that line loses some gravitas when we’re not sneaking around a creepy old French asylum at night?”
He sits down next to her on a little stone bench and they don't say anything, enjoying the companionable silence only interrupted by the rustling of wind in the trees. Somewhere in the distance there's a gentle rumble of thunder – the threat of an April rainstorm.
She's watching a black bird balance on the top of a tilting gravestone when he finally speaks. “Why here?"
She shrugs but doesn't say anything and he doesn't push her. She doesn’t really know. She wanted somewhere quiet and lonely and… well maybe she’d just had death on her mind. She doesn’t tell him that though – too morbid.
Eventually the bird flies away, and she scuffs her toe against the dirt in front of their bench. "Do you know why they built it?"
"Highgate? No – why?"
"For dead people."
He gives a cough that sounds like he was trying to laugh but isn't sure if it's appropriate so has tried to cover it. She gives him a half smirk and he smiles back.
"City was getting overwhelmed with dead bodies so they built these seven giant graveyards in the north, east, west and south… with train lines and everything running to them. Able to ship out and bury bodies on a conveyer belt of death.”
She stands and starts to kick gravel off the path, scattering little pieces across the grass, bits hitting the randomly placed gravestones. “You know they were publicly owned?”
He shakes his head.
“You could buy stock in death.”
He doesn’t say anything and she’s seized by a desire to walk and ignore it all. “Want to explore?”
He looks worried – at her reaction she thinks, not at the idea of exploring a cemetery as dusk approaches. This is Alex Rider after all.
“Yup.”
They walk for a bit, following the path along past more slanted gravestones, greening statues of angels wrapped in cloth carved from stone, and monuments surrounded by wrought iron fences to protect them. Protect them from what? She couldn’t say. Who needs to protect the dead anyway? It’s the only good thing about death really. Freedom.
She leads him through an arch that could have been straight out of an Indiana Jones film – columns either side and ivy and ferns tracing the edges and almost obscuring the Victorian masonry. They continue to walk, curving around a walkway with vaults on either side.
“Bodies, bodies, bodies. This city will never run out of dead bodies.”
He’s quiet, as if waiting for her to elaborate.
“My uncle is buried here.”
He looks at her, surprised, and she doesn’t know whether it’s because he’s shocked, or because she never talks about her family.
“I don’t know where – he was my Dad’s brother but I never met him and he died before I was born. But he had some big Anglo/Ukrainian company and saw it as a status symbol to be buried here.”
He nods. “Are your parents here too?”
She stops suddenly. What does he mean? Does he think she came here for them? That she wouldn’t have told him if they were here? Well, that’s partially true – she probably wouldn’t have. But mostly because she won’t speak about her parents if she can possibly help it. She knows it worries him. She knows he thinks she hasn’t – or won’t – properly process their deaths. He’d be right about that, but it still doesn’t make her want to.
“No...”
He slips his hand into hers and it gives her the confidence that she didn’t realise she needed.
“I don’t know where my parents are buried.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I never asked. They were in Singapore and there… well traditionally burials happen pretty quickly because of the heat so obviously I wasn’t around.”
The rush of pain she always gets at the thought of her parents’ death has lessened over the almost eleven months since she lost them but is not something she thinks will ever leave her entirely.
“In Ukraine… well, mostly bodies are buried. In Singapore it’s usually cremation. A space issue you see. So I don’t know in this case.” She tries to sound matter of fact. “It is not like they ever cared to share their funeral plans with me.”
She’s astounded her voice has stayed so level and she runs her hand gently over the carving of a lion, lying docilely at the base of his master’s grave.
She’s not seen a single grave that has a child or family member carved at the base. Humans are not docile enough, she supposes. Not adoring enough. Or easy to deal with. Or controllable. Not like pets.
Or maybe that was just her – utterly uncontrollable and nothing like her powerful, rich, fashionable parents. Who she killed. Basically.
It’s as if he’s read her mind. “It wasn’t your fault, Kyra.”
She drags a branch from a nearby tree and uses the leaves to brush along the gravestones as they pass them, poking at the odd daffodil that has dared to rear its colourful, happy head.
“What wasn’t? Not being the kid my parents wanted? Getting sent to Point Blanc? Escaping and causing Greif to go after and kill my parents?”
“None of it. Seriously Kyra.” He’s stopped her now and has turned to face her, lifting her chin up with his finger until she can’t help but meet his eyes.
“What happened was the work of a madman. A series of mad people. And you did exactly what you were supposed to do – survive. Isn’t that what your parents would have wanted?”
It’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation and she wants to believe him, she really does. But she’s always been a disappointment and she can’t help but think her parents might have preferred her clone. The clone wouldn’t have fled Singapore. And even if they had fled, the clone would have responded to family summons to go back. The clone would have wanted to be involved in the family business.
But Alex has always believed in her so much, inexplicably he seems to think she is wonderful, and she knows that expressing her thoughts about the clone would just result in his emphatic denial. But Alex has always had a family, a guardian, a friend who all adore him.
The rain has started to drizzle now and dusk is properly falling and so she leads them towards a little sheltered alcove where they can look out upon the graves and the centre of the city beneath them as it starts to become engulfed by the spring storm.
“I hated them a lot of the time but, y’know, they were still my parents. Maybe I don’t want to let them down.”
They sit down on another bench – why the fuck do cemeteries have so many benches? – and he slips his arm around her, pulling her to him.
The tears come unbidden and she’s furious with herself for letting them flow. But she does let them flow because even though she’s sitting in a freezing graveyard in April in the middle of an incoming storm and her feet are cold and her head and heart hurt, she knows she’s safe because Alex is here.
It takes her a while, but eventually she raises her head and wipes her eyes and nose and is ready to tell him. “They’re officially calling me back.”
“What?”
“I don’t know for certain because I have not read it, but I got a letter today… it’s from the Board of Vashenko-Chao and I just… I think…” she’s getting frustrated again and can’t sit still, so she jumps up and moves away from him because he’s a comfort they are going to deny her and she’s scuffing the ground and pacing and doing everything but looking at him.
“Kyra – what’s going on?” he’s worried now and she loves him for it.
“I haven’t read it-“
“-so it might be fine?”
“No…” she grinds out. “I… well, my aunt and uncle – you know they are technically my guardians though they are shitty ones. They only care about one thing and it’s not me. I guess they have emailed me a few times. And phoned. And then there is the company’s interim CEO who has tried to reach out a couple of times…”
A lot of times if she’s honest. But she’s ignored them all. Partly because she’s cross they managed to find her and partly because she’s not ready to deal with what they are asking of her.
“I’ve known my father’s will for ages. I… I broke into their files many years ago. I… I get my inheritance at twenty-one but in order to get it in its entirety there is an expectation that after turning eighteen I am supposed to start working for the company. And to go to university. In Singapore. I guess they wanted to train me up or something. Train me up to take over.”
She scoffs ruefully and kicks a stone. “It’s like… like they wrote their will thinking that by setting out a system for indoctrinating me I’d suddenly become the perfect little business heiress they’d always wanted.”
She sees the moment that it becomes clear to him. “Wait. When you turn eighteen? Kyra, are we talking in three months time?”
She suddenly can’t deal with it anymore. “Drink?”
There is hurt in Alex’s eyes and his jaw is clenched tightly and she just knows he’s holding himself back from saying something, trying to prevent this from becoming a fight. She knows she should have told him. She has wanted to for months but could never quite find the words or the courage. She senses he’s wanted to ask as well but in deference to her privacy he never did and she loves him for it. She sends him an apology with her eyes.
“I know a pub?”
He smiles sadly. “So do I. I found a few when I was trying to work out where you’d gone.”
She smiles too, can’t help herself, and together they walk towards the exit in the ever increasing rain, slip into the still open eastern section of the cemetery, and walk out of the gate, by which point they are very, very wet and cold.
But the pub is cosy and Alex points to a table with a couple of worn leather armchairs by an open fire with a little grate next to it, a hot poker leaning on the edge – thank God for English pubs and their incessant need for open fires even in the spring because she is soaking wet and freezing cold and if she’s going to bare her soul she’d like to warm up first.
She peels off her wet coat – why the fuck does something advertise itself as waterproof when it is anything but? – and drapes it over the back of the chair, followed by her jumper and a cardigan she’d added for warmth, leaving her in a sleeveless top that’s only got a few wet patches. She slips off her damp combat boots and pokes them towards the front of the fire and then sits down and angles herself towards the flames in an attempt to warm her trousers, heavy with water.
Alex brings them a pint each and then watches in what she’s pretty sure is shock as she downs the pint in one and shoves the glass back at him.
“Another?” he asks, eyebrow raised.
She nods and to give him credit he does go back to the bar to grab her another pint.
And then he’s back and follows her approach, stripping off his wet layers before he drops down into the seat opposite her, leaning across the small table that’s balancing their pint glasses.
“Kyra, what’s going on?” he asks, pulling the letter out of his coat pocket and putting it down in front of her.
She chokes on the sip of beer she’s just taken.
“What the fuck, Alex?”
She grabs the letter and moves to throw it into the flames next to them when his hand stops her.
“Kyra – come on. Open, read, then burn.”
“I already know what it’s going to say.”
“And?”
“It’ll be the official summons from the company lawyers – they are legally obliged to send me three summons over the course of six months before they begin the process of dissolving the majority of my inheritance and any right of claim I have to the company.”
“And if you choose to go back?”
She flicks a beer mat off the table into the fire, enjoying the resulting burst of flames. “I spend the next God-knows how many years of my life being indoctrinated. Then a life of corporate servitude. Fuck that shit.”
“So you don’t go. You stay here. With me.”
She gives him a half smile. “And then my parents are right. I’m worth shit.”
“Not to me. Not to Tom. Not to Jack. Not to every single person you have helped save.”
The words come rushing out now, expressing something she’s only ever half thought but never dared to say out loud. “I don’t want to let them down.”
She downs the last half of her second pint and enjoys the slightly woozy feeling that comes with it.
A lot of the time she hated her parents. A lot of time they made her miserable. She didn’t realise just how miserable until she started living with Alex and Jack and worked out how fun family life could be. So why is it that despite all of the shit her parents put her through she still doesn’t want to let them down?
It’s not the money – she doesn’t give a fuck about the inheritance and even if she doesn’t go back she’ll still get something, and anyway, she can make her own way in the world – it’s them. Their expectations. Because oddly, the fact that they left something to her in their will, the fact that they thought she could actually do something with the financial behemoth that is Vashenko-Chao, means that they actually believed in her. Which is both unsettling and quite flattering.
And then there’s the visa question. She knows she’s running out the clock when it comes to staying in the UK on her Singaporean passport and while there are certainly ways around it – hacking the Home Office system or appealing to Smithers both come to mind – the easiest route is certainly to get a business or student visa through Vashenko-Chao.
She tries to explain all of this to Alex and his brow furrows in thought.
“So what do you want to do?”
She runs her finger around the beer-splashed rim of her glass. “I think… well aside from the visa stuff, I know I don’t want to work for Vashenko-Chao. It was never my dream and I don’t do people. I don’t do institutions. I don’t do corporate bullshit.”
He chokes on his beer slightly and she looks up to see him smirking at her. “You don’t say.”
“But…” she’s trying to work out how to express what she’s feeling. “I can’t just… I can’t just ignore it, y’know? I can’t just ignore what they wanted.”
He nods.
“I think I wished my parents were different as much as they wished I was different but we get what we get.”
“When did you get so philosophical? Who are you and what have you done with the real Kyra?”
She smiles up at him. “I thought we weren’t going to joke about real and fake Kyras anymore, not after Point Blanc?”
He grins back. “Fair enough.”
“I’m getting another beer.” She stands and looks at him. “Another one too?”
He nods and downs the last bit of his pint.
When she gets back from the bar he’s looking thoughtfully into the flames. “What?”
“You know, going back doesn’t mean you have to become one of them or follow the exact path your parents laid out for you.”
She raises a questioning eyebrow at him.
He grins at her. “What I mean is, you can respond to their summons, but you still have the right to dictate your involvement in the company, right?”
“I guess?”
“So talk it through with the Board. You have another, what, six months before you lose your bargaining chip? So use it while you have it. If you don’t want to manage or be involved in the company but you want to remain connected for your parents, then find out a way to do that. Find a way that works for you.”
He takes a big gulp. “You need to find out the legal limits of your situation and you can’t do that without talking to them.”
She raises her eyebrow at him. "You trying to get rid of me?"
She knows he isn't, he's just trying to help, but she can't help the insecurities that surface every so often and he never seems to mind alleviating them.
As predicted, he gives her an appraising look. "Never. Never, ever, ever."
Then he pauses for a moment and she's almost worried until - "And I need you to sort out the visa stuff so you can stay with me for a long time. A very long time."
He gives her a shy grin that she returns as she sips her beer slowly. His suggestion to explore the bounds of what the Board requires of her is something that has occurred to her already, but doesn't feel ready - not ready to return to Singapore, not ready to leave Alex, not ready to face the reality of her parents' deaths. She’s also not sure what ‘remaining connected’ to their company even means. To that end, she’s not even sure what she wants to do with her life. The allowance she gets at the moment is enough to live comfortably on, but she won’t get it forever and she knows there has to be more to her life than… than what?
She’d set out from Singapore almost half a year ago to track down the people who had killed her parents and to stop Alex from getting himself in trouble. But that’s done now. So what’s next? She has an idea for her own business, something she’s been working on for a while. And sometimes she thinks maybe university. Maybe? One in London if she has to pick…
He’s watching her and she realises she’s been quiet for a while. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“You’re right-“
“- I always am.”
“I’ll think about it.” She glares at him.
Then… “I’m sorry for just vanishing earlier.”
He grins. “I’m kinda used to it by now.”
He hooks his legs over the edge of the armchair, beer in one hand, looking nonchalantly around the pub as though he owns the place. “Never thought I’d have a girlfriend who is basically a billionaire.”
She flicks foam from the top of her beer across to him and he tries to dodge it, spilling his own beer down his front as he does so.
“Hey!”
“Oh yeah, very sophisticated, spyboy.”
“So now that we’re drunk and have discussed the most pressing issue. How much convincing will it take for you to come and kiss me?”
It’s almost funny how quickly the beer is ignored and she’s on his lap.