Archive of Our Own

Her papa has always been paranoid about her safety – understandable, since his work with the FBI has exposed him to some of the worst of humanity – but the last few weeks, he’s been even stricter than usual.

A car to take her to and from school. A reminder not to talk to strangers and to stay in crowded areas. Instructions not to answer the door when he’s not home. Checking that she remembers the code to the panic room. Pepper spray and a panic button always with her.

He won’t tell her what’s going on, though. Just mumbles about a difficult case, pats her head and tells her not to worry.

The thing is, Alina always worries. She doesn’t know a fraction of the things her father sees at work, but even the glimpses she gets can give her nightmares.

And, really, in the end, all the warnings and break-in protocols and pepper spray are useless.

A masked stranger shoots the driver. Another man, wearing a blood red and black mask, shoves the bleeding driver out of the car and gets into the driving seat. The first man gets into the back, laughing as Alina scrambles away and tries desperately to unlock the doors.

His mask – a cracked skull – hides his expression, but she can still see his dark eyes glittering with amusement.

“Who … who are you?”

“My name is Aleksander. But you, Alinochka, can call me Sasha.”

She stares. He shoots a man and hijacks the car she’s in, and now he wants to use nicknames.

“What do you want with me?”

“Oh, come now, Alinochka. You’re a clever girl, I know, top of your class – surely you can guess.”

He’s right. This can only be related to one of her papa’s cases, probably whatever has had him so concerned recently.

“You’re the Darkling.”

It’s the FBI’s code name for him. The press have yet to come up with a catchy title.

“I am,” he nods.

“You’re a murderer.”

It’s a stupid thing to say to a man who could kill her with ease, but Alina thinks he seems the sort to do what he likes, regardless of how well behaved she is.

“I prefer to think of it as pest control, Alinochka.”

“What do you want with me?” she repeats.

He tilts his head, watching her intently, “what do you think I want with you, Alinochka?”

Alina tenses as he reaches out, tucking a piece of hair behind her ears, his fingers brushing her cheek.

She knows the kind of cases her papa works on, knows the statistics, and knows the horrors a twisted mind can concoct.

And she’s heard whispers of this man and the way he tortures his victims, slicing them into pieces only once they are completely broken.

“Are … are you going to kill me?”

A message for her papa. A warning. Revenge.

He just laughs, though, chucking her under the chin with a smile, “kill you! What an idea, Alinochka. Whatever Anton Starkov might think, I’m not a rabid monster. I only kill those who deserve it.”

“What about the driver?” she retorts.

“A relatively superficial wound. He should recover.”

Oddly, and perhaps foolishly, given how dangerous he is, Alina is rather comforted by Aleksander’s words. She’s no expert on a killer’s psyche, but she doesn’t think he’s liable to kill her, at least not for the moment.

“Why do you wear that mask?” she asks him a few minutes later.

“You ask a lot of questions, Alinochka.”

“That’s not an answer.”

A small part of her brain screams that she shouldn’t risk irritating a dangerous killer. But behaving and following all the rules hasn’t saved her from being snatched off the street, and she needs answers – knowledge is power, after all.

He turns and seems to consider her for a moment. Then, he lifts his hand and removes the mask.

“Sasha,” his driver growls, frustrated.

“No need to fuss. Her father is already well aware of my identity.”

Aleksander’s handsome face, Alina sees now, is criss-crossed with scars that she realises match those on his mask.

She lifts her arm, hand hovering an inch away from his face, eyes wide. The scars are deep and they look terribly painful.

These weren’t accidental. Someone wielded a blade cruelly, and although they avoided blinding him, Alina has no doubt that it was a torturous experience.

“What do you think of your father’s work, Alinochka?”

“Papa? No … no, he wouldn’t do that.”

Even as she says it, she doubts her own words. She’s not stupid or naïve, hears all the same rumours about the FBI’s interrogation methods that everybody else does.

“Anton Starkov is not a good man, Alinochka. In fact, some would call him a monster.”

“No …” she stutters out, “no …”

He cups her cheek, gentle and tender, brushing away the single tear that drips slowly down her face.

“He’s a monster,” Aleksander murmurs, “and I’m going to kill him.”

And what can she say to that?

There’s no point begging for her papa’s life. She can tell that Aleksander won’t listen.

She could try to fight him, to escape and warn someone. But she’s not got the strength or the guile to escape from a moving car with two armed and dangerous men.

“Why do you need me? I don’t … I don’t want to ...”

Whatever awful things her papa might have done, she still doesn’t think she could bear to watch him be slaughtered.

“Well, he has to suffer before he dies, you see,” Aleksander tells her with something of an apologetic shrug, “so we’ll need to put on a little show for him.”

Alina freezes, eyes wide.

“You won’t be harmed, Alinochka. Just a minor deception, to ensure he feels a fraction of the pain that I did. It’s your father’s fault, you see, that I’m the way I am – collateral damage, he called her, my fiancée. Luda was a doctor, always wanting to help people. And then she was dead, and he didn’t even say sorry. I was a little crazed, I admit, but that didn’t justify what he did to me, what any of them did.”

He gestures to the scars on his face, and then taps his forehead, “I wasn’t right in there, for a while. I was confused, didn’t know who the true enemy was. I’m better now, though … mostly.”

There is a glimmer of madness in his dark eyes. Whatever had happened to him – whatever her papa might have done – had clearly left him damaged.

“No,” she shakes her head, “no, I won’t do it. You can’t –”

His hand suddenly goes to her throat, firm enough to keep her still, while still allowing her to breathe easily.

“I was telling the truth when I said you wouldn’t be harmed, Alinochka,” he leans forward, lips brushing the shell of her ear, “but there are other ways to persuade you, if you insist on being uncooperative, and I think you’d rather avoid those.”

“I …”

His grip tightens ever so slightly and Alina nods frantically.

There’s nothing for her to do right now, only wait and see if an opportunity appears for her to escape.

Alina is left alone for five days.

A comfortable ensuite bedroom with a pile of her favourite books and some art supplies, meals three times a day and a mini-fridge with snacks.

Not exactly the captivity she’d expect of one of the criminals her papa chases.

Perhaps, she might have even begun to forget that she is a prisoner, if not for the screaming that begins about two days in.

Screams from a voice that she knows all too well. A voice that has told her bedtime stories and sung lullabies and comforted her.

When someone eventually comes for her, it’s a red-head woman wearing a porcelain mask in red and blue, who leads her down a confusing warren of corridors, the screams growing louder and louder.

She’s deposited in a small room and then left alone once more.

It’s another ten minutes of her papa’s screams before Aleksander enters the room. In his hand, he’s holding a small recording device.

“Cry,” he orders her curtly.

“What?”

“I know you can do it, Alinochka – I saw your recent turn in your senior year play.”

She tries to push aside the fact that he’s been watching her for at least three months.

“I won’t –”

“You will. I could do worse, could truly play the villain for you. I could dress you up – or, rather, down – and drag you into your father’s cell to play out a scene, but I thought this would be easier for you. It’s quite simple – start crying or I’ll put a bullet in both of your father’s kneecaps and record the whole thing for you to watch.”

Alina cries.

It’s not like it’s hard, considering what she’s been going through.

Loud, choked cries. Hiccupping sobs. Whimpering.

“Good,” he tells her, petting her hair affectionately, like he’s a friend and not a monster.

He clicks one handcuff around her wrist – “not for long, Alinochka, I promise” – and the other around a hook near the door.

He leaves then, and she’s alone again, at least until the shutters on one wall lift and reveal a window into the room next to her.

Like an interrogation room, she can see inside, but they can’t see her. Aleksander knows, of course, given he keeps looking at her as he speaks with her papa.

Her papa, who is bloody and bruised, yelling as Aleksander plays the recording of Alina’s sobs over and over.

“That’s not her. This is just a trick.”

“Oh, Anton,” Aleksander sighs, “I think we both know that this is certainly sweet little Alina.”

“You sick fuck. I’m going to –”

“You’re not going to do anything, Anton, except sit in front of this camera and confess all your sins. All those dirty little secrets your department keeps. All of this,” he gestures to his own scarred face.

“I won’t.”

“Hmm, that’s what your daughter said too.”

Her papa yells again, and Alina surges forward, hoping she’ll be able to bang on the window. But the reason for the handcuffs becomes clear – she can’t even get halfway across the room, let alone to the window.

“Confess, Anton,” Aleksander tells her papa, “or I’ll ensure you hear it live when I make pretty Alina scream.”

Defeated, her papa drops his head, “fine.”

Aleksander grins, “well then, shall we begin?”

Alina watches her papa speak for over three hours until he’s hoarse, confessing a catalogue of sins that make her wonder if she truly ever knew her own parent, the man who raised her with such love and care.

When her papa finally finishes talking and the camera stops recording, Aleksander leans down and whispers something in his ear that Alina can’t hear.

“No,” papa shouts as Aleksander moves away, “no you can’t. Leave her –”

The window goes dark. There’s a loud bang. Her papa falls silent and Alina starts screaming.

She doesn’t even notice Aleksander coming into the room until he wraps his arms around her sobbing, trembling form.

“You murdered him, you monster,” she struggles to get away but, while he does unlock the handcuffs, he keeps a tight grip on her, running his fingers through her hair, his tenderness at complete odds with what she’s just seen.

“He deserved it,” Aleksander says, “and now it’s over. Justice has been served.”

“I’m going to kill you,” she hisses, “I swear that I’ll do it.”

His smile has a hint of madness, his eyes glinting with excitement, “you’re angry now, Alinochka, but you’ll see that I was right. This was an important moment for you, to see that your idol has feet of clay. When you remember all that your father confessed to … when you hear it discussed over and over on the news … then you’ll realise this was for the best.”

“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!”

She tries to hit him, but he only catches her wrists, leaning down to brush his lips ever so briefly across hers.

“You’ll tire of hate eventually, Alinochka.”

“Never,” she insists.

He’s insane. Her papa … it’s clear he wasn’t perfect, but she still loved him.

Aleksander keeps grinning, thumb brushing away the dampness from her cheeks as he puts a blindfold on her.

“Just a precaution, Alinochka.”

He keeps up a steady stream of conversation as they walk to a car and throughout the drive, apparently unbothered by her lack of response.

When he lets her out of the car after almost an hour’s drive, she finds that she’s just five minutes from her home.

“I’ll see you soon, Alinochka,” he says as he takes off the blindfold, a finger to his lips to warn her not to start shouting.

He smiles like it’s a treat she should look forward to, rather than a threat.

She shivers, resisting the urge to stare as he drives away, and starts to walk home.