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When Ryan threw that first punch for Johnny’s sake, that was when Volchok truly noticed the boy.
He wasn’t particularly tall, but there was a palpable sense of strength packed into his frame. Did he have to expend an enormous amount of effort, day after day, just to keep the fury inside him in check? Volchok delighted in doing anything that would provoke him, enrage him—anything to see him lose control, to see him fail to maintain that mask of indifference, that look as if Volchok’s very existence meant nothing to him. He wanted to see Ryan turn into something just like himself: a feral dog that knew only violence, sex, and drugs as solutions to everything.
“Well right now, I’m with your girlfriend.”
“Are you there, little bitch?”
Bitch was just one of the words Volchok habitually tossed around, but even he couldn’t deny what image surfaced in his mind when he said it into the phone.
Ryan lying beneath him, panting from overstimulation, a flush blooming across his cheeks. Those half-lidded, hazy blue eyes looked as though tears might spill from them at any second.
If he were to defeat Ryan, would he really have the chance to witness such a sight?
Volchok didn’t actually care who he used as leverage, what mattered was that Ryan would come. Choosing Marissa had simply been a matter of the right timing, the right place, the right circumstances. But the tall, scrawny boy always hanging around Ryan would have worked too. Seth, was it? From the way Ryan was always paired up with him, it was obvious he cared about him deeply as well.
When Ryan held the shattered bottle toward him, saying that if they were going to fight, they’d fight to the death, Volchok did feel fear—real fear. He had to admit that Ryan possessed a kind of nerve that went beyond what he’d anticipated. Ryan’s wide eyes gleamed in the darkness, but Volchok was certain he also saw the restless shadow stirring beneath them.
Volchok was jealous of the girl Ryan had, the boy he had, the family he had. He longed for that same warmth even as he wanted to claim it for himself, and at the same time hoped that tearing it away from Ryan would make him break, would turn him into someone walking the same ruined path as himself.
“Treat her right. She deserves it.”
But Ryan didn’t seem interested in where Marissa would go after the breakup. All he said was that Volchok should treat her well. That reaction left Volchok at a loss. It was the same when Ryan had caught him cheating before prom. How could the Ryan who had once slammed him against the bar counter just for deliberately touching Marissa respond with so little now?
Taking Marissa away suddenly seemed pointless.
So he turned to a new girl instead.
The prom was truly Volchok’s lucky night.
Of course he stole the money because he wanted it, but that wasn’t all. That was why, before answering the door, he made no attempt to hide the wallet. And when he saw that the person standing there was Ryan, he could barely contain the thrill rising in his chest. This was the first step.
“A week from now, if I wanted to, I could have her on her back on that mattress.”
This was the second step.
“How does that make you feel?”
And then he got exactly what he wanted—Ryan clenched his teeth and drove a fist into Volchok’s left cheek, staggering him sideways. Volchok burst out laughing, swung the liquor bottle into Ryan’s back as he tried to leave, forcing the shorter one to turn around. Volchok spread his arms and settled into his stance. Being scared off by a shattered bottle wasn’t going to happen a second time.
It was a shame he didn’t win the fight. But he immediately found Ryan’s next weak spot.
When Volchok lay on a stretcher outside the hospital, lying to the doctors and saying he hadn’t seen who attacked him, he didn’t miss the way Ryan’s expression shifted—from tension, to shock, and finally to a quiet, barely concealed relief. Volchok thought, don’t celebrate too soon. You’ll find out tomorrow what’s waiting for you.
Volchok had already lost everything; he had nothing left to lose. Robbing someone who had it all was, at this point, almost effortless. Watching Ryan refuse, argue back, only to be choked into silence by Volchok’s desperado stance—fear flickering through his face even as he tried to hold himself together—Volchok felt as though the pain from the wound in his abdomen had faded. The feeling of having Ryan in his grasp was intoxicating.
But in the end, he got nothing.
No luxury car. No hundred and twenty thousand. Nothing but just enough cash to run.
Ryan slid into the passenger seat. Through the car window, Marissa cast him one final, indifferent look. Then she started the engine, and their car disappeared around the corner of the street, leaving him alone to break down and scream.
He wanted Marissa to stay.
He wanted Ryan to stay.
He wanted Ryan to pull over.
None of those wishes came true.
During those days on the run in Mexico, Volchok was haunted by nightmares every night.
He dreamed of Marissa, burned to the point that her features were unrecognizable, yet still crawling toward him, murmuring that he should die, that he had to pay the price. He dreamed of Ryan pressing him to the ground without a trace of emotion, a sharp knife in his right hand plunging into Volchok’s abdomen, pulling it out, stabbing again, over and over, until he lost count of how many times he had been stabbed. Blood welled up from his throat, choking him, his entrails spilling all over the ground.
Volchok jolted awake in a cold sweat, struggling to steady his trembling breath, still feeling the icy chill of the blade slicing through his insides.
Seth and Sandy were both helping Volchok in their own ways, but everything they did was meant to make him leave Ryan’s life, meant to save Ryan. That always gave him a fleeting moment of joy, followed by loss, then jealousy—no, not really. He didn’t even have the right to feel jealous now.
He had ruined everything. And he no longer had the strength to keep running. If he could let the origin of all this be the one to kill him, to end him, then for Volchok, that would not be a bad kind of closure at all.
But Volchok did not get his wish. He heard Ryan’s hoarse voice telling him he wouldn’t be spared, that he would be punished for life, forced to live with his regret, never at peace for all eternity—what a strong and merciless boy. A man.
Before being taken into the police car, he took one last look at that figure, watching Ryan’s indifferent expression as it fixed on him, wanting to imprint this image deep into his retina.