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i.
"So you knew Katya," Yura says, his gaze laser-focusing on Dima. Not for the first time in this conversation, Anya feels a twang of frustration, anger at being left out.
"Not by that name," Dima says, but that's not a no. No, it's a yes. There's something steely in his eyes, unfamiliar. Yura makes a low, pissed off sound in the back of his throat.
"Quit playin' games with me, man. What, you don't wanna help sweet li'l Katyusha outta that prison, huh?"
Dima scoffs. "Sweet?"
"Nicest kid I ever saw," Yura says. His voice cracks, just slightly. Dima probably doesn't pick up on it, but Anya does. Dima just rolls his eyes.
"Perhaps we're thinking of different people after all."
Yura grits his teeth. "Don't be an ass. You'll help me, right?"
"I don't know that I will."
The conversation was a ticking time bomb from the start, but that's when it blows. Anya screams as she watches her boyfriend threaten to kill her brother. Adrenaline coursing, she throws herself in the way.
Blithely, she wonders if Yura would do the same for her.
For the matter, she wonders if he'd do anything for her at all. As long as she can remember, she's gotten the impression that Yura couldn't care less about her at best and hates her guts at worst. What lengths would he go to for her? She hates that the most probable answer is none. Hates it even more when he's pulling out all the stops for some kid he knew for two weeks.
Katya. Just who the hell is Katya? From the conversation, Anya knows a few facts. She's a mutant, like Dima, and a year younger than Anya. Yura seems to think her an angel sent to earth. Dima clearly disagrees. Either way, she's special enough for both Yura and his shitass girlfriend to endanger their lives for her sake.
…She has a good fashion sense. At least, the jacket that Yura showed them was stylish.
ii.
Mom's not home, and Anya's hungry, so she goes to the kitchen, only to find Yura there with a cigarette. Oh, fucking hell, now whatever she eats is gonna smell like goddamn smoke.
"Great," Yura drawls. "It's you."
"Fuck off!!!" Anya exclaims, flipping him off.
"You fuck off, I was here first."
It's funny; by that he could mean either the kitchen or life.
Anya opens the fridge, rooting around in it for something, anything to eat. They have to have something.
She eventually locates leftover syrniki and deems it good enough, removing herself from the fridge. Yura is still standing there.
"Go away," Anya says. Yura shakes his head.
"This is my house too."
"Go away!!!"
"Nah." He takes a drag off his cigarette. She grunts and bites into the cold syrniki.
He just doesn't seem to care at all. He's flat, disinterested. Nothing like the other day. It's unfair. Why not her?
"What's so special about Katya anyway?" Anya finds herself blurting. Yura looks at her like she just grew a second head.
"Why do you give a shit?"
"I'm helping you rescue her, dummy! I wanna know why!"
Yura sucks in a breath between his teeth, hissing like a kettle.
"It's hard to explain." Another drag off his cig. "She's a good kid, y'know? She's sweet, and nice. She doesn't deserve to be locked up in there."
It's incredibly obvious that there's more Yura's not letting on, but Anya's not stupid, she knows there's no way to prod more from him.
Whatever. She takes her syrniki to eat in bed.
iii.
Things haven't felt the same with Dima since… that.
Anya pretends otherwise. Despite what people may think, she's pretty good at pretending. Especially with Dima.
So they're half-cuddling, watching a shitty reality show on Olya's laptop. Anya can't really focus. The warmth of Dima's shoulder is uncomfortable.
When an ad break comes on, she asks the question that's been burning in her mind.
"Why do you hate Katya?"
Dima's eyes startle wide open, and he stares at her for an uncomfortably long amount of time.
"She's annoying," he says. "She's a dumb kid. She's naiive. She's mean."
Anya frowns, comparing the barrage of insults with what Yura said the other day. One of them has to be wrong, right?
"Is she really that bad?"
"She called me a coward."
Anya bites her tongue from agreeing.
The ad break comes to an end. Well, at least Anya doesn't have to come up with a response.
iv.
It's not often that Anya is alone with Sanya. She's attached to Yura at the hip, it seems, even moreso than Anya and Dima are. Like a guard dog, with the way she growls at Dima every time he threatens Yura.
Yura stepped out for a smoke break, though, and Dima had to piss, so it's just the two of them, Anya standing around awkwardly as Sanya doodles anime stuff on a piece of scrap paper.
"So," she says. Sanya looks up at her.
"So?"
"So…" Shit. She just wanted to fill the silence, really, but she doesn't have much of anything to say. "…What was Katya like?"
Sanya blinks a couple times. She looks back down at her paper, and Anya thinks she might not answer, but then she speaks.
"Katya's like me." She pauses, and Anya isn't sure what to say. "I mean— Ugh, that's so selfish. Katya… Katya isn't perfect, I don't think. Nobody is. She was obnoxious sometimes like how all thirteen-year-olds are. But… She loved us. And we loved her."
"You barely knew her," Anya says. Sanya rolls her eyes.
"Didn't you ask out Dima an hour after you met?"
"…That's different." It's hollow. She's hollow, about Dima, while Yura and Sanya seem so full when it comes to Katya.
It doesn't matter, it doesn't fucking matter.
"Look, it's like…" Sanya begins. She sighs. Her pencil scrawl grows heavier. "Katya and I are the same kind of thing. I could sense it from the start. When something like that happens, it's natural you'll get attached quickly."
"Same type of—"
She doesn't finish the sentence; Yura's done with his cig.
"Ay, San, how's the porn going?" he teases, wrapping an arm around Sanya's shoulder. She elbows him off, cheeks red, though she's grinning.
"It's not porn!!"
Right, so that's that, then, the little chat over with. After all, when Yura's in the room, Sanya gravitates to him like a sunflower seeking out the sun, always turning to face it.
Anya feels sick, and she doesn't know why.
v.
Another planning session, one where Anya barely speaks, relegated to the side as Yura, Sanya, and Dima argue.
"But we have to account for her mutation—"
"Hey, uh," Anya interjects, "what… is her mutation, anyway?"
They fall quiet, mostly, all looking between each other as if realizing all at once that none of them actually told her.
"Her arms and legs explode," Yura says simply. "Like, like, like super cancer. She has a shit ton of flesh just come out."
"It's pretty painful for her," Sanya adds. "At least, she screamed when it happened."
"It's triggered by strong emotions," Dima states. Anya makes a face.
"That's awful."
"It is," Sanya agrees, her fingers circling around her wrist. "She was fine for the two weeks she was with us, though! So—"
"She probably has control over it," Yura finishes. "We just have to break her out, and she'll be okay."
"Yeah," Sanya says. Yura nods.
"Yeah."
Anya doesn't know how much she believes them. She doesn't know how much they believe each other. She doesn't know how much they even believe themselves.
Oh, well.
They get back to discussing, and Anya's mind wanders. To Katya. To the girl who's a year her junior, who's trapped in a government-funded center for experimentation, who has powers that destroy her body. To the girl who wears cute jackets and makes biting comments.
She wonders what she's like.
+ vi
She's dirty, and her arms and legs are covered in tattered bandages, and there's scratches on her face, and dried blood beneath her nails. Her hair falls like a curtain in her face, obscuring most of it in shadow. Her eyes, though, are visible, and they're wide with pupils so tiny you'd think she'd had a flashlight shone in her face. She's breathing heavily, the way a dying animal does, and the rasp in her voice is sandpaper-dry.
She's nothing like Anya expected.. Yet she's the most beautiful girl she's ever seen.
Yura is fumbling with the locks, Sanya is taking care of the guards, Dima is— Anya doesn't want to think about Dima. But that leaves her taskless, so she peers at Katya through the bars, memorizing every inch of her.
"We're here to save you," Anya whispers. In turn, Katya repeats the only thing she's said since they made it to her cell.
"You shouldn't have come."