Zhukov's Dogs (7 page)

My father used tales from his time in the field as bedtime stories, assuring me I would someday be able to tell my own son of my endeavors. The way he was determined to make me into a soldier like him, and the way I eagerly latched onto his dream, was part of the reason our family broke apart. I didn’t tell the doctor that.

“We rode right into the heart of the city,” I said, continuing my story without falter. “I didn’t know a lick of German back then, but my father assured me we had nothing to worry about. Our car stopped at this huge house, and he told me to follow him to the front door. The man who lived there greeted us, all smiles and friendly, German nonsense. He welcomed us inside. My father took out his gun and…”

I raised my hand and bent two fingers back to mime shooting a gun at her. Something twisted in my chest. My ears rang with Val’s last words.

“
Wait! Nik wait a—”

The way his body collapsed was different from the countless others I’d watched. It felt slow, agonizing. I could see his gray eyes dilate. His chapped, bleeding lips hung open as they were robbed of their final words, and over the din around us, I heard the last raspy breath leave his lungs. Veins in his pale, blood-soaked hands bulged in the most beautiful shades of blue and purple I’d ever seen. I reached to seize the hands extended toward me. He fell forward into my arms, and everything within me shattered under the weight of his limp body.

“Mr. Zhukov?”

Inhale.

“
Val! Val, no! Christ, please… No, no, NO!”

Exhale.

I fought the memory back into its cage. An uneven breath left my lips as I looked at the doctor again. I would not let her see through me. I refused to let her know how I wanted to scream. How just thinking about the way Val felt in my arms, so cold and heavy, was worse than any physical or mental torture I’d ever suffered through.

“My father took out his gun, and he blew the German man’s brains all over the wall,” I said, smiling just slightly as I shrugged one shoulder. Every painfully stiff muscle in my body ached with the movement. “It really ruined the rest of dinner for the wife and kids. Did I mention they were in the room, too?”

Dr. Halliburton blinked several times, mouth hanging just slightly agape. She cleared her throat and reached for the glass of water on the table between us. The entire time she fidgeted, I kept on smiling. I refused to let her see how badly I wanted to tear into something with my bare hands, how I craved an outlet for the unbearable memories ripping me apart as I replayed them over and over.

I couldn’t snap, yet. Not until I got Val away from this place.

With the shrink recovering from my morbid Christmas story, I knew I couldn’t pass up the chance to ask a question of my own. “So, did you bring any of the others back from Seattle or was it just Val?”

“The rest of that mangy bunch you keep calling your friends were dealt with,” Dr. Halliburton said icily. She glared at me over the top of her glasses, sneering in a way which warned me I wouldn’t like what came next. “Of course, there were the ones still in the city below when everything hit the fan. We won’t know about them until rescue teams start pulling the bodies out.”

Under the table my fingers curled back, digging through the jumpsuit and deep into my thighs. I fought to keep them still and the chain between the handcuffs from rattling. My smile faded as the doctor’s grew.

“Let’s continue, shall we?”

7 Empire Builder Train—Spokane, WA
Tuesday, November 10th, 2076—7:22 a.m.

was ready to pull Val into the empty passenger car we’d just come from, thinking, back there, we’d be able to bide time to plan or find a hiding spot. However, just as I grabbed his arm, a girl standing in the aisle, going through the overhead compartment, collapsed. It was the same girl I’d given the newspaper to. My grip slipped off Val’s arm, but he threw it in front of me to keep me from rushing to check on Anya. He shot me a sideways look and winked.

“Anya!” An enormous boy with dark skin and a square face leapt from his seat and dove to check on her. I remembered every single passenger who had been in the car with me earlier, and he wasn’t one of them. It would have been impossible to overlook someone I almost mistook for a young Grey Man. Clad in a puffy, off-white coat, the boy looked more like a marshmallow monster than a soldier. Any hair he might have had atop his head was hidden in a poorly-knitted green cap which, like its wearer, looked to have seen better days.

The two train attendants hurried down the aisle toward them. They were so absorbed with the well-staged distraction, Val and I were able to slip into a set of seats a few rows from the back, unnoticed. We watched on like the other passengers as the stocky boy cradled Anya’s body in his lap. Their size difference reminded me of a scene straight out of King Kong.

As I stared at Anya’s dramatic show of coming back into consciousness, something clicked together in my mind. I looked from her face to Val’s. With almost identical hair color, narrow jawlines and bone structure, there was no doubt in my mind they were siblings. There hadn’t been any mention of a sister in the file Aiden had given me, but even he admitted the reports were lacking.

Anya’s eyelids fluttered. She gave a weak moan as she reached a hand out to cup the large boy’s cheek. “Tibbs?”

“Is she okay?” one of the attendants asked.

“My friend’s got blood sugar issues. She needs to eat something,” the boy, Tibbs, said. Both attendants rushed back the way they’d come, assuring him they’d be back with whatever snacks they could find. Tibbs helped Anya to her feet and led her to the seats across from me and Val. The entire walk, she remained shaky and woozy, like she would collapse again at any second. Once they were out of the aisle and out of sight, the facade crumpled.

“What the hell were you thinking? Pulling all that attention,” she hissed, crossing her arms, an entirely different person from the one I’d given my newspaper to earlier. Was she so good of an actress that she’d even managed to fool me?

Val leaned forward to keep his voice low as he and his sister argued. “It wasn’t my fault. Rounds weren’t—”

“Val,” was all Anya had to say to hush him. He leaned back, and, for a minute, the two simply scowled at each other. Tibbs broke the tension by reaching across the aisle to shake my hand and introduce himself.

“Name’s Tibbs,” he said.

I shook his hand and hoped he wouldn’t crush mine within his. “Nik,” I replied, thinking back to the blurb in Tibbs file. An orphan with a warrant out for his arrest after being ruled a suspect in an armed robbery. His smile was far too genuine to belong to a hardened criminal.

“And we met earlier, I think,” Anya said, looking over at me with the same sweet smile I’d seen before. I had no idea what to make of her anymore, not with how she transitioned from sweet girl, to actress extraordinaire, to scornful sister so easily. Before I could say anything, Anya looked back to Val. Her expression softened, and her lips turned down into a small frown. “Val, you’re being reckless. Did you even get it?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean we can’t intercept it once we get to the city.”

Anya looked like she wanted to scold him. She held her tongue, though, and looked out the window with a huff. Val slouched into the corner and crossed his arms, leaving Tibbs and me to exchange an awkward stare. He chuckled and assured me, “Don’t worry. They’re not always at each other’s throats like this. You’re the guy who helped Val out, right?”

I was confused at first as to why Tibbs knew so much when hadn’t been in the car with us earlier. “Anya told me how you chased after those guys,” he explained.

“He wouldn’t have needed to, if
someone
had just gotten into position on time,” Val grumbled.

Tibbs shook his head quickly and pointed a finger at Val. “Oy! You said 7:15, and I was in position at 7:15, all right? Not my fault you got caught.”

Val didn’t argue any further. To keep the tension in the group from becoming overwhelming, I told Tibbs about Peter Cook and how I was heading to Seattle to help them. Tibbs whooped with laughter over the coincidence of us meeting on the train before saying, “Perfect. We could use more muscle now Tristan’s gone.”

Maybe it was in my head, but I could have sworn I saw Val flinch when Tibbs mentioned the name. Anya’s eyes flicked up at her brother, absent of any resentment they’d held and replaced with sympathy. She whacked Tibbs in the arm with the back of her hand, and Tibbs pulled his lips into a tight line, like he immediately regretted saying what he had.

There hadn’t been any mention of a Tristan in the file I’d been given. Then again, Anya wasn’t in there either. I was about to ask who Tristan was when Anya changed the subject. She leaned forward to fold her hands in her lap, stretching her legs out and crossing them at the ankles as she spoke. “So, Nik, tell us about yourself. What makes you think you can handle running with our team of troublemakers?”

Clearly, they didn’t want me to bring up Tristan. That was fine, for now. I needed to build my cover story with them, anyway. I dragged a hand through my hair, still not accustomed to the length, and said, “Well, I’m an east-coast guy, for starters. Washington D.C., to be exact.”

“No surprise there. You’re too tan to be from our corner of the world, sunshine,” Anya teased with a smile.

I forced a small laugh and hoped the nickname wouldn’t stick. “Yeah, anyway, I’ve been doing some work with the Black Bloc over the last year when I haven’t been busy with school. Mostly recon and tactical planning stuff, but I’ve gotten caught up in my share of street riots, too.”

“Wait… Wait, wait, wait. The Black Bloc?” Tibbs stammered, putting his hand up to keep me from going any further. His jaw had gone slack, and he blinked several times as he repeated, “
The
Black Bloc? Anarchy-inducing, WTO-disbanding, President Nelson-ousting Black Block?”

When I nodded, Tibbs practically bounced in his seat. He pulled the hat off his head, revealing a few days’ worth of dark, unshaved stubble covering his scalp. With the hand he held the hat in, he gestured toward me. “You’re from the big league! Man, talk about getting our first pick in the draft!”

“Tibbs is one of your biggest fans if you couldn’t already tell,” Val said, rolling his eyes. It seemed he wasn’t as impressed by my fake credentials. His eyes suddenly snapped into focus. He turned toward me, head tilting to one side with his arms still folded tightly over his chest. “Who’s in charge over there these days? Is it still Jeremy?”

Val was trying to catch me in a lie again. Too bad I’d done my homework. “Nah. Jeremy got arrested a couple months ago. Martha, you know, that snobby Layne girl? She’s been running things,” I told him.

“Martha? Crazy. And that brother of hers, man, what was his name again?” Val asked, not ready to give up yet.

“Lucas?”

“Yeah, how’s he doing?”

My head was beginning to hurt the longer I strained my brain. Val was asking for minute details about people whose paperwork I’d given nothing more than a glance. The only other thing I knew about Lucas seemed trivial, but I offered it up and hoped it would be enough, “He moved to the coast to marry his partner. D.C.’s still on the fence about all that fair marriage stuff, you know.”