Bond in Blood

Chapter 1: Prelude

A/N: Russian translations may be off, I do not know what I am saying! Possible medical inaccuracies as well.

I was ten years old when my mother grabbed me from my bed in the dead of night and told me we were going on a trip. In the years since, there are few things I remember better than the crazed look in her eyes that day. Even being that young, I understood what it meant when she got in that state and I knew better than to defy her.

So I got out of bed. I crept with her, half asleep, down the long dark hallways of my father's house. I passed my brother's rooms, one by one, until I was in her car and we were speeding down the highway. I had held my baby blanket to my chest as I nodded off against the car window. I woke up three states later, my mother still mumbling to herself in Russian in a way that was familiar it almost felt comforting.

My eye nursed a bruise, my lip split. I squinted at the road ahead, still unaware as to where my mother was taking me. I hadn't cared then. I trusted her, and I loved her.

'Этот ублюдок. я убью его." My mother spat. "I'll kill him, Karina. He's a monster. A disgusting piece of scum."

(That bastard. I'll kill him.)

Mama needed more of my attention than anyone else in my house had. I had been her person, as she had been mine. She would hug me so tight I could barely breathe. And she never once hurt me. Not ever. Even as we drove away together into a life that was so far from comfort, none of the pain that would come was inflicted by mama. It wasn't her fault. She was dealt a shit deal. That was all.

She was dead not a year later. I really didn't have time to be angry with her. At that point, all I had known was her love.

She had no funeral. It was just me with her anyways, sobbing over her body in the studio apartment she'd bought in cash she'd squirreled away from my father. I remember how I'd waited for her to wake up. Mama slept late. She hadn't put me back in school after we'd left, so I would stay with her all day. I knew her schedule by heart. And mama slept late.

2 o'clock turned to 5, and I knew something was wrong. My heart had been sinking slowly and slowly all afternoon. I remembered that man I had seen outside our apartment. The way his hands had turned blue. The way he laid in that one position until cops came and took him away. I knew what mama had said.

"Карина, вот как это выглядит, когда Бог забирает тебя из этого мира. Нечего бояться." She had squeezed my shoulder then. I felt comfort in her words. I knew what death was. I was almost eleven, after all. She made it seem like it was just something temporary. Nothing to feel grief from.

(Karina, this is what it looks like when God takes you out of this world. There is nothing to be afraid of.)

Two more were dead before she followed. She had to have known. I'm sure of it. I remember the look in her eyes about a month before she passed. I saw nothing but gray. Her movements were sluggish. The things that she put in her body were increasing in excess. I had started needing to feed her on the days she could barely sit up.

The next morning I called 911. I did what she practiced with me. New name, new family. I don't remember meeting with the CPS officer, though it must have happened. Soon I was with a foster family, in a sleeping room with four bunk beds. The other three girls had known each other longer. I tried to assimilate, but I didn't even know where to start.

I had a father and 4 brothers who would have gladly taken me back in. However, my memories of them were hazy. I had spent the majority of my time with my mother, and my only memories of my father were filled with his rage and blind fists. I knew he was somebody important. Rich, powerful, something like that.