Children's Games: A Story of Modern Consequence

Chapter 48

~Ivan~

They were all piled into the basement, either sitting around or leaning on walls or furniture. In Ivan's case, it was pacing the room. They were all silent, waiting for their commander to say something, to give them some sort of instruction like he usually did when there was an unexpected bump in the road.

Anna had come back white-faced and wide-eyed, stumbling over her words in an uncharacteristic stammer. They had immediately gone downstairs after hearing about what had happened, but they hadn't been able to come up with anything on what to do. Ivan thought that they would at least brainstorm possible reasons why they could be questioning Katerina, and therefore if there's a possibility to evade the threat of being found out. Anna had sat in her lab, looking distraught and guilty, and Ivan hoped that her guilt was still part of the show.

They ruled out that it would have anything to do with the elders as she hadn't been in town for the first three deaths and was a registered worker at George's apartment. All of them would be questioned if that was the case. Yelena was the one to point this out, which started their indefinite silence.

Ivan, of course, knew all the answers. The police had received an anonymous tip that Emilia had been seen hanging around at the party, without a known place at that party. She had been suspicious and listening in to people's conversations without talking to anybody. He had included her picture and the information about where she could be found. He had spent the previous day before the party investigating his new business partner, Oksana to make sure that her interrogation wouldn't be incriminating. Then surprisingly, Oksana had been rostered on to coordinate various interrogations that evening, coincidentally assigned to Emilia's case.

He knew he couldn't be too obvious about his suggestion for their approach, but he could already see it written all over Dominik's face that a code grey was the only solution. He would probably want to leave sooner rather than later as well. Good riddance. This place is a wasteland dump anyway. That already had the bulk of what they came for anyway.

All their attention whipped towards the stairs as a mixture of sounds cascaded towards them. Someone had entered the building and was now stalking upstairs, their steps soft and careful. A few minutes passed by with nothing but the Unit's strained breathing in the air. Then the intruder came barrelling down the stairs. Ivan snatched his gun from its strap and steadied it faster than anyone else, ready to confront the stumbling intruder.

Katerina appeared running down the last few steps, stomping in her haste to find somebody.

"Oh, you're all down here," she mumbled, slightly out of breath. She looked surprised to see everyone, and maybe even a little relieved. She straightened her red shirt, marking her for death.

Everyone visibly relaxed as Anna sprung from the lab and engulfed her friend in a hug, smothering her face. Katerina was definitely too polite to say that she couldn't breathe, Ivan thought as she instead just rubbed circles on the tall woman's back until she let go. Anna cupped Katerina's cheeks, unable to speak before moving away to sit in her lab, hiding her face from everyone, including Ivan.

Dominik stood, looking grave and decisive. Standing off to the side, the dark corner away from everyone's view, Ivan knew that their commander had realised the only appropriate step forward after this indiscretion.

"What did they want?" he said abruptly, causing her eyebrows to raise slightly. She still stood in the centre of the room, isolated from everyone else again.

"They said they were questioning everyone at the party for information about George and Victoria," she said slowly, calmly. She had a straight back and her hands stuck to her side, but her eyes were wide, and she looked guilty.