Obscure

Chapter 20

Kirill

Elias was grieving. Kirill had known it before he had walked into the room. The memories were a thick fog, rich with color and emotion, the antithesis of the obscuring fog Kirill had lived in for so long.

The images were familiar, the same ones he had seen over and over in the interrogation room. The difference now was that Elias was no longer trying to hold them back.

Kieran could have pushed the memories away until they were nothing more than static. It would have made it easier to focus on the Elias of the present moment, who currently wavered in his vision like the shimmer of pavement on a hot day.

But he didn't shove the memories back. Too many of them were his, after all. He would take this last chance to savor them. Even the worst ones.

He sat on the bed next to Elias. Elias immediately jerked as if an electric current had run between them. His face grew tight with pain. The memories turned from grief to anger, all clenched fists and raised voices and tightness in his chest.

Kirill deserved that. That and more.

"Do you remember when I got stuck up the tree?" he asked.

"You know I do. You're the one who plucked the memory out of my head." Elias's tone was dismissive. He might as well have been talking to a stranger.

"That's not how it works. Your subconscious shows the memory. I didn't know what was there until you showed me." But that wasn't what Kirill was here to say. "Do you remember what you did before Papa Oleg got there?"

"I remember that I failed," said Elias. "I couldn't get you down."

"You talked to me," said Kirill. "You told me it would be okay until I believed you. I was shaking so hard I thought I would fall out of that tree and break my back. You calmed me down."

The torrent of angry memories kept coming. "What does it matter?"

"I wish I could comfort you like that now."

Anger became white-hot fury, his heart compressing in his chest like coal turning to diamond, words screamed in anger that couldn't be taken back. "You had the chance to make a choice, and you did. Forgive me if I don't particularly care whether you're here to make me feel better before your bosses drag me downstairs to be cut open."

At first, Kirill thought Elias was remembering the cluster of cabins in the forest. Then he realized the memories were his own. He knew because he could see the PERI team that had shown up when he had left. Elias had never seen that team.

Kirill hadn't seen what the team had done. But he knew the cabins were gone.

Home was gone.

The home he had shared with Elias. The home Elias had been to him.

It could never be recaptured. He had been a fool to think otherwise.

"The cameras are off," Kirill said, with a nod up at the ceiling.

Elias's face was expressionless. "I'm not interested in reminiscing about childhood." He held his hand out. "You may as well take me downstairs to the labs."

"That's not what I'm here for."

"I heard what you said to my son," said Elias, "but you were wrong. You won't convince me to change my mind."

"I know," said Kirill. "That's not what I'm really here for." He shifted uneasily on the bed. The mattress was nearly as hard as the chair in the interrogation room. "I have a question for you. Or... call it a proposal. Please... I know you won't want to, but hear me out."