To Lose your Mind

Chapter 3 - Kar

   He doesn't greet her the next morning as he had previously done. Instead, when she makes her own way out of the bedroom after her shower, she finds him already in the dining room, nursing a cup of black tea. He silently watches her as she approaches the table and takes a seat across from him.

"So?" Her voice is firm, determined to start getting straight answers from this man. He stays quiet a moment longer to enjoy a slow sip of his drink.

"What do you want to know?" he enquires, finally. She fumes internally, although manages to maintain her exterior composure.

"Where am I?" The Russian responds without hesitation, for once.

"Your father owns this house, and you and I live in it," he tells her. She bites her tongue to keep from snapping back at him, remembering the scar along the side of her head and figuring that it's possible she was in a terrible accident, which caused the loss of her memory.

"You said something yesterday about a recovery," she tries, "but what happened, exactly?" This time, the Russian does take a moment again, just sitting and staring at her for a few minutes, as though trying to piece together his response before he speaks.

"That's a little bit more difficult to answer..." he murmurs, struggling slightly with his pronunciation, as usual. "May we come back to that?" She does what she can to keep herself in check, knowing that he could have a perfectly reasonable explanation for not wanting to tell her right away. Of course, he could also just want more time to fill in the holes of his story...

"Who are you?"

"My name is Karish'nikov," he says, seemingly happy to have gotten an easy question, although he announces his name too quickly for Alex to catch. She stares at him dubiously for a moment.

"Right. Kar," she says, deciding it's easier to use a nickname than try to learn how to pronounce the full thing. "That doesn't really answer my question, though... Who are you?" He hesitates, presumably trying to determine how much she wants to know.

"Your father found me at a bad time of my life, and he offered me a way out," he states, slowly, reflecting on each word. "In exchange, I was to help him by looking after his daughter when he was unable to be there for her." She frowns at him.

"Where is he?" she pushes.

"I don't know," Kar admits. He pauses for a moment before continuing, "I often don't know his whereabouts - it's a complication of what we do."

"What do you do?" Kar hesitates, staring off into space as he sips from his tea, buying himself more time.

"I suppose we are vigilantes..." he murmurs. Alex scoffs in disbelief, staring him down, challenging his claims. He holds his ground, though, and doesn't show any sign of changing his answer.

"Alright," she concedes, "enlighten me. In what way would you consider yourself to be a vigilante?" The Russian takes his time to answer, seemingly tossing it up in his head before letting himself voice his side of the story.