Looking For A Legend (Book 1)

Looking For A Legend Chapter 14 - Murroh

            Murroh’s driver let him out in front of a small town home in Long Island.  It was a nice suburban subdivision.  Wealthy, without being insufferable.  Families living comfortably, but not flaunting what they had.  The houses were all decorated for Christmas.  All but one.  He climbed from the back seat, awkward in his suit.

            “Just picking her up.” He told his driver, and then started up the paving stone path to the front door of the single undecorated home.  He knocked on the door and waited.  His nerves were already preying on him.  Murroh wrung his hands together, adjusted his cuffs, straighten his tie.  He could not stand still.

            The door creaked open, the space filled with a tall woman, looking down at Murroh with a pair of narrowed green eyes.  Her thin blonde hair was pulled into a severe French twist.  She wore a black dress that clung to her lean body.

            “Good morning, Colonel Lytton,” she said, her raspy voice accented with a Russian tone.

            “Good morning, Miss Zelenko.  I’m here to escort you to church,” he offered.  Murroh even managed a smile.  Nearly twenty-five years later, Ekaterina Zelenko still intimidated him.  Since her release from Bellevue ten years ago, she had built a life in America with Murroh’s help.

            “You are feeling guilty,” Ekaterina was blunt.  Just as blunt as when she burst into his office, homeless and desperate.  She was young then, they both were.

            “I always feel guilty.” He confessed.

            “You were raised Catholic.” She let out a laugh as she stepped out of her home and locked her door.  Ekaterina walked to the town care without waiting for Murroh.  He hurried to catch up.  Inside the car, with the pair sitting so close, his nerves got worse. 

            Murroh was born a telepath, an unremarkably common gift.  His gift emerged when he was fifteen, an unremarkably common even in most Extrasensory-American’s lives.  When he was eighteen, he enlisted in the military.  At nineteen, he was assaulted by a band of fellow soldiers, and shot at nearly point-blank range and against all odds, survived.  They attempted murder, and for it Murroh only lost an eye and the hearing on that side.  During the trauma of being shot, nearly dying, and surviving something happened to Murroh, and his ability.  He changed.  His abilities changed.  Murroh he was currently classified as a Psionic, a telepath with exponentially more power, but a lot less control.

            Despite his own abilities, he was more afraid of hers.  Ekaterina was a gifted electrokinetic, and had used her powers to kill.  Of course it had been in self-defense, but it did scare him a little.  She was a survivor, and Murroh admired that, but she still intimidated him.  Sitting side by side with a woman that could fry him with a touch, she still wasn’t the reason his stomach was in knots.

            They rode in silence until they were back in Manhattan.  It was Ekaterina that spoke first.  As usual, her words cut right to the center of his pain, “You do know that no one that knew him blames you for his death, right, Murroh?”

            “I wasn’t there.  If I had been… Maybe if I was there… If I was, I could have…” Murroh’s voice cracked, trying to choke back the tears.  A flask appeared from inside his jacket.

            “If his trained team of soldiers didn’t prevent his death, how much of a difference were you going to make?  Murroh, when will you let go of this guilt?” Ekaterina scolded, taking his hand.

            “I was content to let it consume me,” He punctuated the line with a long swig of whiskey.  But he curled his hand around her bony fingers.

            “I remember the shock you were in when Malena died, and Valentina came to live with you.  She reminds you of him.  I know.  But you were doing better for a while.  I won’t say you were happy, but you’d lost weight, gained muscle, stopped crying in public so much.  Fatherhood looked good on you.  What happened?”  Ekaterina took the flask away from him, not to share his drink, but to keep it from him.  She flipped the cap back on to the bottle and sealed it.

            “I see him.  Everywhere.  In everything.  In Valentina’s eyes, that necklace he gave her, the way she always ‘whys’ to the core of something she doesn’t understand.  I see him in veil of smoke from my cigarettes.  The way he used to smoke the first time he met someone, to symbolically protect himself from their eyes.  I see him when I look at you, Katya, his real savior.  You were his knife, striking out against your captors, but also cutting into him.  I see things, I hear things, and wonder what he might say, or do, or think.”  Murroh’s hands were shaking.  Ekaterina gave his hands a gentle squeeze.

            “He was a rare person, Murroh.  Most of us have few possibilities in this world, few chances.  But for him, it was limitless.  He was something different to everyone that knew him.”  Ekaterina held his hand tightly.  He would be weeping soon enough.

            The car arrived in front of the church, letting them out.  Ekaterina dismissed their driver, then led Murroh inside.  Together they lit a candle, and then found a pew to sit in.   She held his hand through mass, their fingers laced together.  Murroh kept his head bowed, occasionally sniffing back tears.  When the sermon concluded, most of the congregation left.  A few stayed on to pray on their personal troubles, and Murroh and Ekaterina were among them.  Though it happened every week, Ekaterina was always surprised to find herself in Murroh’s arms, crying herself as Murroh bawled into her shoulder.  No one asked him to quiet or even gave them rude looks.  Murroh and Katya were known there.

            “Do you ever miss him?” Murroh asked her quietly, “Do you regret leaving him?”

            “Some times.  When I see my students, or when you tell me about Valentina, I think of what might have been.  Maybe if I had tried to love him.  If I gave him a child.  But then if I never got away, I never would have found you.  And you never would have rescued him,” Katya rubbed his back.

            “Why didn’t you take him with you? You could have saved him.” Murroh cried into the crook of her neck.

            “Shh… Murroh.  You knew him better than I did.  You know there was no way he was going to escape unless he could save everyone.” Katya ran her hand over his back.

            “Why did he always put himself in such danger?” He asked.  These questions weren’t new.  Murroh asked the same questions every week, and Katya patiently answered until he was out of tears.

            “He did it all so others could be happy.  So, he would want you to dry your tears.  You need to be strong.  For him, for Valentina.  For me.” Katya tilted his face up to meet his gaze.  Her eyes had seen a lot of pain and hard times, but she still found empathy for him in her heart.  Among other feelings.

            “I love you, Ekaterina.” He told her, honestly.  With tears in his one good eye, Murroh leaned in and kissed her.

            “Of course you do,” Katya smiled at him as she pulled away from the kiss.  “That is why I married you.”