Looking For A Legend (Book 1)

Looking For A Legend Chapter 56 - Mischa

            Mischa wandered the halls of the compound, smoking a cigarette.  He used to have to barter with the guards for them.  Now he merely need ask.  He occasionally tried to quit smoking, but with nothing to do, he always failed.  His longest success had been the four years he’d been in Valentina’s life.  Mischa had been enjoying a decent day, the food wasn’t over cooked in the commissary, one of the guards had gotten good enough at sambo to offer Mischa a challenge, and weather was warm, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard the clicking of heels around the corner.

            “Where is he?” Solange put on a posh lit to her voice, trying to make herself sound more cultured than she was.  The act was in vain; neither Mischa nor Yuri spent enough time with a diverse enough British population to learn what the “rich accent” sounded like.  To each other, Mischa had a rural drawl and Yuri spoke with a Muscovite dialect – when Yuri was putting his words together properly, but the guards and Solange, they simply sounded Russian.

“Did you try his room?  Where you keep him?” Mischa turned to face her.  He didn’t flinch at the sight of Nishi laid over her shoulders.  He looked terrible with her slinky red dress and heels.  Solange had gotten another nose job, making her look pinched and distorted.  Her nose was too narrow, her lips were too fat, and she’d plucked her eyebrows to nothing.  Mischa did not know how decided on that face, but he wouldn’t have chosen it.

“Yes, I looked there.  He’s asleep on the bed and I can’t wake him up.  Where is he?” She swayed as she walked, shaking pair of fake breasts in his face.  Mischa rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know where he is. I’m not telepathic.  And even if I was, I wouldn’t just pop in on him, thanks to what you’ve done to him.  I don’t want to die.”  He blew smoke in her face.  As a younger man, Mischa had always prided himself of his chivalrous attitude toward women.  But Solange Marchand wasn’t a woman.  She was the devil in a woman’s skin. “What can you even want from us anyway?”

“Phillip is asking about his father again.  He wants to see him.  And I’ve been considering giving Phillip a brother.” She said after a pause, as if considering if Mischa even deserved an answer.

“I don’t think either of those choices is wise.” He warned, taking another drag off his cigarette.

“I didn’t come down here for your wise counsel, Mischa.” She sniped back.  As hideous as he found Solange’s alterations to her looks, they were made worse when she got mad.

“And I didn’t come here for the food.  Let us free and I won’t tell the Prizrak Rytsarya where I was.” Mischa always made the same offer, hoping she would take it.  She never did.

“Why would I do that?  You can’t break out and you have no place to go.” Solange sneered at him.  She tried to look down her increasingly shrinking nose at him, but he was a full foot taller than her.

“Why keep us? You have to feed and guard us.  You pay doctors to keep us well.  You pay for electricity to keep this place lit.  And for what?  What do you gain by keeping us here?” Mischa always asked that too.  He never understood his capture; he didn’t consider himself that valuable of a bargaining chip.  He definitely wasn’t worth dying over, but just the same, four people were dead.

Solange met his eyes.  Her eyes were cold, blue and dead, with no emotion behind them.  She never gave Mischa an answer.  He was beginning to think she did have one.  That his imprisonment was one big temper tantrum gone out of control.  The worst Mischa had ever done to her was suggesting that Abraham Horowitz break off his engagement to her.  That was hardly worth commanding Yuri to kill Mischa’s wife.

“What would you even do if I let you free?” She said, as if Mischa would be at a loss.

“Wear a real pair of pants?” He shrugged. “I’d go home.  Tell my government that I’m not dead.  I’d visit Malena’s grave.  Find my daughter.  Try to put my life back together.  Help Yuri put himself back together.”

“You think Yuri’s allowed to go too? You’ll rush to your daughter’s arms, and take my son’s father away?” Solange sneered.

“Seems fitting, doesn’t it?  You took me away from Valentina when she was Phillip’s age.” Mischa kept his face stony.  Ultimately, if he and Yuri ever did get free, Yuri wouldn’t think twice of leaving Phillip.  He was too broken to even realize he had a son.  Or at least Mischa though that much.  Yuri never spoke of Phillip, or asked to see him.

“Phillip is the only thing I have.  And you would break his little heart?” Solange dared vilify Mischa.

“A fear of breaking hearts? It didn’t stop you from taking me from Malena and Valentina.  It didn’t stop you from taking Yuri from his brother.  It certainly didn’t stop you from killing the Petyr and Ivan Pajari, or Alexei Maksimov, or Malena Sima.  If you have any heart left in that silicone filled chest, you’d open those doors and let Yuri and I walk free.”  Mischa was ready to take another beating.  They barely hurt any more, and it did nothing to him mentally.  He was beginning to hope for the day a guard would go too far and kill him, but they guards all either respected or feared him too much for that.

Solange rolled her eyes at him. “Russians and your drama.  You are giving me a headache.  All I hear is buzz buzz buzz.”  She turned on her heels and slipped away.  She walked right past Yuri’s door, completely forgetting what she came down the hall for.

In a small compound, word traveled quickly.  Mischa didn’t usually care much for gossip, but with Yuri asleep for the third week straight, he was bored.  He was leaving the gym passed two guards, and overheard part of their conversation.

“What did Miss Marchand need so urgently?  No one’s ever called up into the house.” The first guard asked.  He was a young man, they all were.  Mischa didn’t think there was a single guard over thirty.  This one was a blonde with freckles.

“She said we have a guest, and wanted to set up reorientation.  I don’t know why she suddenly needed me to retrain everyone.  There are only two of them.” The second guard said.  He had a shaved head and no eyebrows.

“Maybe it’s a nanny for PJ?  Someone to take care of her little burden?  You know she doesn’t let that kid’s feet touch the ground.  So what, was she just hiring some poor little French lady, so PJ could cry next to his father on someone else’s shoulder?” Freckles asked.

“No, PJ wasn’t with her, and I didn’t see any nanny.  It was a man.  Some friend of hers.  I tried to ask questions but she dismissed me.  She said she had a headache, and she was hearing buzzing in her ears.” Cueball told him.  Neither seemed aware Mischa was following them.

Mischa’s eyebrows came together in concern.  He started back toward the medical bay.  He pushed his way inside the medical bay, surprising a medic.  The medic dropped some glassware on the floor, shouting in anger.

Yuri lay in a bed, hooked up to an IV, just as they knew Elijah had been half a year ago.  He was pale, but Yuri was always pale.  His eyes moved rapidly under his closed lids.  Mischa ignored the medic and the broken glass as he went to Yuri’s side.  Suddenly, Yuri sat up and ripped the IV from his arm, his eye wide and wild.

Mischa leaned in, about to calm Yuri when he heard the clicking of Solange’s heels across the floor.  She slunk into the room, with a smirk on her face.  It was a twisted thing across her lips.

“Oh good, you’re both here.  That saves me a time and wasted words.” Solange spit out at them.  This time she was wearing white dress that made her over tanned skin look like leather.  “We have another member of our family.”

The click of men’s shoes on the linoleum tiles of the hall outside of the medical bay echoed far ahead of him.  When the door opened, Mischa’s eyes met with the dull green eyes of an old friend.  Former friend.  Abraham Horowitz stood in front of them in a dark sweater over a white collared shirt and khakis.

“Nice to see you again, Mischa.”  He said with a smile that made Mischa sick.  Solange clung to Abe’s side, leaning up to kiss at Abe’s neck.  Mischa wasn’t sure what it meant, but he didn’t like it.  He didn’t like it at all.