sits above him. I don’t care. Those three will pay for what they did. And it won’t be quick, or painless.
I track down Abel first. That’s easy to do, because he frequents the Piwo Klub, as do several of our mutual friends. I find him sitting at the bar, laughing and drinking, while my sister has been laying in the ground for seventeen days.
I watch him get drunker and drunker.
Then I stick a scribbled sign to the bathroom door: Zepsuta Toaleta. Broken Toilet.
I wait in the alleyway. Ten minutes later, Abel comes out to take a leak. He unbuttons his tight jeans, aiming his stream of piss against the brick wall.
He has no hair to grab hold of, so I wrap my forearm around his forehead and jerk his head back. I cut his throat from ear to ear.
The combat knife is sharp, but still I’m surprised how hard I have to saw to make the cut. Abel tries to scream. It’s impossible—I’ve severed his vocal cords, and blood is flooding down his throat. He only makes a strangled gurgling sound.
I let him fall to the filthy concrete, laying on his back so he can look up at my face.
“That’s for Anna, you diseased prick,” I tell him.
I spit in his face.
Then I leave him there, still writhing and drowning in his own blood.
I go home to my apartment. I sit in Anna’s room, on her bed, which has been stripped down to the mattress. I see her favorite books on the shelf next to her bed, their spines creased, because she read them over and over again. The Little Prince, The Bell Jar, Anna Karenina, Persuasion, The Hobbit, Anne of Green Gables, Alice in Wonderland, The Good Earth. I look around at the postcards pinned to her walls—the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Taj Mahal. Places she dreamed of visiting that she’ll never see now.
I just killed a man. I should feel something: guilt, horror. Or, at the very least, a sense of justice. But I feel nothing. I’m a black hole inside. I can take in anything, without any emotion escaping.
I had no fear as I approached Abel. If my heart won’t beat over that, it won’t beat for anything.
One week later, I go after Bartek. I doubt he’ll be expecting me—Abel has too many enemies for them to guess who might have killed him. They probably won’t think of my sister at all. I doubt she’s the first girl the Braterstwo attacked. And I haven’t breathed a word to anyone of my desire for revenge.
I follow Bartek to his girlfriend’s flat. From what I hear, she used to work the street corner herself, before being upgraded to his mistress. I buy a red cap and a pizza, then I knock on her door.
Bartek opens it, shirtless and lazy, smelling like sex.
“We didn’t order any pizza,” he grunts, about to shut the door in my face.
“Well, I can’t take it back,” I tell him. “So you might as well keep it.”
I hold up the box, wafting its tantalizing scent of pepperoni and cheese.
Bartek looks at it, tempted.
“I’m not paying for it,” he warns me.
“That’s fine.”
I hold it out to him, looking him right in the eye. He doesn’t show the slightest sign of recognition. He’s probably forgotten about Anna already, let alone wondered if she had a brother.
As soon as his hands are full of the pizza box, I pull my gun and shoot him three times in the chest. He drops to his knees, his face comically surprised.
Once his bulk is out of the way, I realize that his girlfriend was standing directly behind him. She’s short, blonde, and curvy, wearing cheap lace lingerie. She claps a hand to her mouth, about to scream.
She’s already seen my face.
I shoot her too, without hesitation.
She tumbles over. I don’t have a glance to spare for her. I’m looking down at Bartek, watching the color fade from his skin as he bleeds out on the floor. I must have hit his lungs, because his breath has a whistling sound.
I spit on him, too, before turning and walking away.
Maybe I shouldn’t have left Iwan for last. He might be the most difficult. If he’s at all intelligent, he’ll put two and two together, and guess that someone has a grudge.
But that’s the only way I can do it—the only way I can feel the full weight of catharsis.
So I wait two more weeks, searching for him.
Sure enough,