Nowak and Adamowicz?”
“Yes,” I say unflinchingly.
Again, he’s surprised. He didn’t expect me to admit it.
“Who helped you?” he says.
“No one.”
Now he does look angry. He turns his fury on his own men. He says, “A busboy stalked and killed two of my soldiers, all on his own?”
It’s a rhetorical question. No one dares answer.
He faces me once more.
“You meant to kill Zielinski tonight?”
“Yes.” I nod.
“Why?”
There’s the slightest flicker of fear on Iwan’s broad face. “Boss, why are we—” he starts.
Zajac holds up a hand to silence him.
His eyes are still fixed on me, waiting for my response.
My mouth is swollen from the blow of the gun, but I speak my words clearly.
“Your men raped my sister, on her way to write her university entrance exams. She was sixteen years old. She was a good girl—kind, gentle, innocent. She wasn’t part of your world. There was no reason to hurt her.”
Zajac’s eyes narrow.
“If you wanted restitution—”
“There is no restitution,” I say bitterly. “She killed herself.”
There’s no sympathy in Zajac’s pale eyes—only calculation. He weighs my words, considering the situation.
Then he looks at Iwan once more.
“Is this true?” he says.
Iwan licks his lips, hesitating. I can see his struggle between his desire to lie, and his fear of his boss. At last he says, “It wasn’t my fault. She—”
The Butcher shoots him right between the eyes. The bullet disappears into Iwan’s skull, leaving a dark, round hole between his eyebrows. His eyes roll back, and he falls to his knees, before toppling over.
A carousel of thoughts spin around in my head. First, relief that Anna’s revenge is complete. Second, disappointment that it was Zajac and not me who pulled the trigger. Third, the realization that it’s my turn to die. Fourth, the understanding that I don’t care. Not even a little bit.
“Thank you,” I say to the Butcher.
He looks me up and down, head to toe. He takes in my torn jeans, my filthy sneakers, my unwashed hair, my lanky frame. He sighs.
“What do you make at the deli?” he says.
“Eight hundred zloty a week,” I say.
He lets out a wheezing sigh—the closest thing to a laugh I’ll ever hear him make.
“You don’t work there anymore,” he says. “You work for me now. Understand?”
I don’t understand at all. But I nod my head.
“Still,” he says grimly. “You killed two of my men. That can’t go unpunished.”
He nods his head toward one of his soldiers. The man unzips the duffle bag lying next to Iwan’s body. He pulls out a machete as long as my arm. The blade is dark with age, but the edge has been sharpened razor fine. The soldier hands the machete to his boss.
The Butcher walks over to an old work table. The top is splintered and it’s missing a leg, but it still stands upright.
“Hold out your hand,” he tells me.
His men have let go of my arms. I’m free to walk over to the table. Free to put my hand down flat on its surface, fingers spread wide.
I feel a strange sense of unreality, like I’m watching myself do this from three feet outside my body.
Zajac raises the cleaver. He brings it whistling down, splitting my pinky in half, right below the first knuckle. This hurts less than the blow from the gun. It only burns, like I dipped my fingertip in flame.
Zajac picks up the little piece of flesh that was once attached to my body. He throws it on top of Iwan’s corpse.
“There,” he says. “All debts are paid.”
Ten Years Later
2
Nessa Griffin
Chicago
I’m driving over to Lake City Ballet, through streets lined with double rows of maple trees, their branches so thick that they almost form an arch overhead. The leaves are deep crimson, drifting down to form crunching drifts in the gutters.
I love Chicago in the fall. Winter is awful, but I won’t mind it if I get to see these brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows a few weeks longer.
I just visited Aida at her new apartment close to Navy Pier. It’s such a cool place—it used to be an old church. You can still see the original bare brick walls in the kitchen, and the huge old wooden beams running across the ceiling like whale ribs. She’s even got a stained-glass window in her bedroom. When we sat on her bed, the sunlight came pouring through, coloring our skin in rainbow hues.
We were eating popcorn and clementines, watching the sixth Harry Potter movie on her laptop. Aida loves fantasy. I’ve come to like it