Page 1 of A Dead Man's B-Side
Prologue
Three years after the disappearance of Alexandr “Sasha”Miroslav, Wolf Kingsley hired a private investigator who’d pointed him in the direction of a graveyard situated just outside of New York City. It was upstate and rather large for how deep Wolf had to drive into the abyss of greenery to find it.
On that particularly icy day, Wolf’s black dress shoes, shiny almost to the point of being reflective, crunched against the dry and fallen leaves as he kept an eye on the dark clouds rolling in, promising rain and thunder.
He was alone in the desolate necropolis, and the slight wariness crawling up his spine–or perhaps it was a chill from the wind–made him slide his hands into his long coat pockets, gripping tight to the familiar stainless-steel handle of a gift he’d received in what now felt like a past life.
Upon reaching his destination, Wolf tilted his head and admired the headstone in front of him. His eyes drifted to what lay next to it, long enough for a chuckle to rumble off his chest at the plastic flowers sitting in a stained mason jar next to the wordsto die is to be reborn.Then, he remembered something Sasha had told him a long time ago in the secrecy of his dorm. When they were only young andfoolish schoolboys. When everyone had shuffled back to the comfort of their beds, one by one, and it was only the two of them.
In those rare moments of night, Sasha would share tiny pieces of himself he wouldn’t otherwise share with anybody else–or at least Wolf had let himself believe. "When I die, I want to be buried in an empty field somewhere in Norway. Or on the Aleutian Islands. Somewhere quiet where the only interruptions would be… I don’t know, the fall of a tree or the race of a rabbit."
Wolf huffed out a laugh, the cigarette smoke he'd inhaled billowing around him, almost catching in his throat and making him choke out, "What made you decide that?"
Sasha offered no explanation. He only shrugged and gestured for the cigarette they'd been sharing. At the time, Wolf hadn’t cared enough to ask. He found it comical, sure, intriguing. But he simply brushed it off.
Because he knew the boy, and Sasha always liked offering cryptic musings.
Sometimes he wished that he had–asked, that is.
Looking down at the tombstone now, Wolf wished he asked Sasha a lot of things and really got to know the one who laid his sanity on the line for him–all the reasons he'd avert his eyes or why they often glazed over with a faraway look.
All the secrets he kept close to his chest and well hidden in the coffer of his mind.
Anything he could use as a clue to what led them to where they are now.
Chapter One
Alexandr Miroslav
1982
The first boy I ever killed was myself.
Depending on how you look at it.
Well, there is a grave proving as much, but the memory is hazy–hard to remember with the quick tapping of my finger ending every thought before it’s fully formed. The ticking clock that hung on the wall facing me, mocking me, reminded me of the familiar instinct that tugged at the bottom of my spine and created mental tunnel vision.
I could still make it.
Where was I?
Oh, right.
I buried myself in a relatively beautiful fantasy, with well-tended soil and a shovel, leaving me to the worms and grave robbers.
In killing whoever I was, I found myself often able to sum up my existence in one question: Where would I wish to die?
This may all sound very confusing, I’m sure, but the question alone has been able to string me along through state and county. Hanging on broken bones and, at times, on the reaper’s door withexhaustion beyond conceivability, I led myself to believe that I’d only ever get an answer to this existential crisis of sorts if I survived long enough to find out. It was strange, really, the contrasts that somehow connected my thoughts, life and death grappling to drag me off the thin thread I was perpetually balanced on.
The slap of a notebook against the metal table interrupted the higher capacity for thought I was building up to. “Alright, Mr… Miroslav.”
He’d said it the way Americans say things, breaking down a honed blade to fit their malleable appetites.
My name rolling off his tongue burned my own, which only fouled my mood further.
I wasn’t particularly fond of the harsh fluorescent lightbulb glaring down at me from above. I also wasn’t fond of the forger who’d promised me not a second look from customs.
The man in front of me was large, built, and strong enough to plaster me against the wall if I tried anything. I was smart, self-preserving, and not particularly eager to add a few more injuries to the list of those haphazardly healing.
