Page 107 of Pas de Trois
She gave us bottles of formula, diapers, swaddling blankets, basic onesies, and wipes—things I think she had to sneak away to give us because this hospital didn’t seem like it was made of money. She made sure we had everything we needed before we left the hospital and she walked us out a back entrance—I thought it was odd that no one asked for payment, but I think she knew, somehow, that we needed this off the record.
I tried to give her some cash from the pile in my backpack, but she absolutely refused to take it. I had no other way to thank her, but she seemed happy to have been able to help Brandon.
We left and I took the risk of getting a hotel room for the night, thankful they let me pay cash for it. Brandon and I were exhausted, and I couldn’t wrap my head around getting on a plane just yet.
That first night was the hardest.
Brandon cried.
He cried a lot.
And so did I.
I cried over the loss of Anya. I cried angry tears at how close we’d been to having the life we deserved as our own family—me, Anya, and the baby. I cried that the three of us would never dance a pas de trois. All I’d ever wanted was a family of my own because I never really had one as a foster kid. And the closest I’d ever come to having a family was brutally taken from me by a spike strip across the road, placed by the vilest monsters on Earth.
I went to a local store the next morning and got some basic supplies, using cash as much as I could. We hurried off to the airport and booked the next flight out of Russia—two fucking layovers along the way, but then we’d land in New York and I would at least have the advantage of being on my home turf, even if they did come after me. I had to use the credit card to book the flight, so naturally, I was jumpy, anxious as hell waiting for our plane to board. Every stop along the way, I expected someone from the four families to show up, kill me, and kidnap Brandon.
Thank fuck no one ever tried.
When we finally got back to New York almost two full days later, I went straight to Emma’s apartment, my ex-girlfriend. I went to her partly because I wanted to make sure they hadn’t gotten to her, but also because I had no one else to help me.
And she did exactly that.
She let me sleep on her couch for four months with Brandon beside me in a portable crib. He was a fussy little fucker, had me up all hours of the night, too. She was an angel to put up with that for as long as she had, but each day that passed, I knew we were getting closer and closer to an eviction. Not because she wasn’t happy to help, but because her relationship with her boyfriend had turned serious and I knew they’d want to be living together before long.
And it was probably for the best because seeing them together and happy hurt like fucking hell. They had everything I was supposed to have with Anya, and it twisted painfully in my gut every time they smiled, laughed, hugged, or said goodbye at the door with a kiss.
Emma tried to help me grieve the loss of Anya, but whenever she brought it up, something about it just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right inside me to think of her as being gone. It didn’t feel like she was gone, absent from the Earth…and I don’t think it ever really had felt that way.
Twice before that night in the forest, I’d been nearby when Anya almost died, and I’d felt the snap of it breaking my heart, followed by a hollowness in my gut. But that hollowness was quickly filled when her breath returned. It was once before when Nikolai drowned her in the pool and again when Vigo tried to drown her in the bathtub.
I remember thinking she seemed invincible for all that she’d been through, and that word was rolling around in my head more persistently.
Though I’d been sad, though I’d cried a billion tears, though I’d cursed the four families for causing the death of my blue-eyed girl, I didn’t feel empty…I didn’t feel hollow in my gut. At first, I thought it was just because I had Brandon to fill the empty spaces. But more and more, I was feeling her absence as something that needed to be corrected, as something that could be corrected.
My heart insisted that she was invincible.
Four months into my stay with Emma, four months of conversations with local police, the FBI, the CIA, I decided that I needed to find her, with or without the help of law enforcement.
But first, I had to find her sister. I’d already waited four months too long and my only excuse was that Brandon took up all my time and attention.
It was almost too easy to find her. Lidia Antonov was on several social media sites that she posted to regularly and that was shocking to me. It was shocking because the four families could’ve tracked her down and taken her out after our departure, even though Nikolai had called off his goons who took weekly pictures of her with a scope measurement from the rifle they aimed at her.
Initially, I thought that must mean that Anya was, without a doubt, dead. Because they would have no reason to go after Lidia if Anya were dead. After all, I had no ties to Lidia in their eyes. If Anya was somehow still alive and in their care, they might’ve killed Lidia as punishment. They might’ve taken Lidia and sold her. But that just didn’t feel right to me.
And then I thought, What if Anya is alive, but the four families don’t know?And if she is alive, where the fuck is she?
I’d gone to Lidia then and told her everything.
She believed me, thank fuck.
She believed me because Brandon looked like Anya, except for the eyes.
His eyes were a light gray with flecks of green and brown when he was a newborn. But gradually, the brown faded and so did the gray, leaving him with stunning green eyes and a quickly growing mop of thick, blond hair.
He and I share the same eyes and hair, but the rest of him is undoubtedly all the best parts of Anya.
Lidia took to Brandon instantly, and suddenly, I had a family. Unfortunately, I never got to meet Anya’s mother. Lidia told me that she died of a heart attack a couple of years ago—undoubtedly, the stress of not knowing what happened to her oldest daughter took a toll on her health.
