Page 13 of Maksim

I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my head. My best chance of survival is keeping Maksim alive and praying he has a forgiving side. I at least need to get him to safety before I run.

Right?

I’m still so unsure.

Maksim grunts, snapping my spine straight as I’m pulled from my thoughts. I look beside me at his closed eyes, clenched with pain.

I stare out the windshield, following the GPS’s directions as well as I can. The roads are confusing, and I have to follow close behind cars just to make sure I’m in appropriate lanes, but I do okay. I rarely drive back home, but the weeks that my father came to visit us when I was a child, he always had a car.

When I was thirteen, the last time I saw him, he stayed with us for an entire month. It was the longest I’d ever seen him in a single stretch of time, and in it, he taught me how to drive. He told me about America, his home country, and the traffic in Chicago.

For a minute, I pretend that’s where I am. That it’s my dad’s car that I’m following close to, that he’ll look in his rearview mirror, see me through the windshield, and recognize the daughter he forgot about over a decade ago.

A horn blares behind me, making my shoulders hunch as I lift my hands in an apologetic wave. I don’t know what I’m apologizing for, but I turn the car to get away from the angry driver and let the GPS reroute.

The GPS doesn’t take us to Maksim’s house.

I’m assuming. If this is his house, he doesn’t mind guests. Lots of guests.

I slow the car to a crawl as we pull up to an open, iron gate that people walk through while laughing and hanging on each other like they’re drunk. They’re piling into one of many cars on the street when I turn my attention to the front of the house.

Music is so loud, there’s no way the police haven’t been called at least once, but it doesn’t seem to discourage the two guys running across the roof of the two-story, red brick home.

When they jump from the roof, I gasp and slam my foot on the brake. I put the car in park and fling the door open, angling myself outside to hear what I think will be screams of terror but wind up being cheers.

What is going on?

I climb back in the car and nudge a sleeping Maksim. “We’re here,” I whisper. Why I’m whispering, I don’t know. “Maksim.”

Movement up ahead draws my attention, and my breath catches when I see a man bounding through a gate, his arms spread out wide in a welcoming gesture as a grin stretches his lips. When I say man, what I really mean is giant. Goliath himself.

Did I say Maksim is big?

I take it back.

“Dobro pozhalovat’ drug,” the man calls, his voice cheerful, but his hands lower when he sees me. I sink in the seat.

“Maksim?” He walks quickly to the passenger door and yanks it open. Maksim’s hand limply covers his wound with the cloth that’s soaked with blood.

The man gasps, his eyes going wide as he yanks the shirt away to reveal the stab wounds.

Something feels like it catches in my throat. I try to breathe, but no air passes, so I put my hands on the steering wheel and try not to panic.

“Zinovy!” the man screams.

Breathe. Just breathe.

I manage to wheeze.

“What happened?” he asks me. I can see him inspecting Maksim’s injuries in my periphery. “Zinovy!” he screams again. I don’t look at him, but I can feel it when his impatience flings my way. “What happened?!”

A man appears from the backyard, running this way.

I still don’t have it in me to speak. I’m having trouble breathing as it is, there’s little I can do to form words.

I can put the car into reverse. I can get the hell out of here. That’s what I can do.

Maksim stirs but doesn’t open his eyes when the man shakes him. “Maksim, wake up.”