Kingmakers, Graduation

27. Sabrina

27

SAbrINA

I t’s two weeks after Christmas, and I’m putting the finishing touches on Opus, the third formula of my hybrid party drug. This one is for concerts. It has the highest concentration of LSD to make music sound phenomenal. Adrik and I tested it out at a live show of Cannons in a tiny dive bar in Danilovsky.

The night started out horribly. We got doused in freezing rain waiting to go inside. Adrik and I were both soaked to the skin, my makeup running down my face, stinging my eyes. Inside the venue was packed, standing room only around the stage.

I hadn’t realized there wouldn’t be any seats, so I was wearing thigh-high suede boots with staggering heels. I didn’t know the band that well, only that it was my cousin Anna’s favorite. I almost said we should go home right then, but Adrik and I had already taken the Opus and I needed to try it out at a real live event.

Seeing how hard I was shivering, Adrik bribed the bouncers to let us into the upper balcony, which was supposed to be for season-ticket holders only. There were two seats free, right against the railing. We sat down and ordered a drink. Adrik put his arm around me, holding me close against his side until heat radiated from his body into mine.

The whole venue warmed up fast, once it was packed with people. A sea of heads bobbed below us. The stage set looked more like a play than a rock concert—the facade resembled a café in Paris, working windows with shutters, flowers in the planter boxes, and vines dangling down from the roof.

The opener came onstage—another artist I’d never heard of. He was Russian, and I could only catch about half of what he was calling out to the crowd, despite all the studying I’ve been doing in my off-hours. Their goddamn language is so difficult to learn, especially with how fast people speak and the various regional accents. This guy sounded southern, maybe from Belarus like Jasper.

As his backing track began to play—a lovely rhythmic remix of an old Temptations song—I felt the Opus kicking in hard. Video screens illuminated behind him, pulses of color flowing like waves of lava in sunset colors of pink, orange, and peach. The venue was warm, Adrik’s arm even warmer around my shoulders. The music seemed to float up to me in waves. I could see it, edged with color and light. The sound-waves washed over me, over and over with each repetition of the chorus.

“ Spasibo shto vi preshli na segodnyashniy vecher. Nadeyus vi poluchite udovol'stiviye ot uslishannovo,” the performer called to the crowd.

Thank you for coming tonight … we’re here to feel something together.

In that moment, I felt deeply linked to every person in the room. We were all swaying to the music, our hands in the air. Even though I could only understand half the song, I felt every word of it, every emotio n. I felt the humanity of the performer. The spark of life inside him, calling out to the spark of life in all of us.

I turned to Adrik. His mouth was open like mine, his eyes a vivid, liquid blue.

“What the fuck …” he whispered.

Neither of us had to say anything else. We both knew what we were feeling, together at the same time. Our minds buoyant on the music, linked to each other like we were holding hands, floating down a river together.

My body relaxed. I was peaceful and so happy I could have cried if I knew how to let myself do it.

When the performer finished, he threw money into the crowd, the bills floating down like the night Adrik and I made a blizzard out of the Markov’s money. It probably wasn’t much—maybe $100 or $200 in American dollars, but the message was clear—he was giving back to his fans, sharing his success with them. It made me want to do the same. I wanted to be generous and open, sharing what I have with strangers just for the joy of it.

Then Cannons came onstage, and I heard the first refrain of the song that Anna plays incessantly, Love Chained , the one that will always make me think of her.

I’d heard the song dozens of times, driving in her car or watching her dance. But I’d never heard it like this. I felt like I was drifti ng through time, through a haze of memories that came clear and then faded away again like buildings in fog.

I saw Anna laughing with Leo in the front seat of his car, his arm slung across the back of her seat. I saw Leo watching her dance in their high school gymnasium, Anna standing out from the other girls not only because of her sheaf of white-blonde hair and her black-painted lips, but because of that inimitable grace she possesses that won’t let you tear your eyes off her. Leo certainly couldn’t. I saw how the two of them always sat together at every family dinner, how Leo’s gift was always her favorite at her birthday parties, how they always seemed to be smiling at each other at some private joke I could never understand, not only because I was so much younger, but because no one could understand the secrets the two of them shared.

I finally understood the hopeless longing in that song. I understood that Anna loved Leo all her life, long before either of them knew it. She was chained to him and always would be.

This was her siren song to him. She played it over and over and over, calling out to him. Begging him to see her, all of her.

I looked at Adrik and I thought, There’s so many other people he loves. His parents, his brother, the Wolfpack. Could he ever love me like Anna does Leo? Like they’re the only two people in the world?

Do I even deserve that …

Adrik touched my cheek with his hand.

“You’re a fucking genius,” he said. “I’ve never felt anything like this.”

It was true—the Opus was powerful .

Maybe too powerful. My chest was so tight I could hardly breathe. Too many emotions all at once.

I’ve dialed back the dosage just a touch. Now it’s manageable. Anyone can take it without having a breakdown at a concert. People don’t want too many epiphanies, not when they’re trying to have fun.

Hakim makes the hand sign to me to take a break. I follow him outside so he can smoke and I can lean against the filthy brick wall, pushing my goggles up on my head and breathing the air that seems cleaner, even tinged with Hakim’s cigarette.

Jasper pulls up in the SUV a moment later. He’s wearing an old bomber jacket with a sheepskin collar. The effect is a little disturbing with his skeletal hands and neck—like he went down in flames in World War Two, and now he’s back to haunt us.

He hauls several duffle bags out of the trunk, bringing them around to us.

“What’s all that?” I ask.

“Supplies,” Jasper says, as if it’s obvious.

I didn’t know we were getting another shipment. I help him take the bags inside, unzipping them to check the contents.

It’s a fuck ton of isosafrole and MDP2P. Way more than we’ve ever gotten at one time before.

I frown at the neatly wrapped packages. “How did you get all this?”

“From Zigor,” Jasper says, looking at me like I’m an idiot. “What do you think? ”

My heart is pounding double speed in my chest. I strip off my hazmat suit, flinging it aside.

“Take me back to the house,” I snap. “Now.”

Jaspers drives me back to the Den, his hand pale on the dark wheel. I’m not speaking to him or messing with his music like I usually would. I’m only thinking one thing: Where the fuck is Adrik?

The moment we pull up to the house, I jump out of the car. Jasper follows after me, knowing something is up.

I storm inside, stomping room to room until I find Adrik down in the gym, lifting with Vlad.

“Did you spend every fucking penny of that money?” I shout at him.

Adrik sits up from bench. His black tank sticks to his skin, wet with sweat. He grabs a towel and rubs it down his chest, his muscles swollen and flushed.

“Can you give us a second?” he says to Vlad.

Vlad raises an eyebrow, curious, but he leaves the room without speaking. Jasper stays exactly where he is.

Adrik sets the towel down, standing up from the bench. I forget how much taller he is until he’s looking down at me, his chest an inch from my nose. He’s making me tilt up my chin to look at him. His jaw is stiff, those pale-blue eyes burning with anger. Adrik has a temper, too. Even if he keeps a lid on it, it’s always there, simmering under the surface.

“You want to try that again?” he says quietly.

“Did you spend all the Markovs’ money?” I demand .

“It’s not the Markovs’ money. It’s our money. I used it to buy raw materials.”

“All of it?”

“Yes, all of it.”

He’s unashamed and unrepentant.

I’m so fucking furious I’d like to slap him.

“You made me a promise! You said when we were in a better position, we’d keep a reserve?—”

“It’s not time yet.”

“Who the FUCK says?” I shout.

“I SAY.” Adrik points his finger in my face. “I do.”

He’s trying to make me take a step back but I won’t fucking do it. I’m sick of him making decisions without me, in direct opposition to what we agreed.

My face is burning, my eyes, too, though there’s no fucking way I’d let a tear fall. It would make me look weak, womanish. Everything he thinks about me when he makes these kinds of decisions over my head.

“What makes you think you know better than me?” I hiss.

“This is my country. My people. I know what we have to do to take territory.”

“Well I know business! You don’t have a ninety-day cash flow, you don’t have contingencies?—”

“I have what I need,” he says. Cold, arrogant, autocratic. He’s a fucking dictator in a country of dictators .

“You’re vulnerable,” I tell him.

“ I’m vulnerable?”

Now his voice has dropped even lower … a soft and dangerous rumble deep in his chest. Adrik steps forward, closing his hand around my throat and spinning me around so I’m facing Jasper, my back pressed against his chest.

Jasper watches us, his dark red hair falling down over one eye, his mouth thin and pale.

“Let me tell you something about Sabrina,” Adrik says, speaking to Jasper, not to me. “She likes to use sex as a weapon. She uses it to control men, and women too … but she’s a dealer who gets high on her own supply …”

I try to twist away from him. His arm is iron across my chest, his fingers clenched around my throat. I’m burning with pure, flaming rage.

Adrik takes his other hand and slides it up my waist.

“She’s the biggest addict of all,” he says. ”She’s completely controlled by it …”

He’s groping my breast, right in front of Jasper. Lifting it. Squeezing my nipple through my shirt.

Jasper watches, pale and immobile. His eyes drop to my chest and then he jerks them up again, a little color coming into his cheeks.

I’m so fucking angry I could scream. But at the same time … heat flushes through my body. My thighs squeeze together. There’s a throbbing low in my guts .

Adrik pulls down the front of my top, baring my breasts to Jasper. My nipples stiffen in the cold air of the basement gym. Adrik brushes his palm lightly over my breasts, his fingertips trailing over the hard nipples, sending sparks up and down my spine.

I’m clenching my teeth tight together, my breath coming out in pants.

Adrik slips his hand down the front of my pants, inside my underwear. He slides his middle finger back and forth in the cleft of my pussy lips, across my clit.

Jasper’s arms tighten. He drops his gaze to the ground, only for his eyes to rise again and fix upon me, unable to look away.

Adrik dips his finger inside me and lifts his hand, fingertips shining in the low light.

“See?” he murmurs. “See how wet she is? She’s fucking furious right now, but she can’t stop wanting it.”

He tucks back my hair and leans in to whisper right in my ear.

“That’s why I’m in charge, Sabrina. Because you can’t even control yourself .”

He releases me. I whirl around and hit him in the face, as hard as I can. This is no slap like in sex—it’s a closed-fist punch. I split his lip, the blood running down his chin, dripping slowly to the floor.

Adrik doesn’t stumble. He didn’t even try to block it. He’d probably let me hit him again.

His eyes flick over to Jasper. “Get out.”

Jasper leaves without a word .

Now it’s just Adrik and me, facing off in the damp gym, deep in the basement.

“Don’t you ever talk to me like that in front of my men.”

“I thought they were our men,” I hiss. “ Our friends. And our money.”

“Call them what you like. But don’t undermine me. If you have something to say, you say it to me . Alone.”

“Undermine you?” I let out a laugh of pure outrage. “What do you think you just did in front of Jasper? You fucking humiliated me!”

His lip curls up in a snarl. “You push me, Sabrina. You push me and fucking push me.”

“Oh yeah? And what happens when you snap?”

He seizes me by the throat again. For a second I think he’s going to strangle me—until our mouths crash together and he’s kissing me with all the rage built up inside of him. Making me taste the blood from his lip. Making me take his tongue all the way in my mouth.

He shoves his hand down my pants again, thrusting his fingers inside of me, fucking me with his hand. I’m still enraged, but that blazing heat is all concentrated in one place, and my body isn’t taking orders from my brain, it’s caught up in the need, the fucking command, to impale myself on his fingers.

The urge is irresistible. I’m already halfway there, my arms around his neck, one leg hooked around his hip, fucking his hand.

I’m an animal. Adrik is right, I have no control over myself.

I fucking hate him in this moment, but I can’t stop needing him, not even for a second .

I’m humping his hand, pressing my whole body against him, clinging to his neck, whimpering and moaning. It’s fucking pathetic. And still it’s not enough. I kiss him wildly so I can taste his mouth, so I can inhale his scent.

He flips me over, bending me over the bench, ripping my jeans down around my knees. He puts his palm in the middle of my back, shoving down, and thrusts into me from behind. His cock tears into me, stiff as a pipe. He’s fucking me hard and vicious, his hips slapping against my ass.

I need it hard. I want it harder. I’m gripping the edge of the bench with both hands, my knuckles white.

He fucks me and fucks me, my tits swinging, our bodies slapping together. Now he’s gripping my hips with both hands, plowing into me, punishing me with his cock.

I want the anger. I want the violence. I want to rip and throw and smash everything in this room. I want to pour gasoline around the basement and set the house on fire.

I’m angry and I’m fucking frustrated. I want to be respected and I want to be worthy of respect, but I’m ruled by my temper and my emotions, and I don’t know how to stop.

I’m already starting to cum, crying out loud enough that Jasper will hear it upstairs, everyone will hear it. They’ll know I’m just a whore that likes to be fucked, bent over like a beast.

Adrik lets out a roar, giving one last thrust deep inside me. His hands shake, his fingers digging into my hips.

Then he lets go of me and takes a step back. His cock pulls out of me, his cum running down the inside of my thigh .

I pull up my jeans, my fingers trembling too much to do up the zipper.

I can’t look at him. I can’t meet his eye.

Maybe Adrik is embarrassed, too. He’s quiet, dressing quickly, finding my shirt and bringing it over to me. He pulls it over my head, dressing me like a child.

Still without speaking, he scoops me up in his arms and carries me upstairs.

I turn my head against his chest so I won’t have to see Jasper or anyone else.

Adrik carries me up to our room. He lays me on the bed. I hear the pipes shuddering as he runs water in the tub.

It takes several minutes for the tub to fill. I lay on my side on the bed, looking at the wall, trying not to think about anything. I wish I could shut my brain off like a computer. I wish I could wipe my memory.

When Adrik returns, he undresses me once more. He carries me to the huge old copper tub, much larger than a normal bath. He places me in water so warm that my skin immediately turns a rich, ruddy sienna.

Sometimes I feel like there are two people inside of me: one who’s relatively reasonable and one who’s completely insane. When the madness passes, all I can do is look around at the wreckage and wonder who that other Sabrina was. Where does she come from and where does she go? And which one of us is the real Sabrina?

I’m afraid it’s her. This person who sits in a bath, calm and lucid, is only an illusion. A mask I wear until the real Sabrina returns .

My arms float in the water like they don’t belong to me. I’m dissociated, watching while Adrik lathers a sponge and begins to wash me, starting at my feet, moving up my body. He washes every inch of my skin, gently and carefully.

When he’s done, he tilts up my chin and pours a little water over the crown of my head, letting it run backward around my ears.

He takes the shampoo from the shower, squirting a little into his palm. He begins to massage it into my scalp, with slow, deep circles. His hands are strong. The pressure is immensely relaxing. I lean my head back against the copper rim of the tub, eyes closed, hearing the seashell sound of his palms passing over my ears.

Adrik rinses off the shampoo, pouring the water over my hair from the glass he uses when he’s brushing his teeth. He scoops the water out of the tub, gently pours it over my head, keeping his hand pressed against my hairline so no water runs in my eyes.

When he’s done with the shampoo, without me asking, he retrieves the conditioner and runs it through the lower two-thirds of my hair. Even in my strangely distant state, I note how observant he is. He knows not to use the conditioner on the roots, not because I ever told him, but because he watches me in the shower. He watches how I treat my hair. He knows my habits and my preferences.

That’s what makes it so painful when he goes against what I want. It’s intentional. Adrik doesn’t do anything by accident.

He uses his fingers to separate the tangles, no easy task in hair as long as mine. Then he lets the conditioner sit for three minutes, gently stroking my head with his palm while we wait .

He rinses my hair once more, before lifting me from the tub and wrapping me in the biggest, fluffiest towel. He sits me on his lap, my head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Can you forgive me?”

I’m quiet for a moment, wondering how truthful I should be.

At last I admit, “I’d forgive much worse than that.”

It’s not good to write someone a license to treat you any way they please.

Yet I’m only telling him what we both already know. We’ve tested each other’s boundaries and found that they are far outside the norm. They hardly exist in some places.

What Adrik and I value, what we accept, is not like normal people. That’s what draws us together. But also what makes us so incendiary.

We’re a combination of elements that hasn’t been tested before. Will we create something revolutionary together? Or will it all blow up in our faces?

I don’t know. And I hardly feel that I have a choice. I can’t disengage from Adrik, even if I wanted to. Every day I’m pulled deeper and deeper.

This is why I’ve never fallen in love before—it opens the door to all kinds of madness.