Kingmakers, Graduation

37. Sabrina

37

SAbrINA

I feel like such a fool. Everyone told me not to come to Moscow. My family begged me not to come. The idea of returning to Chicago, disgraced, a failure, is more than I can bear.

What the fuck am I going to do now?

I doubt Kingmakers will let me back in, even if I wait until next year.

And honestly, I wouldn’t want to go back anyway.

I’ve had a taste of freedom, adulthood, empire-building. Most of the time, I really fucking loved it.

Our business was accelerating by the day. That’s what really pisses me off—Adrik and I built something incredible. Now I guess it’s his business. He gets to keep it all while I walk away with nothing .

All I’ve got in my pocket is a couple thousand in cash. I don’t have my phone ‘cause I threw it out the window. I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known I was going to leave twenty minutes later.

Knowing that Adrik had been tracking me, spying on me, made me feel slimy and exposed. I wouldn’t have minded sharing my location if he’d asked me first, or if it was mutual—the ability to find each other makes sense from a safety perspective. But as per usual he did whatever the fuck he wanted with no consideration for what I think.

My mind twists around and around in a cyclone of negative emotion. I’m alternately furious, regretful, resentful, and afraid. I have no idea what to do, I hate all my options.

I’m not going back to Adrik, I’d rather curl up and die than eat that kind of crow.

And I’m not going back to Chicago, either. That would be admitting defeat.

There has to be another option.

I park my bike at Brateyevskiy Park and walk around the frozen pond for almost two hours, until my toes are ice inside my boots, and I can’t even see my breath floating on the air in front of me ‘cause I’m too fucking cold.

I skipped breakfast this morning so I could meet Krystiyan Kovalenko before Adrik woke up—not that it did me any good. I should have set the meeting for four in the morning. Then I’d have made the deal before the sun came up, and none of this would have happened.

Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered .

This was all gonna blow up in my face sooner or later. Adrik never intended to share power with me. Our conflict was inevitable.

I’m starting to get hungry, even though my guts are twisted up tighter than a slinky. I’ve got to get some food.

I find a little restaurant in Maryino, quiet and almost empty. I order a plate of kotlety , but when the food comes, I can hardly eat it. I’m miserable, sick to my stomach, my hands shaking with anxiety. I feel like a rag doll, beat up and coming apart at the seams.

I took almost nothing from Adrik’s house—none of the new clothes I bought, no toiletries. All I’ve got is one extra outfit, some cash, my favorite gun, and a few packets of pills I was using for testing purposes.

I ask the waiter to bring me a drink. Even though it’s barely past lunchtime, he drops off a double vodka and soda without so much as a raised eyebrow. God bless the Russians and their acceptance of day-drinking.

I down the liquor too fast, forgetting how empty my stomach is. It hits me hard, the warmth in my chest pleasant and soothing, the dizziness in my head less enjoyable.

Most importantly, it anesthetizes me a little. This aching, wrenching pain inside of me is unbearable. Pressure like I’m being slowly crushed under a pile of stones, like they used to do to witches. Every time I think of the look on Adrik’s face, disdainful and dismissive … every time I think how shameful it felt to be thrown over his shoulder like a fucking sack of potatoes, my ass in the air, all my pretensions laid bare …

I could fucking kill him for that .

And yet I miss him, I miss him already. I miss how I felt with him—elated, euphoric, invincible. The whole world illuminated with beauty and infinite possibility.

But it was a lie, all a fucking lie.

And that makes me angrier than anything. I hate that he tricked me. I hate that he created this attachment between us. He sewed us together down every limb, and now that I’m trying to pull away from it, it’s ripping me apart. It feels like I won’t survive it.

I order another drink, and then another. The waiter brings them, not caring how drunk I get in the corner of his restaurant, so long as I’m quiet and I pay my bill afterward. When he’s not serving me he sits at the bar, slowing working his way through a crossword puzzle.

The more intoxicated I get, the more I come to a conclusion that may or may not be batshit insane: I’m not fucking leaving.

I came to Moscow to make my mark. I’ll be goddamned if I’ll walk away after all the work I put in.

I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, but I created Molniya and I’m going to keep selling it.

Adrik said he always wants me on his team?

He’s going to see what it looks like when I’m not.

Five hours later, I give the waiter I tip much larger than I can actually afford, and I stumble out of the restaurant.

Way too blitzed to ride a bike, I leave my motorcycle in the alley and hail a cab instead .

I need a new ally.

There’s only one place to find them.

The cab pulls up in front of Apothecary, the driver squinting at the faded wooden sign.

“ Vy uvereny, chto eto pravil'noye mesto?” You sure this is the right place?

“Nope,” I grunt, stumbling out of the backseat.

I try to pull myself together enough that I won’t look like a blazing hot mess, checking my reflection in the dark-tinted windows covered over with iron bars. The effect is disturbing—like I’m looking at myself inside a Russian prison cell. Eyes hollow, hair deranged.

“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter. “Didn’t I use to be hot?”

I try not to sway like I’m on sea-legs, heading down into the dim, smoky club.

Mykah is behind the bar as usual, mixing up cocktails for the girls clustered along the bar, showing off their legs on the high stools. I wave to Polina. She gives me a wink in return, sipping her Mai Tai.

“ Adrik pridet?” Mykah calls to me. Is Adrik coming?

“He’s meeting me here in an hour,” I lie.

Mykah has Adrik on speed-dial. He would 100% rat me out if he thought Adrik was lookin g for me.

Though for all I know, Adrik is happy as a clam at home. He and Jasper and Vlad could be toasting at the kitchen table, glad to be rid of me. Thinking how they’re gonna spend their money now that they only have to split it six ways. Ungrateful motherfuckers.

I slide onto the stool next to Polina. Tonight she’s wearing a silvery dress with a fringe around the hem, which makes her look like a flapper. Her black bob is a shining cap, her lips painted hot pink to match her shoes.

“ Kaz biznes?” I ask her. How’s business?

“Slow.”

“Well lemme buy you a drink at least.”

“Somebody bought you too many drinks,” she laughs.

“That somebody was me. I’m tryna take advantage of myself,” I slur.

Mykah brings me a Moscow Mule before I even have to ask.

“You really do make the best Mules here,” I tell him. “The name is deserved. One more for Polina, too.”

I toss a crumpled bill down on the bar.

“You keep that in your underwear?” Mykah snorts, trying to smooth out the bill.

“I don’t wear underwear. Would you keep you gun in a ziploc? No. You gotta keep the important things accessible.”

“If you sit at the bar, the men will think you’re selling something,” Polina warns me.

“Maybe I am … primo drug chef for hire. Going to the highest bidder. ”

I lean back against the bar, scanning the room through the thick haze of smoke. Ismaal Elbrus is puffing up a storm, surrounded by his usual bevy of beauties. A few of the kachki are here, though luckily not the one they call Cujo. If he’s looking for Adrik, I sure as fuck don’t want him to catch sight of me. I don’t know if Zakharov knows I was present when his son was shot, or even if he’d recognize me—I’d rather not find out by getting chucked in a trunk of a Soviet bodybuilder.

The club is relatively quiet, since it’s only a weeknight. The most commotion comes from a table in the back, where a motley assortment of gangsters are playing Texas hold ‘em.

My ears perk up when I hear a familiar voice barking, “ Ya skazal tebe, Klim, nikakikh grebanykh zastol'nykh razgovorov!” I told you Klim, no fucking table talk!

Craning my neck, I see the dark hair, broad shoulders, and unmistakable outrage of my favorite ex-girlfriend.

Her antagonist, the chatty Klim, is a scrawny Slav with earrings in both ears and an unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He throws an amused look to his compatriot across the table, remarking, “I’m allowed to make conversation.”

“Not about your cards,” Ilsa snaps.

“Take it easy.”

“I’ll take it easy when you pay me what you owe me from last week.”

“Last week! You got a miracle ace on the river … that was a bad beat and you know it. ”

“It’s not a miracle, it’s probability you dumb shit. And you’re still gonna pay me.”

Ilsa’s face is flushed, her voice low and guttural. If I’m not mistaken, for once in her life she’s drunker than I am.

Because they’re speaking in Russian all the way across the room, I lose the thread of the argument whenever they lower their voices. From what I observe, the two Slavs are trying to take advantage of Ilsa’s inebriated state to win back some of the money she’s taken from them. They’re communicating across the table in hints and signs, while Ilsa grows more and more indignant.

Fair play is everything to her. If you really want to piss her off, the quickest way to do it is to cheat.

I don’t know which straw breaks the camel’s back, but Ilsa leaps to her feet, upending the table, sending cards and chips and cash scattering everywhere. The Slavs howl in outrage, along with the other four players at the table. There’s a mad scramble for the muddled money, the players snatching up everything they can reach and stuffing it in their pockets. Klim is shouting in Ilsa’s face. Steel flashes as his buddy pulls a knife.

I’m running over. Mykah is faster, putting one hand on the bar and vaulting over it before I’ve taken two steps.

“I told you Ilsa, if you flip one more fucking table?—”

“I’ve got her!” I interject, grabbing Ilsa by the arm. “I’m taking her home.”

“What about my money?” Ilsa cries.

“Leave it,” I hiss in her ear. “They want to shank you. ”

“Fuckin’ try it!” Ilsa hollers, leaning over my arm to swing at Klim. “You skinny little bitch baby bastard?—”

“Alright, he got the message,” I say, hauling her away while Mykah blocks the Slavs from stabbing us in the back on our way out the door.

Ilsa is both taller and heavier than me, and neither one of us is sober. Trying to help her up the stairs is like a piece of spaghetti trying to lift a meatball—we’re not meant for this.

I’m hurrying her along while doing my level best not to puke. All this exertion makes my head spin. The street tilts back and forth like a teeter-totter.

I wave down the nearest cab. It pulls up to the curb, covered in so many scrapes and dents that I’m wondering how our driver still has his license. Not the best advertisement for his services. Worried the Slavs might come up the stairs looking for us, I shove Ilsa in the back seat and fall in after her.

We’re a tangle of arms and legs, looking for seatbelts that apparently don’t exist.

“What’s your address?” I ask Ilsa.

She mumbles it to the driver. Hopefully he understands her better than I do, ‘cause he starts driving.

Giving up on the seatbelts, Ilsa and I slump together in the backseat, her against the window, me with my head on her shoulder.

I’m taking slow, deep breaths, pretending it smells nice in here and not like old cigarette butts and takeout shawarma.

“They’re always fuckin’ tryna cheat me …” Ilsa mutters. “He owes me ten K already … ”

“Why do you keep playing with him?”

“Who else am I gonna play with?”

“Not me. I’ve already lost enough money to you in cards.”

“That’s ‘cause you get bored and stop paying attention.”

“I might have ADD.”

“You’ve got something …” she looks at me as if really seeing me for the first time. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“In Moscow?”

She snorts. “At Apothecary.”

I take another breath and let it out slowly, wondering how much to tell her.

“I split up with Adrik,” I say at last.

It doesn’t feel good to say it. Actually, it feels fucking awful. Real in a way it wasn’t before.

“I kinda figured that would happen.”

I lift my head to glare at her. “Could you try not being honest for once in your fucking life?”

Ilsa shrugs. “You’re a terrible girlfriend and you’re both volatile as hell.”

I guess that was obvious to everyone but me.

A dark wave washes over me, so heavy and cold that I sink all the way down in the battered back seat. I close my eyes, wishing I could just drown .

“Hey,” Ilsa says, resting her hand on my thigh. “I shouldn’t have said that. I drank too much.”

“It’s okay.” I’m blinking hard. “I just … really liked him. I thought it was going to be different this time.”

Liking Adrik doesn’t even begin to cover how I felt about him. But I can’t explain that to Ilsa, because I can’t even stand to think about it. And what good does it do now? It’s over.

It was never going to work. To believe that I could have what my parents have … I was delusional. I’m not my father and I’m sure as fuck not my mother.

I’m just a person who destroys what they love.

I was always going to end up alone.

After a minute Ilsa says, “I guess I split with my sister, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s fuckin’ Simon. Ever since she met him, she’s a different person. It’s all Simon says this, and Simon thinks this … like he’s the fuckin’ boss instead of her. Letting him speak for her, letting him handle our business … she was the genius, she was the one with ambition. Now she thinks the sun shines out of his ass.”

“He’s pushing you out?”

“He acts like he’s not, but he wedges between Neve and me. Always whispering in her ear. We agree on one thing, then she comes back the next day after talking to him. Simon thinks maybe we should …” Ilsa imitates her sister savagely, giving Neve a soft and prissy voice quite unlike her real tone. “The Severovs are fucking nothing. They can’t wait to get their hands on what my father built. ”

“You think he doesn’t care about her?”

“Sure he cares about her,” Ilsa rolls her eyes. “Neve’s gorgeous, he knows he’s got a catch. And she’s dick-drunk—all giggly and twitterpated. I swear to god, he’s brainwashing her.”

“With sex?” I laugh.

“Yes!” Ilsa cries. “And she’s falling for it! I can’t believe I used to respect her. She was my Zena. Now I find out she’s just another Ariel.”

The disgust in her voice makes me snicker. Also the fact that Ilsa has apparently watched both Zena the Warrior Princess and The Little Mermaid.

Her antipathy to all things love and romance is maybe the only thing that could cheer me up in this moment.

“So … what are you going to do?”

“I’m not fucking working for him, I can tell you that,” Ilsa says, darkly. “I was supposed to be Neve’s lieutenant. Simon doesn’t want me and I wouldn’t do it for him anyway.”

“You living with her still?”

“I’ve got my own place, thank god. It’s up there,” she points, mostly for the cabbie’s benefit—he’s struggling to see the numbers on the dimly-lit street.

“Thanks for the ride,” I tell him, doling out a little more of my limited cash.

Ilsa steps out of the car, forgetting that she’s drunk, almost eating shit on the curb.

“Who put that there?” she mumbles .

“Stalin.”

She laughs her loud, barking laugh. “I did miss you.”

“Yeah?” I say, feeling the first touch of warmth in my chest not attributable to too many shots of liquor. “I missed you too.”

We climb the metal stairs to her fourth-floor apartment. She’s not exactly living large in this old cinderblock building. When she unlocks the door, I’m hit with the familiar scent of her favorite soap and the faintest hint of gunpowder.

Her apartment is clean and perfectly organized. The walls are bare brick, the floor tile with only a couple of rugs under the couch and table. She doesn’t have a TV. A gray cat sits in the windowsill, next to several flourishing plants. Her view is the equally depressing building across the street.

“Jeez, times are tough,” I tease her.

“You know I don’t give a shit about decorating.”

“Do you like heat and light? ‘Cause I’m not sure you have those, either …”

Ilsa flicks the switch. A lamp illuminates, casting a golden glow over half the room.

“Happy?” she says.

“I will be once you pour me a drink.”

“I think you’ve had enough.”

That’s what she says, but she’s already heading into the kitchen, taking the vodka out of the freezer .

My favorite thing about Ilsa is how easy it is to tempt her. She’s the most disciplined person I know … until I convince her to be otherwise.

She brings back the bottle, no glasses.

I take a swig, the liquor colder than ice, burning all the way down my throat like it will freeze me from the inside out. I swallow more, hoping it will numb everything I don’t want to feel.

“Gimmie that.” Ilsa takes the bottle partly to stop me drinking more, and partly so she can drink a few swallows.

We’re sitting on her couch, each of us sprawling back against an opposite arm, our legs meeting in the middle. I’ve kicked off my shoes—the arch of my foot rests against the curve of her calf.

“I can’t believe you left school,” Ilsa says.

“Don’t rub it in.”

“You regret it?”

“I don’t believe in regret.”

“Still the same old Sabrina, then.”

I sit forward to grab the bottle, inverting it and letting the vodka run down my throat in three long swallows, wiping my mouth on the back of my arm. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Oh? What’s different?”

“Well,” I take another pull. “I speak Russian now. So it’s gonna be a lot harder for you to talk shit without me noticing.”

Ilsa smiles without showing any teeth, just a sideways quirk of her mouth. Ilsa is what in the olden days would have been called a “handso me woman.” She’s all bold lines, dramatic eyebrows, the bone structure of a queen. When she’s angry, she’s fucking terrifying. When she smiles at you, you feel like she’s bestowing a favor. It’s hard to make her laugh, really laugh. When she does, it’s loud and satisfying.

“Anything I have to say, I’d say to your face.”

“I know.”

There’s a long pause. I lean my head back against the armrest of the couch, listening to the rush of cars on the street below the window. The vodka is doing its work. I’m not happy—actually I’m still fucking miserable. But that misery seems separate and contained, like a dark cloud in the center of the room. I can skirt around its edges instead of standing right in the middle of it.

My body hardly seems to belong to me. I look at my hands on my lap and they’re someone else’s hands. What they’ve done, what they will do, has nothing to do with me.

I don’t have to care about everything so much. I don’t have to feel. Nobody else seems to. I can be numb and cold and cruel like the rest of the world.

“Were you happy to see me here?” I say to Ilsa, still looking up at the ceiling.

She’s silent for a moment. Then she admits, “Yeah. I did miss you. More than I thought I would.”

“What did you miss?”

She lets out a soft, amused sound. “You want me to compliment you?”

“I need it. ”

She lifts my foot and holds it in her lap, squeezing it with pleasant pressure.

“I missed how I can always tell what you’re thinking. What you’re feeling. You’re easy to know—easy to understand.”

“You mean I’m simple and obvious?” I laugh.

She presses the heel of her hand against the arch of my foot, twisting like a mortar and pestle, sending a wave of relaxation all the way up my leg.

“You’re genuine.”

“No need for the lasso of truth.”

She rubs the ball of my foot with both thumbs, smiling that crooked smile.

“You always made me feel like Wonder Woman. Like I could do anything.”

“I’m glad I wasn’t always an asshole.”

“Not always.”

Ilsa hooks a finger in the elastic of my sock, slowly peeling it down the length of my foot, baring the delicate skin beneath. My foot looks vulnerable and naked in the low light, toenails unpolished and pearlescent.

“Something else I always liked …” Ilsa says, her voice low and throaty. “How responsive you are …”

She brushes her fingertips lightly up the sole of my foot, from heel to toes. The wave of sensation sends a shiver up my spine.

“Well…you always knew how to touch me …”

Her hands wrap around my bare foot, close and intimate. The rest of my body is heavy and relaxed, soaked in warmth. She’s kneading and massaging, taking control of all of me through the pressure on this most sensitive part.

She looks at me with those blue eyes, not bright and narrow and electric like Adrik’s, but large and soft and dark, like the ocean at night. Slowly, she lifts my foot to her mouth, running her tongue lightly across the underside of my toes, her tongue soft and wet and velvety.

“Yeah. I know what you like.”

She peels off my other sock, then tugs off my jeans, tossing them aside.

The thong I’m wearing is a soft peachy pink, the thin material clearly showing the outline of my pussy lips, the cleft between, and the wetness soaking through the material.

Ilsa touches the wet spot with her thumb.

“Yeah … same old Sabrina …”

I groan, shifting my hips slightly, pressing against the ball of her thumb.

Ilsa pulls my underwear to the side, looking at my pussy, the tip of her tongue slipping out to moisten her lower lip.

“You still have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen … ”

She rubs her thumb lightly between my lips, spreading the wetness all the way up to my clit, rubbing slow circles around the nub.

Her hands are soft. They give me a floating, melting feeling. They remind me how soft I am, too … how relaxed I can be …

My thighs part. My pussy opens like a flower …

Ilsa brings her fingers to her lips, tasting me, licking my wetness off the ball of her thumb. Her lower lip glistens, full and red and ripe and delicious.

She slips her middle finger in her mouth, wetting it. Then she slides it inside me, just once, pushing it in and pulling it out with exquisite slowness.

I let out a long moan.

“You like that?” she murmurs.

“Yes …”

“Ask me to do it again.”

“Please … I need it …”

She pulls my thong down my legs, her fingertips tracing a long line from my hips to my ankles.

“Close your eyes,” she says.

I tilt my head back on the armrest of the couch, eyes closed, lips parted, taking slow, deep breaths.

I feel the cushions sink as Ilsa leans over me, her long, dark hair a curtain around my face. Softly, ever so softly, she strokes her fingertips on my pussy in a motion almost like tickling, but so much lighter .

“Relax …” she whispers.

My thighs are wide open, everything exposed. I’m not clenching, not squeezing. I don’t have to protect myself. I submit to the delicate sensation of her silky fingertips sliding over me, over and over, in soft, cascading raindrops. It’s warm and sensuous, never invasive, never too much. I can give in to it completely, I can let it carry me away …

“Your cheeks are flushed,” she murmurs.

Her warm breath is inches from my mouth. I feel it on my open lips. Even though my eyes are closed, I know Ilsa is watching my face, watching each gasp and flutter of my lashes. She loves watching me cum.

The orgasm spreads over me like warm liquid poured across my body. It diffuses down my limbs as I let out one long, wavering sigh.

Ilsa strokes my pussy like her own little pet.

She presses her lips against mine, once.

“Good girl.”

I look up into her face.

“You haven’t lost your touch.”

“I should hope not.”

She stands up from the couch, pulling her shirt over her head, stepping out of her pants, revealing that powerful body I’ve always envied. Her breasts are small and high like they wouldn’t dare get in her way, shoulders like a swimmer, a tattoo of an olive branch on her ribs. Thighs that could crush you, that have crushed me, many times …

She comes around the arm of the couch, leaning over me, pulling my shirt off as well. I wasn’t wearing a bra. My nipples are already hard, standing up on my chest.

Ilsa bends over, taking my breast in her mouth. Her mouth is warm, her tongue flicking against my nipple, sending sparks of heat through my chest.

Her breasts are right above my face. I tilt up my chin, licking her nipple with the flat of my tongue, massaging her other breast with my hand. I suck on her tits with deep, slow pulls, trying to get as much in my mouth as I can.

Her flesh is petal-like against my cheek. I nuzzle against her chest, inhaling her perfume. Thinking how remarkable it is that Ilsa has skin this soft hidden under her clothes.

Ilsa moans against my breast, switching to the other side, sucking just as hard.

I arch my back, grabbing her under the ribs. I pull her down on top of me, her weight heavy and satisfying. I nose her underwear to the side, my hands on the back of her thighs, pulling her legs apart. I latch my mouth onto her pussy, licking her clit with long strokes, sucking on it gently, tasting her, breathing her in. Oral on a woman is so much more intimate than on a man, so much more like kissing.

Ilsa’s head is between my thighs, licking and lapping in just the same way. We fit together so well, every part of us soft and smooth and meant for sliding. There’s no stubble on her face, no roughness. I can grind against her while she grinds against me, her scent in my mouth as rich and feminine as my own .

Touching her is like touching myself, I know what feels good. I lick her clit and stroke it with my fingertips. What she does to me I do to her—when she increases her speed and pressure, I follow suit. We’re grinding together in tandem, building our orgasms at the same time.

I grip her ass in both hands, licking and licking at her clit. I use the flat of my tongue, giving her more and more pressure, while I’m spreading my thighs, riding her tongue.

She pushes two fingers inside me. The way she touches me is delicate, exploratory—feeling with her fingertips, dipping them in and out.

I do the same to her, feeling the intense heat, the rhythmic squeezing, the intimacy of being inside of someone.

She’s panting now, huh, huh, huh, and I know she’s about to cum.

Her pussy clamps around my fingers, tighter than you’d ever believe. Her thighs shake on either side of my head. I’m caught in a vice, the tremors running down my body. It makes me cum too, clenching and vibrating, crying out with her pussy pressed against my tongue.

I roll away from Ilsa, falling off the couch, feeling like toothpaste squeezed out of a tube. My ears are ringing, whole body flushed and pulsing still.

I open my mouth to say something.

My stomach contracts. Without warning, without any ability to stop it, I vomit all over Ilsa’s rug

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she says.

I fall forward into the puke, slamming my head on the floor.

When I wake up, I’m in Ilsa’s bed. Sunshine pours in through the window, cruel and garish. Someone honks their horn on the street below and it stabs into my ear like a deliberate assault.

I sit up, then immediately regret it. My head feels swollen and wobbly on my shoulders, aching with every beat of my heart. I trace the worst throbbing to the lump on my forehead. Just grazing it with my fingertips sends another bolt of pain through my head, worse than the car horn.

It takes me a minute to actually get out of the bed. Black mist sweeps over my vision and I have to cling to the footboard of the bed, hunched over, until it passes.

When I stumble out to the living room I must look like walking shit ‘cause Ilsa’s head snaps up and she barks, “If you puke on my floor again I will fucking kill you.”

I’d tell her, I’m not gonna puke, but I really don’t trust myself to open my mouth. Instead, I hobble over to the kitchen table and sit down across from Ilsa, pulling the hem of her oversized t-shirt down over my knees. She dressed me in her Pussy Riot shirt, so I know she can’t be completely pissed at me.

“Could you please yell at me after I have some aspirin,” I croak.

Ilsa takes a slow bite of her toast, frowning at me while she chews.

She pushes away from the table and disappears into the kitchen, rummaging in the cupboards deliberately loud. She takes an ice tray out of the freezer and bangs it against the counter like she’s setting off depth charges.

“ I’m sorrrrrryyyyy …” I moan, hands over my eyes .

Ilsa gives the ice one last decisive bang, then quiets down, bringing me a glass of tomato juice and a bottle of seltzer, with four aspirin on a plate.

“Thank you,” I say, humbly, scooping up the pills and swallowing them down with a fizzy rush of seltzer.

I take about five seconds to breathe, imagining the seltzer diffusing into my dehydrated veins. Then I push the tomato juice an inch toward Ilsa, saying hopefully, “Little hair of the dog?”

“You are so …”

“Irresistible?”

“Intolerable.”

“I’ve heard that.”

Ilsa splashes a shot of vodka into my tomato juice, probably because she knows I’ll die otherwise.

She watches while I gulp it down, yanking the bottle away when I reach for more.

“You’re worse than I thought.”

“I’m fine. I’m gonna be completely fine.”

“You’re a fuckin’ mess.”

I cast a quick glance across the table at the vodka bottle, wondering if I have any chance in a fight against Ilsa at this moment. Maybe if I really surprise her and get her in a headlock and choke her out …

“You’re on the rebound. I’m not gonna be your backboard,” Ilsa says .

My eyes snap from the bottle to her face, heat flushing across my collarbones.

“I’m never going back to Adrik,” I tell her. “I’ll cut his heart out of his chest before I give him mine again.”

Ilsa gives an irritated snort.

“He still has it. Fucking look at you—I’ve never seen you like this.”

I bet I look like a literal lunatic. My hair has never been my friend in moments like this. It’s the worst tattletale of my mental state, probably frizzy and matted and feral. If I were dumb enough to look in a mirror, I’d see the blood-shot stare of a coked-up cult-leader.

But none of that matters right now.

I need to persuade Ilsa to do me a really big favor. So I need to sound sane and convincing.

“Ilsa … do you have a lot of guns and a flame-thrower?”

“Oh my god,” she groans, thrusting both hands into her hair like she’s gonna pull it out.

“Hear me out! Adrik has something that belongs to me. I need to get it back.”

“What do you think you’re going to do?”

“Not me … us. As partners. Equals. Two people that won’t fuck each other over or lie or get married to some asshole named Simon.”

“We don’t have any muscle or money … no agreements, no alliances … ”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got the recipe for the goodies everyone wants.”

Ilsa stuffs the rest of her toast in her mouth, not convinced.

“I can’t fall into your black hole again,” she says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re insane and unreasonable. Nothing’s ever enough for you, you want more more more more more.”

“Okay. But don’t we deserve more? Isn’t more the most fun?”

Ilsa lets the tension stretch out, really sticking it to me.

At last she says, “I’ll help you. But I’m not gonna fuck you.”

“Gross! I would never.”

She laughs. “I’m serious.”

“Me too. I learned my lesson mixing business and sex.”

Ilsa shakes her head, like she can’t quite believe she’s agreeing to this.

“What do you need from Adrik?”

“He kept all the money,” I say. “I want my equipm ent.”

An hour later we meet at the front door, both of us showered and dressed, my headache fading to a dull throbbing at the temples.

Ilsa is wearing a black suit and boots, her shirt unbuttoned at the throat, hair loose behind her. I’m in my favorite orange sweatpants.

“No fucking way,” she says.

“What?”

“I’m not going out with you like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because if someone shoots us, I’m not gonna be identified laying next you on a slab wearing that fucking outfit. No, it’s too embarrassing. My father will be like, I really think she should have seen this coming …”

I roll my eyes. “So sorry, let me go find something business-casual in my backpack.”

“You can borrow something of mine.”

“I could if you had better clothes …”

“You own sequin pants and two jackets with fringe on them. TWO. I’ve seen them.”

“That information was privileged.”

“We were never married—I’ve told your secrets to everyone.”

“That explains some looks I’ve gotten.”

We grin at each other, flushed with the adrenaline of what we’re about to do.

“I could maybe borrow an outfit,” I concede. “Give me a minute. ”

I re-emerge from Ilsa’s room five minutes later, wearing her gray suit. She’s broader in the back but I’m bigger in the chest, so it fits better than I expected.

“Discreet enough for you?” I say.

“Yes.” Ilsa looks me up and down, her lips quirking up on the right side. “You know how I feel about a woman in a suit …”

“You’re goddamn right I do.”

We drive over to the lab. Because there’s no raw materials to work with, Hakim isn’t there. I punch in the code, shaking my head when I see Adrik hasn’t changed it. He really doesn’t know me at all.

Ilsa and I gather up everything I want, stowing it in the back of her car. The most valuable item is the custom pill-press. We take anything else that’s mobile, bemoaning the fact that some of the best equipment is too large and too permanently-attached to move.

As I’m grabbing the centrifuge, I knock a rack of glass vials onto the floor. They explode when they hit the boards, sending glittering glass fragments everywhere.

“Oops,” I say. And then, because that actually felt pretty good, I grab another beaker and deliberately smash it on the ground.

Ilsa snorts. “Is that your revenge? You’re gonna make Adrik sweep?”

“Yeah,” I say, grabbing the rim of the massive sterilizer unit and yanking with all my might, “He’s gonna sweep a whole fucking lot.”

The unit topples, crashing to the floor .

The noise is immense and invigorating. I’m sweating from the effort of hauling all this shit, face flushed, a dark, furious energy rising inside me.

Standing inside the lab again is painful. I’m remembering the endless hours I worked with Hakim in here, how excited I was when we finally figured out the god-awful process of synthesizing our own LSD, how Adrik picked me up and swung me around when we told him the good news.

He was only excited because he knew how much money I’d make for him.

I was just his fucking employee.

I rip one of the Bunsen burners out of its socket and fling it at the furnace, denting its metal flank.

Ilsa laughs. “You throw like a girl.”

She’s already grabbed her own burner, winding up. She pitches it through one of the high windows, glass raining down in a thousand vicious points, embedding in the rotting wooden floor.

“Show off.”

She grins.

I’m not smiling. The destruction isn’t relieving my anger. I’m only thinking how pithy, how pathetic this is. How little it will matter to Adrik when he has all the money, all the deals, all his Wolfpack around him.

The ugly little demon on my shoulder whispers in my ear:

He never needed you. He never cared.

He’s glad you’re gone .

Everyone’s glad when you’re gone…

I wrench one of the drainage pipes out from under the sink and hit the side of the furnace with it, as hard as I can. The impact vibrates all the way up my arms, the sound echoing in my ears, hollow and dead. I hit the furnace again and again and again, until my hands are aching, until the whole room throbs with a noise like a gong.

Ilsa stands still, watching me. She’s not laughing anymore.

After a minute, she grabs a pipe of her own and starts smashing everything in sight — the sinks, the tables, the cupboards, the fridge…

Her eyes are flat and dark, her hair in strings in strings around her face, teeth bared. I don’t think she’s seeing the lab at all, but rather the faces of everyone who let her down. Maybe even my face.

The sounds of destruction pound in my head. My world is crashing down around me.

I’m caught in the frenzy, in the bitter need to see this all the way to the end.

I grab a jug of acetylene and uncork it, pouring it out in a trail on the floor. The fumes are ether-like, they make my head spin.

“Give me a lighter.”

Ilsa pauses, the pipe still clenched in her hands.

“You sure you want to do that?”

“ Give it to me. ”

Ilsa throws me the piezoelectric lighter I always used on the Bunsen burners. I spark it to life, holding it in my hand .

The lighter seems to fall in slow motion. When it touches the ground, nothing happens for a moment. Then a river of bright orange fire flows outward in both directions, sending up gouts of thick black smoke.

The heat hits me. My skin tightens. My eyes burn.

I’m burning all my hopes, all my plans, all my hard work. All my illusions, too.

Ilsa lets out a startled whoop, excited by the speed at which the flames rip through the decrepit lab.

I’m not excited. Not even satisfied.

I feel nothing but pain.