Faster. I should land midway through the stair leg if I jump over the rail. Ugh. I twisted an ankle but I am three feet behind her. Close enough to lunge forward.
She hit the concrete floor hard. I have her in a choke hold.
—Do not resist, ma’am, you will only make it worse.
We lie a few inches from the doorway, but no one can see us. If the noise did not alert anyone, this should be the end of it.
I hope Mia has Billie under control. I will find out when this nurse stops moving. Brain hypoxia will begin five minutes after the blood flow is stopped, but I am exerting over a hundred pounds of pressure on her neck. If her vertebrae are not severely damaged, enough blood vessels will rupture when crushed against her spine. Another thirty seconds should suffice.
I must remember to wipe down anything we touched. The window frame, the door handles. The police do not have our prints, but Mia and Billie were close. They were in youth group together. Zero degrees of separation. It will not take a genius to—
—Let’s go, Mother.
What is Mia doing here?
—Mia, you should be upstairs. Wipe our prints. Keep Billie quiet.
—We need to go.
I do not have the courage to tell her what needs to be done. We cannot leave a witness anymore, not after we killed three people. Mia will never forgive me, but that is something I must learn to live with. Do not draw attention to yourself. I broke the rule and I will pay the price. I will send Mia home and take care of Billie myself. I only wish they could say goodbye.
—Mia, we cannot leave just yet. There is—
—Mother! It’s done. Let’s go.
She knew. That look on her face. It is not resilience, or the knowledge that it had to be done. She is… angry. Is she angry at me? Perhaps Billie did not give her the recognition she wanted. Mia loved and she was not loved back. She felt vulnerable. That is not what we do best. It could be something else entirely, but it does not matter anymore. The nurse is dead. It is time for us to leave.
38
Hey, Good Lookin’
I’m proud of you, Son.
That’s what he said. Those were his last words. What an idiot. His brother, Uncle Hans, he knew better. Hans didn’t go easy. My brothers and I had to chase him down. It took us almost a year to catch up to him. He called us dimwits before we slit his throat. He always called us dimwits, but I think he meant it more that time. He said: “You fools have no idea what the hell you’re doing.” Back then, I thought he was just a coward. Now I think he might have been on to something.
I was always proud to be the eldest. I thought that made me—I don’t know—more me than my brothers. I worshiped my dad as a kid, and being allowed children sounded like quite a gas. Damn. I don’t wish our life on anyone, but when my son was born, I kind of looked forward to teaching him what I know.
Ha! The little buggers can’t do anything when they’re born. They don’t even speak. I mean, I knew all that going in, but I didn’t realize I’d be twiddling my thumbs for years while a tiny me makes spit bubbles and shits himself all day. I also didn’t realize he’d spend all his time with his mother, which meant I’d have to spend time with his mother. I must have not done a very good job at that, because she took the kid and ran after two years.
I had it all worked out. I wasn’t gonna kill her. I wasn’t even gonna yell. We’d both admit to our wrongs and start anew. It was all in my head, but I honestly thought it would work, and I was even a little proud of myself. She took a bunch of pills and drove her car right off a cliff. What kind of sick person does that to a child? I barely knew the kid but he was one of us. He didn’t deserve that. I took it hard. There was some drinking, some unfortunate incidents. I had to move a couple of times. It doesn’t really matter, what matters is that I wasted five years and I don’t even have one son, let alone four.
Now Charles and Leonard are in Washington. Lord knows what William is doing. And I’m here, thirty-four years old, trying to sway the ladies. I had plenty of hunt left in me when I retired. I still do. I’m sure my brothers would say the same, but I was good at this. I hated every moment but I had instinct. They wouldn’t be in America right now if it weren’t for me. I found that photograph. Me. Thousands of years we didn’t know what the traitors looked like, until I came along. We might have found them already if I’d gone with them.
That made me think. If my son were still alive, I’d show him things, teach him about our ways, but really, there isn’t that much to teach. Find the traitors, get the device, save the world. There. I could show him how to fight, whatever, but I couldn’t teach him what it meant to have spent an entire lifetime chasing after someone, the connection you develop, the intimacy. I know these women. No kid of mine will know them as much as I do, not until they reach my age and then, bam. Start all over again. I love tradition as much as the next guy, and I get how we don’t want to reproduce like rabbits, but this system of ours is really lossy. What a waste.
I dream of our world at night, I see its moons traverse the red sky, but I know now what I see can’t be real. I’ve only heard my father describe a place he’d never seen for himself. We’re playing telephone. Our dreams get garbled with every generation. Colors get diluted, details are erased. We lose a bit of who we are every time we’re born. We’re watered down like cheap drinks.
When the children I don’t have are old enough and they come to kill us, what will I say? “I’m proud of you, Son”? Fat chance. I’ll tell them: “You dimwits have no idea what the hell you’re doing.”
I need a drink.
39
Hymne à l’Amour
—You lied to me, Mia!
She lied and I did not see it. She said it was done. I do not know what upsets me most, Mia’s deception, or that I cannot read my own daughter anymore.
—I had to! You would have killed her. I couldn’t let you do that.
Mia has killed before. It nearly destroyed her, but she did what had to be done. She followed the rules. How can I leave three thousand years of work and sacrifice in her hands if she will risk it all for one person?
—I trusted you, Mia! What you did put us both in danger. Billie could have told them everything. I am still not sure why she did not. We could have been arrested, executed. Or sent to die in a mine somewhere. Billie could have had us both killed. She still can.
—She didn’t! I knew she wouldn’t.
—How could you know? She was screaming for you to leave!
—I think…
—What do you think? That you were being selfish? Dishonest?
—I think she didn’t want me to see her that way.
—Mia, she—
—She gave me her hand! My hand was on the bed and she… She put her hand in mine.
—That is not good enough, Mia. You put your feelings ahead of everything we hold dear. We cannot take that kind of risk. If both of us were to die, it would mean—
—You would have done the same thing.
—…
—You would have let her live if you’d been in my place. You would have, Mother, or everything you told me about us is a lie. We’re the same, aren’t we?
Is that what upsets me so much? That I have it in me to risk it all on someone? That I would give up everything we worked for? I think of those who came before me, of my mother, and all I see is strength. Would they have sacrificed everything for the person they loved? Survive at all costs. That is the rule. That is the only reason I am here, the only reason Mia lives. We are the Kibsu. We survive. Is it really Mia I am upset about? I have felt my own conviction waver ever since we moved to Russia. Have we lost our way, or have we always been weaker than I thought?