At first the dust didn’t bother him. He knew how to disengage his senses. Years of brutal training sessions with the Coach had taught him to ignore discomfort. But then he remembered they were in Fukushima. The dust covering his face might be hot. The particles sneaking past his lips and up his nose might be radioactive. He’d seen pictures of the workers from the Chornobyl nuclear power plant who’d been infected after the explosion. Their bodies covered with burn marks. Their inner organs rendered useless. Miserable deaths had followed.
He might have sentenced himself to death the moment he dove under the truck. He’d been born with radiation syndrome but Dr. Arkady had cured him. He’d known kids who’d died in their teens. He had been one of the lucky ones. He’d survived. Now he was infecting himself again. What had he done?
Then he thought of Eva. She was dead. But if that was the case, how could he have seen her in the window? Or had it been a mirage? Had he imagined that the androgynous Japanese boy Nakamura had called Yoshi was actually Eva with her hair cut short? It was possible, Bobby thought. She might have convinced Nakamura to refer to her as a boy to further protect her real identity. Still, Bobby worried her face was a figment of his imagination. One thing was for certain, he was going to find out the truth. If there was a chance Eva was alive, he would accept whatever fate was necessary to see her again.
The truck continued on paved roads for another ten minutes, and diverted onto a grassy field. A wooded lot followed. Bobby absorbed bumps and jackknife turns. When the vehicle emerged on fresh asphalt, the road noise grew. Tires rolled in the opposite direction, and Bobby knew they had left the Zone. Wherever they were headed — an abandoned airstrip or an obscure port — it wasn’t going to be a five-minute trip. His arms and shoulders burned. He knew his stamina would be tested like never before. He banished doubt and told himself to live in the moment. The key to pain management was to control his mind. The prerequisite to controlling his mind was visualization.
And so he summoned memories of a fourteen-year-old witch with purple streaks in her hair and matching lipstick. She had two friends who dressed as witches, too. Everyone knew that Bobby lived with her, but she didn’t want anyone to see her associating with the school freak. The boy whose mother had been a prostitute. The boy who was rumored to have been born in reactor four. What no one else in school knew was that Eva suffered from radiation syndrome, too. Eva swore him to secrecy, and Bobby kept his word.
Twelve months later, Bobby joined her in secondary school and became the favorite target of the bullies in his class. One afternoon they indoctrinated a new kid who’d just moved to Korosten into their gang. They followed Bobby from school. Introduced him to the new kid as human waste. Told him to watch what they did to radioactive scum. They chased and tackled Bobby. They pounded him with their fists and kicked him with their boots.
Bobby fought back but there were too many of them. He curled into a turtle position and covered his face with his arms. One foot broke through his guard and connected with his nose. Pain wracked his nasal area. A bitterness filled his mouth. It was the taste of blood. He heard someone howl. Realized it was his own voice.
“Hold his legs,” one of the bullies said. “I’m going to kick him in the knees until his kneecaps crack. I’m going to paralyze him. Then we’ll see how good he skates.”
Bobby struggled to get up and run but he couldn’t get out of their grasp. One kid pinned Bobby’s shoulders. Two others grabbed his legs. A third reared his right leg back and took aim for Bobby’s left knee. Bobby would never forget the gleam in that kid’s eyes as he prepared to ruin Bobby’s legs.
Then the bully crumbled to the ground. Eva stood behind him with a wooden bat. One of the other boys released Bobby’s leg.
“Lesbian bitch,” he said, and charged her.
She sidestepped him and clubbed him across the shoulder. He fell.
The other two boys froze. Bobby kicked the legs out from one of them. The bully tumbled. The boy who was pinning him down released his grip. Bobby pushed him aside, jumped to his feet, and coiled his fist to strike him. But the kid ran away. The other bullies followed, beaten, bruised, and confused.
From that day on they walked to school together. Word spread that Eva had thyroid cancer. The mean girls in school whispered in the hallways that she’d been born in reactor four, too. It was the same rumor that followed Bobby from school to school. It drew Eva even closer to Bobby. They shared dreams of leaving Korosten. Bobby coveted a life as a professional hockey player in America. Eva revealed her love of animals. She dreamed of being a zoologist.
If bullies and rumors brought them closer together, scavenging made them best friends. Their family faced a crisis. There was no money to buy gasoline for their monthly trips to Kyiv. But the Coach had a plan. There was good money to be made in the Zone. Chornobyl and Pripyat were less than a hundred kilometers away and the Coach had connections. He showed them how to sneak into the Zone to scavenge for vehicle parts that could be sold on the black market.
By their fifth trip they were seasoned pros. Their lithe, athletic frames allowed them to crawl deep into the graveyards and get to parts adults had difficulty negotiating. Their foot speed allowed them to move quickly in and out of the Zone. They shared the adrenaline rush of the danger and savored their scores. When one got stuck or locked in a car trunk, the other freed him or her. Until the night the hunters found them.
There were six of them, to the best of Bobby’s knowledge. Members of an elite club who enjoyed hunting the most dangerous game. The first shots from their rifles missed Bobby and Eva. The youths ran through the red forest under cover of darkness. When they circled around the cooling ponds to make their escape, one of the hunters revealed herself and blocked their path. The woman aimed her rifle at Eva. When the gun misfired, Bobby lunged and shoved the woman into the radioactive cooling ponds. Just as Eva had protected him from the bullies two years ago, he saved her from the hunters.
Bobby remembered the moment when they got home that night. He stood outside the bathroom waiting for Eva to come out so he could take a shower and go to sleep. When she stepped out in her t-shirt and sweatpants, her hair was damp and she smelled of lavender. She stopped and looked at him. Usually she looked away quickly but this time she held his gaze. There was something different in her expression. Something more than brotherly affection. Then she kissed him on the cheek. When she pulled away she smiled at him. It was the first time she’d ever smiled at him. It was the last time she ever smiled at him—
The truck veered left. Brakes screeched. Gravity pulled Bobby’s body to the left. His torso strained. The truck straightened and slowed down. Bobby’s body rolled right back to equilibrium. The truck slowed to a crawl. Bobby tried to remember how long they’d been driving but he’d lost focus.
The smell of petrol grew more intense. The truck stopped beside a rectangular structure. Based on its width, it was the size of a refrigerator. Steel clanged against steel. It was the sound of a fuel dispenser entering a gas tank.
They’d stopped at a gasoline stand.
Footsteps clanged above him. Bobby heard a man’s voice. Deep, masculine. Controlled but firm. The sound of flesh slapping flesh followed, and then a muted gasp. He’d hit her, Bobby thought. The driver had hit Eva. Even though she was bound and gagged he’d found it necessary to remind her he would harm her if she dared try to escape somehow.
Bobby suppressed his rage. Children acted on impulse. Adults waited until their emotions subsided. This is what his father had taught him at age twelve. Bobby was not a child. It was questionable if he’d ever been one. Sometimes that reality depressed him. He felt he’d missed out on something during his primary school years. But other times he treasured his life’s experience. Few adults could control their emotions as well. His self-control was an advantage in competitive situations. Like this one.