“You said you were recruited from that place straight into your unit,” I say, propping myself up on my elbow again. “Why? Do they normally do that in Russia?”
He gazes at me silently, then turns over onto his back, lacing his hands under his head as he stares at the ceiling. “No,” he says after a moment. “They usually recruit through the army. But in this case, they needed someone with a specific psychological profile.”
I sit up, holding the blanket against my chest. “What kind of profile?”
His eyes cut over to meet my gaze. “No inconvenient family ties or attachments, no scruples, and only minimal conscience. But also young enough to be trained and molded into what they needed.”
“Which was what?” I ask, though I suspect I already know.
Peter sits up, his expression carefully neutral as he leans against the headboard. “A weapon,” he answers. “Someone who wouldn’t balk at anything. You see, the insurgents were getting more ruthless, more fanatical with every year. The bombing of the subway in Moscow was the last straw. The Russian government realized they couldn’t limit themselves to civilized, UN-approved methods of combatting terrorism; they had to meet them on their level, fight them using every tool available. So they formed this off-the-books Spetsnaz unit, and when they couldn’t find enough trained soldiers to fit the desired profile, they decided to get creative and look elsewhere.”
“In Camp Larko,” I say, and Peter nods, his eyes like polished steel.
“Those of us who lasted there for any extended period of time tended to be strong, able to handle long hours of physical exertion under extreme conditions. Hunger, thirst, cold—we could endure it all. And as you can imagine, many of us fit the profile they were looking for.”
A shiver dances over my skin, making me draw the blanket tighter around myself. “So why did they choose you over the others?” I ask, fighting to keep my tone steady.
His lips quirk in a dark smile. “Because right before they arrived, I killed a guard,” he says softly. “I staked him out in the snow and made him admit his crimes before I gutted him like a rabbit in front of the entire camp. My methods were… Well, let’s just say it was exactly what they were looking for. So instead of getting punished for the guard’s death, I got a new career, one that fit both my inclinations and my skillset.”
My palms grow slippery where I’m holding the blanket. “What were the guard’s crimes?” I ask, though I’m not sure I want to know.
The darkness in Peter’s gaze deepens, and for a moment, I’m afraid I went too far, brought up too many bad memories. But then he leans back against the headboard and says evenly, “He liked to boil boys alive.”
I stop breathing as bile surges up my throat. “What?” I gasp out when I’m able to speak.
“In the showers, we had either ice-cold or scalding water, nothing in between,” Peter says, his face tightening as his gaze grows distant. “The pipes would constantly malfunction, so we’d use buckets to mix the water before washing. Some guards, though, would punish us by making us stand under the water as it was, ice cold for minor infractions, scalding when we really misbehaved. One guard, in particular, liked the hot water remedy. He got off on it, I think. The others would just do it for a few seconds at a time, maybe half a minute tops, giving the boys superficial burns. But this guard, he’d push it. A minute, two, three, five… By the time Andrey landed on his shit list, he’d killed two fifteen-year-olds by boiling the meat off their bones.”
I taste vomit in my throat. “Andrey… your friend Andrey?” I whisper through numb lips.
“Yes.” Peter’s chiseled face takes on an almost demonic look of fury. “Andrey, who should’ve never been in that shit hole in the first place. My friend, who refused to let that prick f*ck him and died in agony instead.”
“Oh God, Peter…” I press my trembling fist to my mouth, then reach for his hand, feeling his fingers twitch with barely suppressed rage as he fights to control himself. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He grips my hand like a lifeline and closes his eyes, breathing in deeply. When he opens them again, his expression is calm, but I now know the depth of the pain and fury that lurk beneath that controlled mask.
I was wrong to think that his family’s deaths made him into a monster. He was one long before Daryevo, the horrors he’d encountered in his lifelong struggle for survival stripping away whatever capacity for goodness he might’ve once possessed. His early victims were no angels, but once he went down the dark path of vengeance, he became like them, hurting innocent and guilty alike.
Carefully extricating my fingers from his grip, I move back to the middle of the bed. “What about that headmaster?” I ask, holding my captor’s gaze. I’m already sick to my stomach, but I have to know how deep the damage goes. “What did he do to make you kill him?”
Peter smiles grimly. “You haven’t had enough for tonight? No? All right, if you must know, he liked little boys. The younger, the better. I was lucky, because at eleven, I was already big, almost like a teenager. Way too old for him when he started at the orphanage. But the little ones… I would lie there at night and hear them scream and cry in their rooms when he came to them. Each night, I’d die a little bit inside, because there was nothing I could do, nobody I could tell who’d listen. The teachers, the police—they either didn’t care or didn’t dare make waves. This motherf*cker was connected, you see; he was from some important family. So nobody did anything, and then a new boy was brought in, all of two years old. When I heard him go to the child, I couldn’t take it anymore. I took one of the kitchen knives, crept up behind him, and while he was busy assaulting the kid, I slit his throat.”
Of course. My dark knight taking vengeance again. I close my eyes against the hot sting of tears, my heart breaking for both Peter and the little boy. I suspected it was something like that, only I was afraid it was Peter himself who’d been the victim. Not that it means he hadn’t been. Opening my eyes, I meet his steely gaze. “What about you?” I ask unsteadily. “Were you ever…?”