Page 105 of Graves

I pause for a moment, smiling sadly.

“You know she used to call us Dom and Zay? Never our full names. That’s why it threw us so much when you started to. It felt…serendipitous.”

Blake looks at me, her eyes practically drowning in empathy before she turns to face Zayden. He won’t meet her eyes, though, so instead, she grabs his hands, wraps them around her waist and forces his head into her neck. I watch as he goes easily, doing whatever she asks of him, and I even notice his muscles relax the smallest amount when he smells her scent. It’s something comforting, a basic human comfort, and the fact that she gets that about Zayden, especially, just proves how perfect she is forus.

“He was our only living relative, and since no one tied him to being there that night, he was given emergency custody of us. Knowing what we knew, though? What Zayden saw?” I shake my head as that day comes back to me, more vivid than I’d prefer.

The weeping friends, coworkers, and neighbors of our parents slowly start to leave once the caskets are lowered. The sun is setting fast, and the priest walks away with a sad shake of his head toward Zayden and me. I know that my cheeks are wet, but I don’t want to wipe them away. That’s my mama’s job, but she can’t do that anymore, and if she can’t, no one will.

Zayden hasn’t cried since the night they died, the night he ran home, bursting into the neighbor’s apartment and found me. I’ve never seen anyone cry so hard.

Since then, though, not a drop has been found. He’s angry instead and quiet.

We were moved into our uncle’s house the next day, and we hate it. We can’t stand being in the same home as our mother’s killer. I tried to get Zayden to go to the police, tell them what he saw, but he said there was no point. That cops wouldn’t believe a junkie’s kid. Maybe he’s right, but maybe they would believe him, and he can rot in prison. That seems too easy for him, though.

Slimy hands land on Zayden and my shoulders, a convincing sorrowful sound to his voice as he speaks to us.

“It’s time to go home, boys. Say your goodbyes.”

Anger fuels me as I stare at the holes in the ground where our parents now lie. The cops showing up may not have been his fault,but something tells me based on the way Zayden described things, our mother would have ended up here regardless. Probably our father too once he witnessed his own brother killing his wife.

Zayden and I share angry looks, and I notice that Zayden has something silver in his right hand. His knuckles are clenched around it, half of the knife hidden up the sleeve of his long shirt. His eyes are begging me to help him, and without hesitation, I do just that.

We move as one, and I spin around, stomping on his foot. It takes him by surprise before I punch my fist into his face as hard as I’m able. While he’s disoriented, Zayden swings around, sinking the knife into his side. His mouth opens in shock, and he leaps for Zayden before I kick him in the balls. Dad always told me only cowards kick other men in the balls, it’s not fair in a fight. There isn’t anything fair about cutting open our mother’s neck, though, so fuck fair.

He groans and cups himself, falling to the ground as Zayden stabs him in the back. Somehow, he’s able to reach his hand around, gripping the handle of the knife and pulling it out. He swings it around, aiming for Zayden, when I leap on top of him. We wrestle with the knife, and I’m able to bend his wrist enough to force the blade toward him.

I put all of my muscle into pushing it into him, but I’m not strong enough. That is, until Zayden practically climbs onto my back, increasing my efforts as his hands come over mine. Together, we sink the blade into his chest, his mouth opening and making a croaking like noise for several seconds before he stops breathing.

Breathing heavily, I move to stand, and so does Zayden. We stare at our dead uncle’s body for several seconds before Zayden leans forward, grabbing the knife out of his chest and putting it to hisneck. His hand moves last, slicing a line straight across our uncle’s neck. Blood squirts out from the move, soaking Zayden and my shirt, neither of us seem to mind, though.

Suddenly, a slow clapping sound comes from behind us, and fear grips me. Oh god. We’re gonna go to jail. We just killed our uncle, and we’ve been caught. I look to Zayden, silently questioning if we should run. He doesn’t give me anything, though. He just stares at me blankly as if he wasn’t there anymore before we both turn to face our witness.

A tall man, wide as a building, with blond hair and silver eyes smiles down at us with a grin that turns my stomach. His hands are still clapping as his eyes look over Zayden and me from head to toe before looking at our uncle.

“Moi malchiki, that was impressive,” he says, his thick accent making it hard to understand his words at first.

“Who are you?” I ask.

His eyes swing to me as he smirks.

“You can call me Maxim.”

I sneer as I continue recounting the story, Blake’s eyes unblinking as she stares at me, begging me to continue.

“He helped us move the body, took it to a local pig farm, and we watched as he was eaten completely within a matter of hours. Then he gave us a proposition. Go into foster care and more than likely be separated or come live with him. Train under him. Work for him.”

Blake frowns. “You guys were only nine, though.”

I nod. “The perfect grooming age, according to Maxim. Obviously, we chose to stay together, and Maxim legallyadopted us. We were moving out of the US and into Russia practically overnight. For four years, we trained seven days a week, fourteen hours a day, and on our thirteenth birthday, we were sent on our first job.”

Her beautifully full lips part in disbelief as she looks back to Zayden, who is seemingly coming out of his haze.

“How long did you guys work for him?” she asks him, no doubt testing to see if she can get him to talk about this.

He doesn’t say anything for a while before he begins running his fingers through her hair.

“Until we were eighteen. Dominic had been planning our escape for years, and he was able to arrange fake deaths for us. We were careful for years, never using our real names until recently, when we knew he had no doubt forgotten about us.”

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