Kisa came closer, almost melding herself into my chest like she wanted to crawl into my skin. “My God, Luka… I remember them taking you away. I was taken home… and all I remember is being numb as I lay in my bed.”

Kisa looked up at me and placed her palm upon my skin. “What happened next? Because… because after you left, and I didn’t know where they had taken you, we were told you were dead.”

The smell of smoke burned my nose. The sounds of screeching tires skidding to a stop. There was a bus…

“I was in a bus. It was cool outside. Night. I remember not being able to see through the glass because the windows were so steamed up. There were four, maybe five of us being taken away somewhere. Nobody talked. We all sat separately. But I could feel that we were all scared. We were all young… teens? Some could’ve been even younger. Some had been sold by their families to work on the farms.”

I stared off at the lights on the pier, almost feeling drained by how much I had remembered tonight. But the lights blurred and I could suddenly see something else in my mind. The lights… the screeching of tires…

“The bus was run off the road,” I blurted, my voice speaking aloud a memory it was currently processing. “Headlights from a van blinded us on a dark road. There was a loud bang and the driver of the bus swerved and we rolled into a ditch.

“We were all screaming, but the driver wasn’t moving. I remember climbing over the seats, hearing the other boys moan from their injuries, and crawled to the driver. But when I got to him, I could see blood. I could see a hole in his head… a hole I knew he didn’t get from the accident.”

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, the pain of such memories coming too strong.

“Luka?” Kisa whispered and began rubbing at my back. “Don’t…. don’t push yourself too much. It’s okay, lyubov moya. It’s okay. Don’t rush yourself. This is all too much for you to go through in such a short space of time.”

Anger boiled in my stomach, and I began to shake violently, my inner rage almost too much to cope with.

“No,” I snapped curtly, my voice sounding deadly even to me. Kisa jumped and I heard her hold her breath at my sudden change in mood. “I need… to remember,” I forced out.

“Luka?” Kisa asked and slowly began backing off my lap. “You need to calm down. You’re turning red. Your skin is scalding!”

Tipping back my head, I roared toward the night sky, releasing all the confusion, the rage, and the frustration that had been bombarding me over the last few days.

“Luka!” Kisa cried, and I could hearing her sniffing, sobbing as she moved from my lap and scurried backwards into the rocks.

“The driver had been shot, and men stormed the bus… Georgians… Georgians stormed the bus.” I began rocking on my knees as the scene played out. “They beat us, forced us into the back of the bus…” I sucked in a long, stuttered breath and looked to Kisa, who was now dressed and pressed against the rocks as though she were facing a monster.

She was. I was a fucking cold, sick monster. This was what they had made me… what they’d been ordered to do to me by…

“They knew my name,” I spat out. “Those men… they asked for me by my name.” I blinked, but the memory of my full name didn’t come. “Luka,” I said and hit the side of my head with my fist. “Luka… Luka… ARGH!”

I couldn’t remember my last name!

“Tolstoi,” a soft voice uttered against the breeze. “Luka Jakob Tolstoi… that was your full name. That is your full name.”

Shoulders sagging, I tilted my head to the side as I witnessed the expression on Kisa’s face transform from fear to sadness.

Feeling my legs shake, I fell forward on all fours, my hands fisting into the sand.

“Luka!” Kisa shrilled, and I heard her drop beside me, her hand tentatively resting on my back.

“They had been sent for me,” I rasped, all energy seeping from my body into the sand beneath me. “Fuck… I can still feel it. Like a fucking dagger, Kisa, a dagger.”

“How?” Kisa asked cautiously, her fingers running down my spine. “Why were they sent for you? How did you know?”

*****

“Luka Tolstoi. You’re coming with us,” the man with the gun said.

“Where? Where am I going?” I asked, but I got no answer.

“To fucking hell, boy. You’re going off the grid. Someone’s paid us a shitload of money to make you disappear.” The guy pointed to the other boys being dragged out of the bus. “You all are.”

“Why?” I asked. “Who ordered this?”

He smiled and shrugged. “You fucked with the wrong family, boy.”

All I felt was dread at his words. “Durov? It was Durov?”

The man looked taken aback, but then he laughed. “Well, at least you’ll know who’s to blame for what lies ahead. Abram made sure you’ll never ever return to Brooklyn.”

*****

Lurching to a sitting position, I stared at Kisa. “Abram… Abram Durov…”

“What? What else do you remember?”

“He organized for the Georgians to intercept the bus. He emptied it and burned the bus. They filled it with dead teens from the Gulag so there was burned bodies. But it was Abram. He ordered me taken.”

Kisa’s eyes shone, but her face was calmer now, numb. “He needed to protect Alik,” she said, nodding. “He needed you gone so no one would know Alik killed Rodion.”