章節 11: Run, Before They Reach You

[NIKITA]

I really don't feel like entertaining this guy, but what option do I have?

We both look ridiculous and lost - me in my pink pajamas. Raisa got me and him looking dirtier than the sins I think I might just commit here with him. I want to know what he is aiming at, what his angle is with everything.

Indeed, the resemblance with my brother is not something that I bump into daily, so he is here. And he is here for me. The question is why and even though it's racking my brain, I'm not sure I am interested in knowing it anyway.

Maybe I can just go back and sleep and even forget this shit ever happened. Perhaps I can just tell Maggie I don't know him or that he means nothing to me, which is actually true, but I want to know why he is here. I look at him again, and it hurts.

His face, staring at me, watching me, while I'm missing the person who had a similar face. Maybe this is fate, but on how cruel it is then. My eyes are still swollen from the lack of sleep, but I tell myself I will be okay.

I ignore the thumping on the side of my head, reminding myself that my body is just trying to force me to rest since I have never rested intentionally. My ears are ringing and so loudly, maybe I also have it, but that couldn't be; it was just Yuri who experienced that shit.

We had all been cleared.

Anyway, I carefully close the distance between Yuri's look-alike and me.

He looks lost, desperate even, but for what? I really have no idea. Somehow he looks at me like I am his last hope or something, but how the fuck can I give anyone hope when I'm wallowing in my loss and pitying myself away from the operating table?

I'm tempted to move even closer, but I need to be at a safe distance in case he has a weapon on me. I may be giving up, but ain't any way I will be letting anyone end my life aimlessly. So I keep my distance ad study this man.

He looks so dirty, but there's something about the dirt on him. It's like something that was done in a rush. Now that I look at him, the mud on him, the ground, it's all fresh, like he just smeared himself before taking the grand walk to this hospital.

I look back at Maggie, who just shrugs, and I make a mental note to ask the guards how the fuck they had forgotten that this was a hospital and that patients need to be kept safe from any unnecessary infections. The man doesn't even look sick in the first place, which pisses me off, but more than anything, it makes me curious.

My sleepy state is slowly fading away as my brain registers something I have been telling myself in the past six months. That the plane crash was never an accident. But I still need to know what this man is doing here.

Maybe he is here to deliver a message, but from who? And why would they want my whole family dead? The thought of Raisa lying in the pool of blood makes me nauseous, but then again, the plane was recovered when it had been burnt to crisp.

No bodies were found; nothing was found other than the ashes. It was clear that someone had gone there after the crash and erased all evidence, but the law enforcement seems to forget all that, or maybe they are just ignoring it because it was done by someone influential.

I wonder what Yuri must have thought, oh my poor brother. While he may have been the second born, he was the weakest link in the family, which makes me want to murder this guy for simply looking like my brother.

I know I have gone insane; it is something that happens when you lose everything in one go. I have been running mad the past six months, but maybe I could just seal this off once and for all. I could make the world believe so so that they could leave me the fuck alone.

This man seems to notice the distrust in my eyes because he composes himself like he was never sick in the first place.

Only I can see it, though.

Everyone else is seeing a dirty man who looks like Yuri Pavlenko. The eyes are daring me to say something or do something contrary to the company policies, but I'm not going to take the bait. I've been hurt for too long, but this time, I will be clear-headed.

While he notices my distrust, I try my best to cover it up by pretending to be happy and excited. I fake enthusiasm when all I want to do is question him till he tells me why he's here pretending, but I can't do that because everyone is watching Todorov hospital's chief surgeon, waiting for what I will do next.

The glint in the guy's eye is proof that he's not my brother. But suddenly, he looks at the television behind me, and his face conforms into that of fear. I have been around too many patients to know when fear is genuine or not, and his anxiety is natural.

I look at the screen behind him, silently thanking the hospital for having screens all over, and I see my parent's crash being shown again, but I don't care about that anymore.

I realized that these humans will always advertise that crash for as long as they would just pint money from the taxpayers. Looking closely at the footage being shown from the plane's Blackbox, I feel dead for the first time in so long.

The guy sitting right in front of me is in my parent's private plane, and he's throwing all the parachutes out the window, but no one is getting off with the parachutes. They are empty. They are free. He asks if there are other parachutes, and he's given the last one, which he wears.

I want to shout at my father to take the gun from the guy, but then I remember he's a doctor, not a superhero and the worst part is that the guy is holding my baby sister hostage.

Raisa is in his arms, and he casually blows her brains off when my mother makes the slightest move to get up.

I hear them cry.

I see my father helplessly hoping that the guy won't take Yuri, but he does, and while he doesn't kill my brother, he kills both pilots and the flight crew then leaves in his parachute, but not before initiating emergency lockdown.

I wonder how the footage of the plane showed up now when I've been looking for it for months without any success.

In a moment, I'm looking at the guy who's here pretending to be my brother, and he isn't even fazed that I might just kill him anytime now.

He looks scared of something else or someone else because the last thing I hear him say is for me to run before they reach me. I want to ask who is they, but the kill switch in his brain has been fired up.

He is dead.

Just great.

Just fucking great.