Ivana
Lucas stiffened. "He saw you, didn't he?"
He pulled away from the hug and led me to a dense area filled with trees and shrubs. He lowered himself to the ground, pulled me along with him, and laced his arms around my waist.
"He said you recognized him, and you made the mistake of calling him out."
"I know," I murmured against his blonde hair. "But I didn't know Lucas worked with Graystoke."
Jason stiffened slightly. "Nearly everybody works with Graystoke, directly or indirectly. Besides, sometimes they donate to us. They also donate to quite a lot of other groups. But you know—they're not bad guys," he said slightly defensively.
I pulled away from him just a little bit, traced my hand around the nose mask, and pulled it off, revealing his handsome face.
A part of me soon started comparing him to Constantine. Constantine was as dark as night, dangerous, and the perfect picture of what the devil would have looked like—a handsome man with dark hair, a brooding face, lips enough to cause World War III.
And while Jason was light, he could have as well been an angel with cherubic features—a slightly softer jaw, a slightly rounder nose, slightly thinner lips, and larger eyes. He was what would have been considered cute rather than mindlessly handsome.
But I loved Jason still. Or at least, I'd like to tell myself that.
"What about everyone else? Are they coming?"
My normal accent slipped out—a strange mixture of Russian and the typical Eastern European accents of Albania.
"Not all of them. Erika will be here, as well as Jones. But the rest of the guys are staying back. Most of them don't want to move because of the bomb. It made international news, just so you know. Some people are actually calling for him to answer for war crimes. But I don't know." He shrugged.
"War crimes? It's not like he's funding anything."
Jason kept quiet for a moment, his eyes staring deep into mine.
"King Constantine has done a lot," he said in a quiet voice. "But I thought you'd at least agree with me that he's not completely innocent. Even if it's just his armies—some of his allies that do terrible things—they actually do bad things, you know. And he's not innocent either. His country is so deep in debt, and the only way they can think to pay it off is by taxing their people to oblivion. The country's broken," he said. "We have to do some things—we have to do something. If you don't..."
He shook his head, looking down at the ground.
"I'll think that you forgive him."
"Don't," I said strongly, forcing his eyes back on mine.
My hand found his cheek, caressed it slightly, and I found that the 1 mm hairs on his chin were mildly ticklish against my palm.
"I don't forgive him. I will never forgive him for what he did. I will never let it go."
My voice came out a little too strong than I had anticipated.
"You can be rest assured of my loyalty, Jason. I will not betray our cause."
I and Jason stayed still for a while, simply just basking in each other's presence until it got late.
I went back home, rested for the next couple of days, and decided that I was no longer in so much pain as to be groaning about when I made a wrong move. After all, the drugs in my system had simply worn off.
Instead of heading to work, however, I took a long detour.
My first visit amounted to mostly nothing.
"I'm sorry," I said in the Albanian-slick accent to the family I found living in the sweet cottage in the far eastern suburbs. "I thought a family lived here. The Romanoff family. I thought they worked with the palace."
The woman who answered the door simply stared at me, shaking her head slowly.
Then she spat on the floor.
"God forbid they ever be found here. They were kicked out—well, taken to prison mostly. This place was put on sale at least half a decade ago. We bought it for cheap. No one wants to live in the house of a traitor."
"Where can I find them? I have some questions," I quickly lied through my teeth.
The woman first eyed me for a quick minute. "Are you a reporter?"
"Yes," I quickly said. "Personal paper. I post articles and I want to gain some traction. Do you know where I can find them?"
My smile fell as my eyes briefly scanned the inside of the house. The furniture I had grown up with was gone, thrown out and probably burnt till it was nothing but ashes. Even the floor had been changed.
The inside hardly looked like anything I remembered. The wall that had once been a bright banana yellow—"banana yellow," as my mom liked to call it—was now beige. Most of the area had been broken down to let light in. The kitchen was now open, and the stairs were a new design from what I remembered.
She stood in the way, blocking my view.
"They're in the slums, at least after they came out of prison. I think the mother is still alive somewhere. Everyone was curious too," she said, closing the door slightly.
"You'll find them in the Blue Corner."
She slammed the door shortly after.
My feet took me there without questions asked. A part of me didn't know why it was called the Blue Corner—until I did my research a couple of years ago.
The worst kinds of people lived there. And in Albania, you see, that was a different kind of classism. Those who had gone to prison were simply outcasts, hated no matter what the crime was. Of course, the state benefited greatly from this and ensured that people who had been regarded as stains on society were kept in one place—easily monitored and used for the worst kinds of labor, the worst kinds of work.
It was like a house with a lovely pink theme and lovely design on the outside, but the back side of it was ugly, smelly, and the owners would never let anyone go there.
But I soon found her—the woman I had once called mother.
She huddled over a cart with cartons in it, pushing it unceremoniously down a road.
Of course, the roads were slimmer, rougher, with the buildings done in such a way that they reached even the paper stones. Shops lined even the paper stones, making the road seem smaller, but she didn't seem to mind.
She just pushed her cart with as much focus as a toddler learning to walk.
Eventually, she turned a corner, and I followed.
She reached a door, dropped the cart off, and collected some bills of money. She turned and stopped dead in her tracks when her eyes met mine.
"Ivana?" my mother called me.
At first, her eyes were happy. Tears streamed down, touching her threadbare T-shirt. And soon, the happiness changed to surprise. Sadness.
And then anger.
"Why have you come here? Leave, or I will call the police on you!"