I step out into the housing district. It’s overcast as always, an eternal gloom hanging over Toprak. My muscles itch from phantom stimulations; I’ve been image training again, for the whole morning. I have nothing better to do. Removing thought from action, as Delusion says.

I begin stretching a little, worrying about a cramp because of the chill air after yesterdays. It’s good to get out of the house. Nothing but the house and the tunnels below for days now. I did get out once, but still, it’s being stuck in that same environment for a prolonged period of time. I’m beginning to hate it - the tunnels, not the house. I did only want to store the gun and money down there anyway. Maybe I should ask Delusion about spawning the Ambit somewhere else.

It’s almost lunch time so I’m going to do some running. A meandering route towards the cafe, snaking through abandoned houses and over dumping grounds, down back-roads and around the outer edge of Toprak and the housing district.

I set off towards the road with the trench were Lera and I used to play.

The cafe is on Radovan’s side of the housing district rather than mine, but is still a distance away from his drug house. It’s quite close to the park and the shopping district, but boarders neither.

My body’s tired from yesterday, still. I can feel a weakness down to my bones, as though running is just a little harder than it used to be, my limbs weighing just a little more in a skewed perspective. When really, my muscles are fatigued.

I feel jumbled, my mind mostly. Probably nerves building about how Lera will react to seeing me. I need to figure out where and when to practise using my greater power, as Delusion suggested, but I don’t have a mind for it right now. Thoughts are slipping away like a snow melt into Toprak’s storm water drain. I still need to think about what I’m going to say to Lera, but those thoughts also find themselves draining away.

I don’t want to say I’m sorry. Because I’m not.

The image training was fine somehow. I guess I concentrate a lot while doing that and manage to put everything else out of my mind. I was going over triggering my greater power with it. I thought that would be useful. I mainly felt my greater power in my arms when I triggered it, so I thought I would try my tensing to trigger in my arms only. A lot of the thought behind that was about not cramping my leg again. Pretty sure the Marrops would have killed me if I had cramped like that with them.

Need to get my scattered thoughts under control.

I pass an old disconnected overhead water supply pipe in one of the more derelict areas of the housing district and begin to slow down. I’m still a few blocks away from the cafe but I need to look for a place to watch the cafe from. I can’t hang around it and wait; it could be anyone of Radovan’s guys coming today.

Watching from a roof would give a nice view. Anything else would be awkward, like hiding in a withering bush or behind a pile of dumped stone. A roof close enough with a view, but where I won’t be exposing myself. I get within a block from the cafe and start scouting surrounding houses. One or two are occupied, the others most likely abandoned or uninhabitable. I can’t search them from the front so I go down the back-road between houses, stepping over scrap metal tossed over fences and around a fallen down wall in one place.

The, hopefully, abandoned houses I’m going to scout face onto the street with the cafe opposite them. One of them must have a good spot for me, otherwise I’m not sure how I’ll do this.

I hop over one of the fences just above head height and survey what should be the backyard. An old wood pile that’s soft with wet and decomposition, scatterings of broken small furniture like stools, chairs and footrests. The house itself is pale. The walls either touched by the ashtray that is Toprak, or bleached by weak sunlight over decades. It looks whole, not as rotten as I would have thought. But going inside… I might find fiends. Being this close to the park, that’s expected. I initially planned to watch from a roof top with maybe a sheet of tin pulled over myself. Watching through the window of a dark room does sound better.

Two steps up to the back doorway - because there is no door. People have been here; fiends and homeless, their passing through the house a pathway of disturbed dust as they shuffle, some dragging their belongings or too large clothes behind them. The odd shoe print and smudged hand mark here and there makes me wonder what they were doing. Perhaps getting high until there was only enough left for one, ensuring a scuffle between Toprak’s vermin. Their rubbish litters the house too of course, discarded paraphernalia for their habits, junk food wrappers tossed against walls, crumpled newspaper used for who knows what. In one corner the scorch marks on the floorboards tell the story of an attempt at a fire in the dead of winter. A pathetic attempt because the house hasn’t burnt down.

One of my biggest surprises is that the house doesn’t smell much. The fiends didn’t piss everywhere or leave their diseased faeces in a corner.

I find ladder like stairs up to what must be a storage attic, which was thoroughly searched by the fiends for anything to steal and sell as evidenced by the trampled dust too and from the ladder, the frequency only to be mirrored by the back door entrance. I put a hand on the wooden frame and start boosting myself up.

An empty wooden trunk turned on its side, a broken hat stand or coat rack, frames for pictures or mirrors partially toppled over, more litter from the fiends like spent matches, singed newspaper and dregs of a shirt so filthy that it can’t even be made use of as a rag. The storage attic is mostly empty otherwise.

Though I have found my spot to watch the cafe from. A small square window is hidden behind frilly petticoat style curtains which look relatively unmarked by the passing of fiends.

I push the curtains aside and look down into the street not too far below. A potholed road and a single story house painted red with white outlines. What you see is a brown maroon though, only a local of Toprak would know it’s red underneath. A gate of iron bars blocks the only entrance.

Time to begin waiting.

-

Today it’s Lubov, one of the floor enforcers in the drug house. He’s not the most intimidating man, not being as tall or as bulky as Kostas, but what he lacks in character and in hairline, he makes up with violence.

I’ve never actually heard him talk. I’ve heard him laugh, sure. But otherwise, he goes straight from silence to violence faster than you can blink.

I want to leave right away, but I have to be patient. Leaving too soon could give myself away somehow. Let Lubov or whoever it is leave first, always. That way I’ll be safe.

Waiting for Lubov doesn’t take long, the cafe has his order ready and he’s soon on his way back to the drug house. I give him an extra ten minute head start before I begin making my way out of the abandoned home.

Tomorrow is another day.

-

I arrive much earlier today, too early. I reach the abandoned home and have a good half an hour extra to wait. I should have done some more running, my muscles demand it too. Image training really seems to agitate them. But maybe being early is good though. I’m not a hundred per cent sure on the drug house’s timing, only that around lunch time they come for pickup.

I peal back a few pages of dirty newspaper and pull out fresh sheets. I’ll clean the storage attic’s floor a little and do some calisthenics while waiting.

Been enjoying my rest. I feel almost recovered from using my greater power. I was thinking of trying it out again tomorrow, trying to trigger it with arms only like I’ve been image training. Maybe going down to one of the abandoned apartment blocks after waiting out lunchtime here like I initially thought. Doing it tomorrow will still leave me a few days to recover before the next Ambit.

Today is… Radovan’s turn?

He pulls up in a car. And not one of the factory printed matchbox cars like the HnZ-205 “Yugol”, no. Radovan has an imported car, a sign he’s doing well in the drug business. It’s a sporty and low profile two seater that’s white silver with a few chrome finishes. He parks half on the road and half on the curb right outside the cafe’s iron gate and steps out.

He’s thin, skinny even but in that razor kind of way. Grease styled black hair matches his black glasses he pulls off before rapping on the iron gate.

That’s rare. I don’t think he ever picks food up unless he’s already out. He always orders Lubov or Artyom to fetch the food if he’s at the drug house.

He takes a while in the cafe, much longer than Lubov did. Must be eating with the sisters or something.

A good twenty minutes pass as I wait him out. He enters his car with a bag in hand and I begin another ten minute wait before I leave. Patience is the key here.

Tomorrow is another day.

-

Image training, image training, and image training. I’m tiring of this routine already, though not the monotony of it but the effect. My muscles always seem to know better, sending me into forced exercise though frenetic agitation.

I set out earlier, around 10am, intent on mastering the hunger like longing my body has for stress. I can only hope I’ll still manage to make it back home later after lunch when I try using my greater power again. I might have to rest somewhere from sheer exhaustion after how tired I was in the tunnels.

It doesn’t really matter where I run today - aside from staying away from the drug house - so I set out with no destination in mind.

Between the orphanage, the Armistice monument, the largely abandoned factory district and the block district, I make a winding route around Toprak, wherever my legs want to carry me. It’s tiring but also almost meditative, wearing my body down into a satisfied exhaustion.

I slowly drift back through potholed streets and back-roads used as dumping grounds, past decrepit ruins of abandoned houses and the eerie empty zones of the factory district that were bustling with activity a decade prior. I step into the back-road nearing the cafe and slow to a walk. It’s going to be time to wait soon, and I feel like I can do with some waiting. I wipe at the sweat on my face and temples with the underside of my shirt as I make my way through the abandoned house and towards the ladder like stairs.

Today is… Lera. Today is Lera.

I hesitate as I watch her walk the length of the street to the cafe’s iron gate and rattle it. I need to do this. I need to go down there and talk to her. But I’m hesitating for some reason. Nerves or cowardice or something, something is putting up a little fight. But I can’t let Lera fade away to some kind of estranged sibling relationship. Like you’re strangers but acquaintances. She’s my sister; she should always be my sister.

Lera continues rattling the iron gate, and I realise that I’ll have to do that too if I get there too late. The two sisters that own the cafe might not let me in.

I turn and run, jumping down the ladder like stairs in a single leap, sprinting through the house and out the doorway, leaping over broken furniture and propelling myself over the boundary fence. Maybe it was faster to somehow come out the front of the house, but I never explored that much. I’m going to have to run around the block to the cafe. My feet slam down on the compressed gravel of the back-road as I dodge between or leap over the scrap metal, lose stone or broken concrete that’s been left there. Quickly I find myself rounding the first corner and then the second. I can see Lera now, still there banging on the gate. I wonder why they haven’t let her in. Lubov was let in quickly enough.

I begin to slow, not wanting the sound of my feet pounding the pavement to be what draws her attention to me.

“Alyona! I know you’re there!” Lera shouts at the iron gate.

I slow down and try to catch my breath now that it seems there’s no rush.

“Nadenka? Come let me in. Эта сука, Alyona, is ignoring me!”

This bitch

“Lera?” I call out.

Lera turns and sees me. She quickly starts beckoning me over with her violet nails, not seeming surprised at all.

“Nadenka?” She calls into the iron gate again. “I’m here with my brother. We’re going to have tea and anything nice you have to snack on while we wait.”

This isn’t how I expected it to go. I don’t mind if Lera uses me to get inside though, probably better than waiting outside.

I walk up to her and… Well, she hasn’t washed since she showered at home I guess. The cafe sisters, Alyona and Nadenka their names appear to be, must not like her because of that.

She smells and looks a mess to put it bluntly. But I don’t think she’s drunk or high on anything. Tipsy maybe, hard to tell that one.

“Lera, I don’t have any money.” Is all I can think of saying.

Predictably, she rolls her eyes but doesn’t seem angry. She must be thinking about Radovan’s money I stole.

“Come here, Aleks. I don’t see you enough.” She pulls me into a hug.

She isn’t complaining about me being hot and sweaty after running for a few hours, so I don’t complain about her unwashed stench.

Lera has me gripped in a tight hug. I try returning it. If I ignore the smell, it reminds me of older times

She nestles her head into my neck and whispers “I know you love your family.”

She must be tipsy. The sound of heavy keys on the iron gate interrupts my thoughts and Lera gradually lets go.

One of the cafe sisters is staring at us through the gate. Nadenka I’m guessing, because she doesn’t seem hostile towards Lera.

She’s old, like most of the people in Toprak seem to be, forty or fifty years old maybe with streaks of grey and a hunch to her shoulders from time spent pouring over counters.

She swings the gate open with a shrill creak and Lera gives her a smile before bee lining for a small table next to a window on the far side of the room.

Nadenka seems to be staring me down. Having no idea what she wants, I mutter thanks and follow after Lera.

The cafe isn’t a shop or even a cafe inside, no rows of tables like a restaurant or shelves of snacks for sale. It’s homely. A few too many pieces of furniture around than normal, to seat waiting customers I guess. Like the tiny table and spindly wooden chairs by the window Lera’s chosen.

I take a seat.

I don’t have any easy words or nice questions, so I just ask.

“I wanted to know why you boxed up your room. It’s like you’re moving out for good.”

“Has mom not managed to fix that little part of you yet?” Lera smiles sweetly, like she’s teasing me. “When you talk to people, you’re meant to engage with them and have chitchat and real conversations too. You’re meant to eat a meal and make jokes, laugh at others bad jokes, and then, after all that, do you ask what you really what to know. Sometimes you need to slide it into the conversation, other times an abrupt change in topic is fine too. But you are my brother, so I guess you get to be blunt sometimes?”

She reaches over with her violet nails and messes up my hair like I’m ten and she’s fourteen again.

She eventually pulls me closer.

“How are your lips? They were bleeding a lot when I got in the shower. Watching you trying to eat with swelling lips was funny too. Kind of wish I had a picture of it.” Lera says, giggling.

Maybe she’s hiding something. Maybe she’s procrastinating. Maybe she’s just tipsy.

“Lera, I want to know.”

“We’ll I’ve got a story then, Aleks. But no wolfing your food down when Nadenka brings it.” She says shaking her head. “You must chew like everyone else does.”

I shift uncomfortably in my chair.

“And try not to interrupt. I can feel this story from top to bottom right now, but it might drift away otherwise.”

“Fine.” I say, sitting back in my chair.

“It’s a story about mom.” Lera says, now also trying to get comfortable.

“Mom had been saying she would be late or she would be busy because of these appointments she kept having. It was about a year after dad died so it kind of stuck with me. The way she said it too, she was being secretive. I thought the worst, you know, that she had started seeing someone. I was mad.” Lera says flexing her fists.

“I was so mad at the thought of it, but I didn’t know for sure. I wanted to follow her, to catch her, because I was just so mad. You probably remember me being a real bitch back then. It was because of this with mom. I was seething about it. Her appointments were always after work or at lunchtime which would mean she would need to work late, so I never really had the chance or got the time to follow her. Until, that is, she said she would be taking the whole day off of work for an appointment, on a Saturday.” She says giving me a knowing look.

“I thought this was it, I have her now. I’ll catch her and expose…”

Whether Lera can’t say it or she was interrupted by Nadenka bring us tea and sandwiches, I don’t know.

Lera dips one of the sandwiches in her tea, making me gag internally, and thanks Nadenka.

She waits for Nadenka to move off before continuing. “I couldn’t even say it at the time. I used to vomit into the toilet after she told me about her appointments as I became more and more sure. I just couldn’t believe she would do that to dad. It made me sick to my stomach, literally.” She says stirring her tea

“She wasn’t really?” I ask. I mean, this whole thing could be made up. Some big lesson Lera is trying to teach me.

I reach for one of the sandwiches. Fish paste. I’m getting even more nauseas watching Lera dip her sandwich in now.

“No interrupting.” Lera says admonishing me with a finger.

“So Saturday comes around and I set off to follow her with my hoodie turned inside out and an unbuttoned shirt I never wear over it. She starts walking out of the housing district and I think she’ll catch a tram and I’ll have to somehow covertly get on, but she doesn’t. She crosses over into the shopping district and keeps going. She eventually turns down a back-road for the east side of the shopping district. I’m a little puzzled at first but it’s easy to think she’s meeting someone at his work or maybe some hidden restaurant or bar I don’t know about, so I follow. She leads me down a few more back roads to a part of the shopping district I’ve never been before. We pass a few adult bars and I’m beginning to feel worse and worse about it when she turns around a corner and walks into a dentist.” Lera says staring at me. Before she dips a new sandwich into her tea.

“зубной врач Боршки, the sign read; Borshki’s Tooth Doctor.” She chuckles.

“I started to have my doubts then, but I was still too angry. What if, like I had thought, she was meeting him in his office? I waited a few minutes and went inside.” She says shaking her head.

“It really was a dentist. A receptionist greeted me and wanted to know if I need an appointment. I made up some story about needing to speak to a friend’s mom and asked when mom would be finished. The receptionist looked it up in her bookings ledger and said three to six hours. I was frozen there for a bit. I had been so angry and none of it was real. It was all in my head. Meanwhile mom has some serious problem but doesn’t want to burden us with it on top of the fact that we have no money. I felt terrible about how I had been treating mom and left the dentist.” A bitter smile takes her face.

“Wallowed in it for the rest of the day.”

“So it’s fine then and you were wrong.” I say thinking about it. “Mom probably doesn’t even know you followed her.”

“The kicker, Aleks, is that what I found out later makes it even worse.” Lera says while grabbing the last sandwich.

“I think I was drunk one night with friends at one of the block yards like in the old days, and the dentist thing was still fresh in my mind, so I was venting about it. I started telling it as a joke at first, about me being dumb. But I just… kind of… became more and more wrapped up in it. Soon I was crying.”

She’s looking out the window like she has a pretty vivid grasp on the memory right now.

“Radovan was there that time. He took me to the side later and said that dentist, Borshki’s, buys peoples organs. He said that must have been what she was doing there, selling one of her organs so we would have some money.”

I feel like my ears aren’t working right. I feel like Delusion must be doing something to them again.

“The reason I told you this, Aleks, is because Radovan was just a drug dealer then, but he knew things about the illegal side of Toprak.” She says catching my eye.

She tries to reach out and grab my hand or arm but I don’t let her.

“Now he owns the dentistry. He’s got this loan deal with it where he loans people money and if they can’t pay it back in the end then they pay with their extra organs.” She looks a bit sick now, maybe disgusted by the idea of it but knows it isn’t just an idea.

“What I mean, Aleks, what I’m trying to say, is that Radovan told me mom’s made another appointment there. It’s not like a loan one, but just to sell one of her organs like before. I think that’s why he suspected you stole his money in the first place, him knowing mom needs some.” She reaches all the way over, practically leaning on the tiny wooden table now, and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“That’s why I packed up my room. I spoke to mom a few days ago, I want her to start renting it out. She needs the money, Aleks, you have to understand.”