I tried to calm my breathing, but I was convinced my lungs had a mind of their own. I tried to calm my heart but it was racing too fast. And I tried to cool down, but my body burned with sympathetic pain. Pain of what demons must possess Zaal Kostava.
I suddenly remembered Luka, specifically, the night of the Dungeon’s finals, now many months ago. He was raw and rough, but there was still something in his eyes. A flicker of humanity trying its best to push through. And he had Kisa. He had our parents, Viktor, and Kirill. He had me.
But Zaal. Zaal was nothing but unleashed aggression. His wrists were sliced and bleeding raw as he’d wrenched on the chains, and he never stopped trying to break free. It was like something tortured him, driving him to never stop.
Placing the laptop at my side, I ran to the bathroom. With trembling hands, I turned on the cold faucet and splashed the icy water on my face.
Who could do that to another person? I thought in sadness. Who could morally condition someone to be that brutal, that wild? That pained and insane?
But as I lifted my head and my brown eyes stared back at me in the vanity’s mirror, I remembered the broken and scared look in Zaal’s jade green eyes as his gaze lasered straight down the lens of the camera.
Yes, he was vicious. Yes, he was wild, but in that split second there was something more. Something of the real Zaal Kostava still lived inside him. I was sure.
Walking back to my bed, exhausted and wrought, I slipped under the covers. I closed my eyes, but my mind still wouldn’t switch off.
Before I knew it, I’d reached for my laptop, and with a deep breath, I opened the surveillance icon. Zaal’s frantic pacing immediately filled the screen.
Placing the laptop on my side dresser, I lay back on the pillow watching Zaal, the only living heir of the Kostavas, gradually lose his mind in my papa’s basement.
As the next two weeks passed, I became completely obsessed.
My days centered around Zaal, watching him slowly breakdown. Watching him shake, sweat, and strike out at anyone who went near. I watched Luka try to talk to him, to calm him down. But Zaal would only snarl and lash out. I watched as he endlessly vomited, like he was going cold turkey off heroin. And I watched nightly as the byki subdued him with Tasers, in order to drug him to sleep, just to attach IV packs of food and fluids to keep him alive.
And I watched as Luka gradually lost hope that Zaal could be saved, until my father and the Pakhan called him back to help in the igniting war with the Georgians only a couple of days after he and Kisa arrived.
Fourteen days had passed and Zaal had made no progress whatsoever.
Racking pain filled my chest when his strength waned, when he couldn’t move off the floor. He would sleep for hours, lying prone on the cold ground.
I lost all hope, my obsession with this man dominating my entire life. Then one day Zaal had stopped moving altogether. His lifeless body, one day, had chosen not to wake up.
And that was the day everything changed.
Chapter Six
Zaal
“Come here, Son.” Turning from playing in the garden, I saw my father calling me to the table to eat. I ran toward my father, and he led me to the porch where my mother, sisters, and brothers already sat. My grandmama sat at the head of the table and winked at me.
I laughed.
Father said a prayer, and then told us to eat. As I picked up a piece of bread from the basket, a loud crash sounded in the house. Father looked toward the house. He snapped his finger and thumb, ordering the guards to go and find out who it was, but they didn’t move. They stared at my father and their eyes narrowed. My brother looked at me and frowned.
“Move!” my father commanded. Instead, the guards lifted their guns … lifted them at the table. My sisters screamed, my baby brother cried … but my twin reached out and took my hand. I looked at him and he looked at me. I squeezed his hand. Be strong, he mouthed, keep strong.
“What are you doing?” Father asked the guards and rose from his seat, just as tens of men came flooding from the house, all dressed in black. They all held guns … guns aimed at us …
Bullets … blood … death … blood … screams … guns firing … piercing … slicing … death … death … death …
My eyes snapped open and I tried to breathe. But all I could see was blood … so much blood … blood choking my throat … I gasped as the image of running blood filled my mind.…
Darkness came, and when my eyes opened again¸ I was hot, too hot. Sweat poured from my forehead into my eyes. But I couldn’t move my arms to wipe the sweat. Couldn’t move them even though they ached. Poison was burning my flesh from the inside; venom and something else crawled slowly under my skin, clawing to get out.