The Scars and the Letter R

CW: killing, (hinted) emotional and physical abuse,

Vanya licked his lips and emitted a little laugh as he took the knife back from the man’s chest.

From behind his back, Sasha emitted a heavy sigh. “Why must you always make a mess?”

The cold, wet air of the night made his baby pink hair softly move, but part of it was stuck to his white skin because of the blood. A window was open on the city like a wound, and the moon behind it showed nothing but square yellow holes where people like the man under him lived. The city was a waste of space, but Vanya and Sasha, along with their colleagues, thrived in that chaos.

Vanya turned, slowly, lifting his hands. The jewels unwrapped and hang from his wrists, gold soaked in red and slimy green.

Sasha’s eyes didn’t widen in surprise. She remained serious, her red hair held in a tight braid moving as she got closer to him, her mouth twisting. Before even saying hi, she kicked the man lying on the floor, but no sound came. “You didn’t have to kill him, you know? Crow isn’t going to be happy to cover your back again. And what the hell is this?” Her slender hand lifted the least precious chain among the others. On it, a Hello Kitty pendant dripped gasoline. “You and your rubbish.”

Vanya’s smile became sharper. He danced to the window, resting his head against the frame. “Why are you always so serious, Sasha? Why is it wrong to have a little fun, sometimes?”

“Because your fun can get us killed or, worse, arrested.”

His eyes, so clear they almost looked transparent, thin as blades, turned on her and she was startled. He leaned towards the girl, his long nose brushing against her shoulder. “It won’t,” he whispered, his weird small eyes investigating her.

 “You stink.” She shivered. “Why did you pour gasoline on him? You never carry a lighter on you anyway.”

A brief laugh shook his chest, the jewels tingling in his pocket. “Come on, Sasha.” He bent his lips down, trying to look innocent. He failed. “I just wanted to scare him.”

“Did it work?”

“Well, I have all his money in my suit and he had a heart attack.”

“You stabbed him, you liar.”

“I might have.” He offered her a hand. “Let me take you back to Crow, your highness.”

Her violet eyes shone in the dark as if they were part of it. “The hell did you just call me?”

He raised his hands, looking down. “Oh, I apologize, professor.”

“You fil –”

Vanya’s finger shushed her, and she frowned. “Five seconds and ten men will get in through that door.”

Sasha didn’t object, and counted. As usual, he was tediously right. Ten armed folks rushed in kicking the door down, gazing at the two with their shark teeth. “You are under arrest for – ”

At the same time, Vanya slid to the right, Sasha to the left. In her hands, her little needles filled with poison were ready, one out of each gap between her knuckles.

“Let’s play, first.” Vanya lifted his hands, and two thin knives appeared from his sleeves.

“Oh my god, Vanya, not now!” Sasha turned, the man already with a sinister smile on his face.

“I’ll give you the golden necklace?”

Sasha tilted her head, her needles retracting back into her sleeve. “I want the ring.”

Vanya shrugged. “Deal. Now let me kill them.”

“Stop!” The men raised their blades, too, but Vanya’s daggers already pinned one to the wall by his arms. Blood dripped, and he screamed.

“You have four attempts. If you answer correctly, I’ll let you kill me however you please.” They stood, all frozen, their expressions going from fear to utter disgust to a simple interrogative Is he mad?. “Oh, come on, you get to play all together! I’m being very good with you. I could have played one on one.”

On one of the men’s throats, his Adam’s apple went up and down, his neck beaded with sweat. “What is the question?”

Vanya’s smile expanded until he looked like a poor imitation of a happy child. “Look in my face, I am somebody. Look in my back, I am nobody. What am I?”

They frowned. Feet shuffled, their eyes didn’t dare to stop looking at Vanya, but they exchanged theories. The man against the wall let out whines, two of his comrades helped him, but nobody moved too close to him, scared of Vanya’s fast hands.

“Th-the moon?”

Vanya’s brow moved slightly and a dagger planted in the wall through the man’s leg. They sucked in a breath.

“I didn’t take the artery, don’t worry. Three more attempts!” Vanya clapped his hands and the steel tingled.

“Kill him, idiots!” the boss yelled, but they all stood there, frozen, their legs planted on the ground looking at Vanya’s slender, elegant figure. He was wearing his ridiculously most elegant white vest over a pink shirt and a tight choker on his neck, all in pastel color, to cover the horrifying deep scars that from his throat went down to his chest.

Vanya put out a hand and juggled with the knife with his fingers “Make one step closer to me or my friend and you won’t remember dying.”

The men stopped, hardly breathing.

“Time?”

“Wrong!”

“I don’t know! A playing card?”

Vanya laughed. “Wrong! Hurry, your boss is dying, how will you get paid?” His voice was awfully singing-like.

Sasha got up from the wall. “Time’s up, showman. Crow’s waiting.”

“Oh, come on!” Vanya turned to face her. “I was just –”

“Vanya!”

The biggest man darted to him, his long sword going for his heart. Just like the sun disappears behind the moon during an eclipse, so did Vanya’s smile. His frown sank wrinkles in his pale forehead and through his fingers metal flashed.

A moment later, he pouted at Sasha as the last body hit the floor with a muted, graceless thump.

Sasha’s mouth was hanging open. Ten dead men. In a single second. “Vanya – ”

Vanya shrugged abruptly, stepping over the dead bodies to open the door. “Who cares, Sasha? We’re done here, now.” The heavy metal closed behind him.

Crow’s thick brows were lifted, his big, gentle green eyes fixed on the jewels. His elbows rested on the wooden desk, and his hands were clasped together. “Nice.” He nodded. Then, slowly, he lifted his head to look at Vanya. “But please, why do you smell like gasoline, and why are you covered in blood, again?”

Vanya dripped on the floor, arms resting along his body.

“We’re sorry, boss. The guards got in our way and they –” Sasha was cut off.

“I wanted to play a little game and I murdered them.” Vanya sighed. “She did try to stop me, though. If you have to punish someone,” he looked at his watch, “I’m free tonight after dinner.”

Crow’s his expression was blank like that of a fish. “Ah, forget it. Make sure the police doesn’t knock at this door. If they do, send them away. It’s almost the end of the year, after all.”

Vanya’s eyes glittered. “Yes, boss!”

“Make sure you’re ready for the next commission. You have a little job downtown, tomorrow.” Crow’s voice disappeared behind the door as he walked away.

Sasha let out a breath. Air was heavy in Crow’s office. That dark, badly lit place had been a huge twist in their career as a group of organized thieves, but they were still in an ugly part of the town where every space smelled like factory smoke and piss.

“Oi, Vanya, what did you get?” Lo, long blond hair in a braid and his pale blue suit on, was sitting in the back with one leg over the chair’s armrest and an elbow over the seat. “I took the big diamond.”

Vanya moved, showing them what he had fished out of his pockets and put on Crow’s desk.

Liandra passed a hand through her short hair. Not longer than a month before a policeman had tried to arrest her, and during the fight he had wounded her on the head. All of them thought her hair would have never grown back normally. “Show-off.”

Vanya’s mouth gaped open. “They’re not worth more than the diamond.”

“I didn’t mean the jewels, stupid.” Liandra got up, and shook Vanya’s jacket, yanking him forward. “You always have to put on a show instead of just doing the work. It slows us down.”

Vanya smiled, leaning in close. “I might be stupid, but I’m yo – ”

She slapped him. “Gross. It’s a pity that you don’t remember why whoever gave you those ugly scars did. You could have learned something like respecting other people’s work.” The door closed behind her, and silence fell.

“Don’t listen to her, Vanya,” Lo said softly. He got up to place a hand on his shoulder. “And they’re not ugly.”

But Vanya was smiling. “Who cares?” He shrugged. “I don’t remember how it happened anyway. Dinner? I’ll ask her if she wants something.”

As his pink hair disappeared, behind the wood, Lo sighed. “They look very old. What do think happened?”

“Whatever it was, if he doesn’t want to know we shouldn’t try to understand either.”

Lo looked down, frowning. “Yeah, but it’s not normal to completely forget ten years of your life.”

“What’s important,” Sasha said, opening the door, “is that he remembers the last five and that he can kill ten people in one hit while we can only do the trick with five.”

“Yes,” Lo mumbled, “he’s really strong.”

A couple of days later, those words were still there, in Lo’s mouth, as he leaned against a wall in the warehouse they were supposed to steal from with his breath unsteady in his throat. “It’s not possible,” he murmured, “I killed at least twenty of them and there’s more coming.”

“They must have know we were here,” Sasha said. Her hand was pressed on her abdomen, where ribs where broken.

Vanya was soaked in blood again, this time drenching his favorite purple shirt and cat earrings, shiny eyes full of thirst focused on the enemy. With his sound hand, he cleaned the blood on his chin and got up.

Sasha grabbed his jacket, trying to keep him down. “What the hell do you think you’re doing with a broken arm?”

“I can still cut their throat, don’t worry.”

Lo looked at her and nodded. Let him go.

After all, they didn’t have many other options, and they all knew. Liandra was lying unconscious next to them, and their strength combined was hard to beat but not impossible for more than a hundred guards. They were drained, dizzy, their head spinning and their bodies bleeding.

As Vanya elegantly made his appearance between the boxes in the warehouse, seven men approached him, but only one lived a second longer. Vanya took all his little blades back and kissed them. Sasha grimaced.

Lo’s suit, ripped where he had been hit on his leg, was black with his blood.

“Are you okay?”

Lo rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes, pressing them tight as he bit his fist. “He’s not in pain. Why can’t he feel pain?” he whispered. “I want to scream. It’s like fire blazing through my flesh.”

Sasha knelt beside him, readying her needles. “Keep breathing, he’ll get us out. He always does.”

Lo’s eyes lost all hope. “Who is he, now?”

In front of Vanya, a dark shadow approached. He was bigger than their colleague, who was slender and elegant, and wore something long that swished behind him.

Vanya froze.

“What’s happening?” Sasha whispered. “Kill him, Vanya!”

Instead, their colleague kept standing still, his pink hair falling unkempt on his collar.

“Why the hell isn’t he moving?”

“Hello, Vanya. I’m sorry I haven’t been good enough to find you after all these years. I should say I’ve put all of myself looking for you, but actually, I haven’t. After all, you looked so scared the last time you saw me.” The enemy’s voice was petulant, a litany of horror.

Silence fell. Nothing but the soft rain falling on the roof, the lights flickering, and their beating hearts broke it.

The man in the dark stepped closer and Vanya stepped back. “So? I would accept a ‘go to hell’, too, you know? Say something, little boy.”

“What do we do if he attacks and Vanya doesn’t move?” Lo’s blue eyes glittered in the dark.

Sasha breathed in deeply. “We run.”

Vanya’s hands curled and formed punches. “I have no idea who you are, sir,” he said, choking as he spoke.

The man in the dark took another step forward. Now, he was a shadow in a pool of light. Taller than Vanya who was already the tallest of their group, he was wearing a large black hat that kept his face in the dark. A long cloak wrapped him to his ankles, and the only thing Sasha and Lo could see were his hands.

She turned away immediately. “I’m going to throw up. What are those things in his hands?”

“I don’t want to know. It looks like they’ve been –”

“Are you kidding me? How could you forget about the person who gave you those scars?” the man yelled, and Vanya flinched.

Sasha and Lo’s breath stopped in their chests.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to see you again. Thank you for falling into my trap, again, little boy.” He ruffled Vanya’s hair like he was a child and the other was a kind adult at the park. “But I can’t just kill you like I swore I would have done. You realize it would be a shame.”

Silence. Sasha moved to ease the pressure on her ribs.

“Vanya, if you don’t reply to what I say, how can I know if you’re listening to me?”

Vanya’s voice came out weak. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come on, choose the weapon I’ll kill you with. Crossbow, sword, rope?”

“Crossbow.”

“Wrong. I always use a rope. Now, what if I tell you a little riddle before we start? I want you to have fun one last time.”

Vanya’s hands were as pale as stone.

“Tomorrow I am surely there, yesterday I am found as well, today I am gone. Who am I?”

Finally, the end of the year came. Fireworks exploded in a million colors, making them believe they didn’t sleep in the worst part of the town over the wretched buildings and the street thieves.

Lo laughed and downed all the beer in his glass. “To hell with this year!”

“What hell? We’re rich now.” Liandra’s smoky voice was deepened by the liquor. She was wearing a glittery dress that made her rich skin glow. “If you don’t like your money you can give it to us, you know?”

“Yeah, like Vanya,” Sasha added, looking at Lo nodding. “I discovered that I love people who want to be unnecessarily generous, you know? It makes the work easier.”

Lo tilted his head. “He gave up his reward?”

Sasha gulped her beer and nodded, her eyes red from the smoke, long red nails clutching the cup. “Yeah.”

“He’s my favorite thief,” Liandra said, with a bad smile.

“What?” Sasha turned, red hair blazing. “You’ve always hated him.”

“Yeah, so did you, pretty lady.” Liandra kicked her, but Sasha jumped, dodging her hit.

“I’m sorry, do you know where Vanya is?”

Sasha had fallen into Liandra’s lap as they fought. “Out.”

Lo frowned. “Where?”

“On the roof.”

“But it’s raining.”

“Yeah, he’s sitting in the rain manifesting, I think.”

The girls laughed, and Lo turned, opening the glass door.

He covered his head with his jacket and grabbed Vanya’s, cursing the bad weather that had sank the city in a horrible grey color for the past eight weeks.

His colleague was sitting with his legs over the edge of the roof, pink hair soaked, a thin shirt on.

“The silk of your vest is going to get ruined.” Lo handed him his jacket, but Vanya didn’t take it. He was looking right in front of himself, eyes lost in the dark of the night under the rain.

“Are you okay?”

“Go back inside, Lo.” Vanya said, in a soft voice.

“I’d sit next to you if it wasn’t such a hell getting back up. I’m still healing.”

“I’m sorry,” Vanya whispered, more like it was something he was expected to say than something he meant.

“Well, it wasn’t you fault.” Lo’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Actually, we never thanked you. You did an amazing job with that man.”

“He let me win.”

“Nobody ever lets you win, you’re just strong. You know that.”

Vanya breathed in deeply and his sharp bones moved under Lo’s hand. “He could have broken me like a toothpick and we both know. I fought horribly.” He looked at his white palms, shaking.

“You’re freezing, come back inside.”

“No, I want to stay here.”

Lo accepted in silence. “Did you really not remember about him? Anything?”

“Lo, go back.”

Lo’s grip on his shoulder stiffened. “I’m not leaving you like this out in the rain, alone.”

“If you don’t leave I will kill you,” Vanya said, always in his soft tone.

Lo’s hand darted up. He stepped back. “Okay. Take care of yourself, Vanya. You know where I live, come there if you need anything.”

Lo left, and Vanya stayed there, his gaze drowning in the rain.

“Do you know the answer to his riddle?” Lo yelled, turning suddenly. “You didn’t tell him, but you know it. I know you do.”

Vanya’s hands closed. “The letter R.”

As Lo opened the glass door again, he saw Vanya’s fingers tracing the scars on his neck.

I don’t remember.

Maybe it was better if it stayed that way.