“Thank god you’re home, I was so scared.”
Mischa couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he watched Erika leap from the sofa and throw herself into Luka’s arms. He wasn’t jealous, no -- it was just irritating having to watch them pretend that the entire world wasn’t falling around them. They embraced for almost a minute before breaking apart. Erika had tears in her eyes.
“We have to go, we have to,” she urged, sniffling slightly. Erika had a flair for the dramatic but after hiding out with her for the week since the war had begun, he knew this was something else. “It’s not safe. We can’t stay here.”
“What do you mean, we-”
“Somebody tried to get in.” Mischa cut off Luka mid-sentence, focusing his attention on Erika. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
She nodded, rubbing her sleeve across her nose. “The door was locked, but I could hear them trying to prise it open. They’ll come back, won’t they?”
Mischa nodded quietly. “With tools to get in, probably.”
Luka remained silent, seething in the corner. His face was twisted into an expression that Mischa knew all too well -- he had seen it on his own face on more occasions than he cared to think about, the fury that settled in when anger took over where logic had failed. It was an expression, however, that even thinking back to his childhood, Mischa couldn’t ever remember Luka using. Luka was the one with the brains and he just didn’t get angry. Not when Mischa replaced his shampoo with hot-sauce, not when he had shaved off one of his eyebrows. He hadn’t even so much as blinked when Mischa had almost gotten the pair expelled from school at fourteen. But here he was, lips pressed together in a thin line.
“If I find the bastards, I swear to God I’ll-”
“You’ll do what?” Mischa stood up to his full height, turning to his brother. He was the -- marginally -- shorter of the two, but his more muscular build made him the more intimidating figure. He felt hypocritical telling him to do the opposite of what he would have done, but they had no choice. He wouldn’t last a minute in a fight and as much as they bickered constantly, Mischa wouldn’t see anything happen to him. Not under his watch. “Nothing. You’re going to do nothing to them because we’re not going to be here long enough to meet them.”
“We can’t just go-”
Mischa held a hand up to stop him, and turned back to Erika. “Grab a bag. Something easy to carry -- do you have a few rucksacks, or even a holdall? Me or Luka can carry it, if you have one. Put anything important in them -- spare clothes, tins of food, anything that you think would be useful. Pack winter clothes, coats, everything.” Erika nodded and headed for the stairs without a second thought. Mischa turned back to his brother. “Luka, do you have a spare winter coat I can use?”
Luka blinked for a few seconds. The sudden addressing of him seemed to have shaken him out of the red haze that he had entered. “Er, I think so. But we can’t just leave, Mischa.”
“Give me one good reason why we have to stay,” Mischa demanded, gesturing around wildly. “Your wife already said she isn’t safe here. Besides, you guys chose to shack up in one of the fanciest neighbourhoods in the whole damn city. Anybody with half a brain would test the affluent suburbs first, they’re more likely to find food and other useful shit. We need to move before we end up becoming the victims of some starving looter.”
Luka bit his lip. He looked as if he was about to cry and for a moment, Mischa felt a pang of sympathy for his brother. Mischa was used to war, in a way -- the gang rivalries that had criss-crossed the underbelly of the city had prepared him for dirty combat. Luka, on the other hand, wasn’t used to anything other than the cookie-cutter lifestyle he had been living ever since he had left their parents’ home. He wasn’t ready to be hurled headfirst into a world where anything could happen to any one of them. Not that anybody was ever truly ready for war -- even Mischa, with his combat expertise and his penchant for violence, was completely out of his depth -- but Mischa could see in Luka's eyes that he had no idea what to expect.
“Luka.” Mischa’s voice softened a little. “You’ve got to trust me. I know you have no reason to, but my world is a lot closer to reality than yours is."
Luka ran a hand through his hair -- a nervous tic that the pair shared -- and let out a long, laboured breath. Grabbing the half-empty cigarette packet from the coffee table, he lit up quickly. On the first draw, he seemed to lose a little more of his fight.
“Okay. I trust you. Bad move, but I trust you.”
“Thank you.” Mischa nodded towards the cigarettes, grinning slightly. “Disgusting habit, that, by the way.”
“Shut up dickhead.” Luka chuckled weakly, taking a drag. “From what I remember, you were the one that stole Dad’s as a kid and got us both hooked. And grounded."
“Guess only one of us had the willpower to stop, huh?” Mischa narrowly avoided the poorly-thrown punch sent his way. “Now hurry up and start packing.. We’ll need to get everything ready for tonight.”
“We’re leaving tonight?”
“Yes. We’re leaving tonight.”
July 29th, 2018 at 10:41pm
