| The Most Insidious Kind |
| By Artemis |
| Part 7 |
| A few minutes later they were biking down the sidewalk towards the Mall. "Well, there is only one way we can have blintzes now," commented Borya as they biked towards the cafe. Though he was supposed to be showing her around, he found himself rapidly falling behind his cousin. "I hope the blintzes at the Russian cafe are not quite so well-done," replied Linka with a smile, but Borya couldn't hear her as he gasped for breath. Normally such an easy pace would have been easy for him; Borya had gone biking many times in the past with Vanya on trips that were much longer and much more difficult than this easy clip, but now he could not understand why this particular excursion was proving so difficult. "Linka!" he panted. "Wait up!" He felt a rush of gratitude as she stopped, and he struggled to get his respiration back under control. Linka looked back at him. "You need to catch your wind?" she asked. Seeing the perfect opportunity to ask about what exactly had happened at the fire, Borya said, "Speaking of which, how could your ring blow out a fire like that?" Looking at the blue and gold ring in an almost fond manner, she replied, "My ring has the power of Wind. I was given it to help protect the earth." "Cool!" he said, genuinely impressed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bag of pills, offering, "If you let me try it sometime, I might even let you try these." He held the bag up in front of her invitingly. If she wanted to try them, he would certainly share. After all, she was family. "What are they?" Linka asked. The look on her face made him hesitate, but he decided to persist. "These pills can make you happier than you have ever been in your life!" he exclaimed, handing the bag to her. Surely she would want to try them. After all, who wouldn't want to achieve happiness? Much to his surprise, however, she angrily snatched the bag from his hand. "Drugs?!" she shouted in disbelief. "Borya, have you lost your mind?!" "Give those back!" he demanded, trying to pull the bag back from her. She couldn't take them from his now; those were all he had until he could find Skumm to get more. Suddenly the bag ripped, and every single pill fell in what seemed to be slow motion down a storm drain beneath them. "You stupid cow!" Borya accused, whirling on his glaring cousin. "I needed those!" Without waiting for her response he turned and biked off across the road, narrowly avoiding being hit by several cars. He heard Linka calling after him, begging him to turn back, but he ignored her. Finding Skumm was the most important thing in his life at that moment. Already he could feel the pain creeping in, telling him he needed another pill. Less than twenty minutes later, thanks to the bike, he arrived at Skumm's alley. Sure enough the dealer was there eating a piece of cheese, something Borya nearly always saw him doing. As the young man left the bike by the street and sprinted towards him, Skumm looked at him and asked, "What do you want, kid? You finish that batch already?" In response Borya pulled the cash he had taken from his father from his pocket. "I need more Bliss," he pleaded, holding up the bills. Skumm looked at the money and sneered, quickly counting it in his hand as he took it from Borya. "Sorry, kid," he said, dropping it to the ground, "but the price of Bliss has gone sky-high. That isn't enough to buy one pill." Borya looked at the money in disbelief. Just yesterday Skumm had been giving it out for free, and now this wasn't enough? "Please, give me some," he begged. "I am in agony!" Skumm took another bite as he continued, "Now that's the funny thing. When you're used to Bliss, it induces real pain." A sober person might have seen that Skumm was just toying with Borya, who, believing the rat, fell to his knees and clutched at Skumm's trench coat. He had at least one option left, if he could pull it off. "But what if I bring you a ring with fantastic powers?" Perhaps such a magical ring would be able to buy something. Skumm dropped his cheese in surprise, no longer interested in teasing Borya by lying about the price. "A ring?" he asked anxiously. "You mean you know one of those Planeteers?" Borya let go of Skumm's trench coat in both relief and pain. Skumm seemed genuinely interested in this line of conversation. "My cousin Linka," he explained. He was jerked up as Skumm pulled him to his feet by the shirt. "Forget the ring," Skumm told him excitedly. "Bring the girl to me, and you'll have enough Bliss to last you the rest of your life. "Grinning, he threw Borya casually to the cement, where the teen landed against the brick wall, slamming his head hard into it. A jolt of pain sped through him, and white flashed across his vision at the blow. Borya desperately wished for a pill to remove the pain as he considered his options. Here Skumm was offering him exactly what he most desired. He would no longer have to worry about how he would pay in the future for more Bliss. On the other hand, the memory of her reaction to his offer was still fresh in his mind. Clearly she had absolutely no interest in it, and so he told Skumm. "No! I love my cousin! I will never betray her to you!" Skumm merely sneered. "Then go ahead and suffer." * * * Borya approached his home half-an-hour later, his mind made up. Shortly after his talk with Skumm, George and his other friends had caught up with him and asked him to go tagging with some freshly stolen cans of spray paint, but Borya had had to decline. They seemed angry when he said this, and he now wondered if they would retaliate in some way. He had been following his cousin for the past ten minutes, carrying a couple of purchased blintzes with him. Running across her had been a stroke of luck, as knowing where she was would make his plan work all that much better. Silently he crept behind her, opening the front door very quietly a few seconds after she herself had gone into the house. He watched as she picked up and read aloud a note that his father had evidently left saying something about there being trouble at the embassy, to which Dima had immediately left. Linka then turned towards the television and switched on CNN, and the TV displayed a reporter talking and several policemen chasing vandals from the Soviet Embassy. Borya recognized his friends and grimaced. So that was their retaliation. "Please," Linka begged the screen, leaning in for a better look, "not Borya." At this point he stepped forward, his cousin noticing his shadow and spinning around, startled. Her eyes shone with relief when she saw him there. "Borya!" She walked up and hugged him. "Oh, Borya! I was afraid that you were in that Blissed-out mob!" Now was the time to play it cool. "I see now that Bliss is bad news," he said to her, "so I stopped doing it. Thank you for setting me straight." "You should never have done drugs in the first place," she admonished, but there was no mistaking her happiness at his apparent victory over the substance as she embraced him once more. "I am so glad you stopped." Thankful she had bought the story, Borya held up the bag with the two blintzes that he had been holding behind his back until now, acting as though it were a sort of peace offering as he said, "Look, I brought you something." "Ah, you went for the blintzes." She took the food he offered and took a bite, failing to notice the pill of Bliss that Borya had hidden in it. Upon seeing his plan fall into place exactly as he had hoped, Borya took a bite of the other, finally getting rid of the pain he had been enduring since his meeting with Skumm as he consumed the pill that was likewise in it. "Wow," he said slowly, savoring the feeling, "isn't that the best thing you ever ate?" To be continued... |