Page 33 of Enemy of My Enemy

Hockey sticks slammed on the ground, the lockers, as the circle of his wingmates and his commander pressed closer.

“Goluboi!”Faggot.

“Huisos!”Cocksucker.

“Pidor!”Butt-fucker.

With the last shouted curse, the nine men he thought were friends ran at him, hockey sticks swinging wildly. He ducked and tried to punch his way through the descending madness, but a stick cracked him on the back and another knocked the breath from his lungs with a jab to the ribs. He fell to his knees as blows rained down on his kidneys, on his shoulders, and then on the backs of his thighs. Fists flew at his face. His nose crunched. Pain flared across the bridge of his nose, his cheekbones. Blood sprayed through the air, staining the sweats his wingmates were wearing.

Ahh. Now he understood.

Kicks to his knees and arms made him fall face-first to the ground. He covered his head just before a boot flew at his face and hit his elbow instead. His body was on fire, burning where the sticks and boots hit.

He howled, rage and anguish and fury at the betrayal burning from him. These were his wingmates. His commander. He’d never once told anyone about his problem, never once let it slip that he was gay. Things were getting better, he’d thought, what with President Puchkov and the American president becoming friends. But still, he’d never risk revealing his deepest secret. His shame.

A stick slammed between his legs, deep into his crotch. He cried out, rolling to his side as he curled into a ball.

“Prival!”Stop!His commander, shouting over the din of furious curses, swinging sticks, and wet thumps from his bruised and bloody body.

Footsteps took the men back, and Sasha lay in a heap on the floor under the droning fluorescent light, bloody, beaten, and wheezing. Broken ribs, for sure. A dull throb in his abdomen and his back.

His commander knelt in front of him. He grabbed Sasha’s chin, yanking him up off the ground. Squeezing, he ground the broken bones on Sasha’s cheek together.

Sasha felt the first hot tear roll down his cheek.

“Otvratitel’nyy…” his commander growled before he spat in Sasha’s face. A hot glob of spit landed on his broken cheek and bruised face.

Disgusting.

His commander reared back, his free hand forming a fist.

There was nothing left. Sasha shouted, bellowing a wordless cry of rage as he stared his commander down and waited for his fist to fall.

* * *

He woke facedownin a snow bank on the two-lane M9 highway, stripped of his flight suit and his uniform and all of his gear. Blood-covered, and in just his undershirt and his boxer briefs, he stumbled out of the snow and toward the deserted highway.

Overhead, the stars shone beside a half-full moon, the first night without snow in over a week. Still, the air was frigid, below freezing, and he trembled. Pain shot through him, his shivers and stumbles upsetting his badly injured body.

A sign in the distance, on the edge of the highway, showed the kilometers to Moscow. Just over two hours, at highway speeds.

He was fucked. Dumped in the middle of nowhere to freeze to death and then be eaten by animals.

It was a tidy murder. They’d planned it well. He’d be classified as a runaway, for sure. And no one would ever find his body. Maybe a bone or two, and he’d be another mysterious partial skeleton found in the Russian wilderness.

Stumbling forward, he limped down the highway, heading for Moscow. He’d get as far as he could, even if it was only a few hundred meters. He wouldn’t give up. Not ever.

Ten minutes later, he fell to his knees and couldn’t stand again.

Sasha tilted his head back and stared at the stars. He’d flown almost between them, once. He’d touched space. He’d flown so high, and he’d been happy. When he died, he wanted to be staring up at their brilliance one last time.

The darkness grew brighter, suddenly, and then there was a blaring wail and the crunch of tires on concrete. A car horn screaming as headlights shone on Sasha. Raising an arm, he shielded his eyes and curled over himself, trying to avoid the worst of the pain.

Instead of hitting him, the driver squealed the car to a stop. Hinges squeaked in the cold, and the faint sounds of Russian talk radio fell from the open door, mixed with the static that always bled into the airwaves in northern Russia.

“What happened to you?” The driver, a middle-aged man in an old, thick fur coat and woolen cap, rushed to Sasha’s side and crouched in front of him. “My God,” he breathed. “Who beat you?”

Sasha swallowed. There was no way, no way at all, that he could ever tell the truth. Not to this man. Maybe not to anyone.