Obscure

Chapter 13

Elias

It hadn't been a full day yet.

Normally, no matter how soon after the start of the interrogation session Kirill left, the guards didn't haul Elias back into the interrogation room for another round until the next morning. But his evening meal hadn't come yet. The lights hadn't dimmed for sleep. It wasn't the next day.

Unless it was. Unless this was Kirill's way of messing with him—delay his meals, leave the lights on, destroy his sense of time.

It took a long time for Kirill to come in. When he did, Elias stared. The man looked... broken. His eyes were red, like he had been crying, although there were no tear tracks streaking his cheeks. His skin seemed to sag, like gravity was pulling it off his bones. His face had turned a grayish hue.

Another act. Elias had fallen for this one twice before—when they had first met, and then when Kirill had pretended to be a victim like his son. He wouldn't fall for it a third time.

Kirill collapsed into his chair with a rough exhale. He stared at Elias, and kept staring. He looked at him like he had never seen him before. Like Elias was the answer to a question he had only just remembered to ask.

Elias shivered and looked away. Another trick. But if Kirill meant to unsettle him, it was already working. Unease spread through Elias, and a trickle of memory leaked from his mind. Old fears. Moments when he hadn't been able to make sense of what he was looking at, except to know it meant nothing good. A shadow on the wall where no shadow should have been; a raised voice from a parent who normally never stopped smiling. Childhood fears.

But he was an adult now, and Kirill was very real.

"Elias." Kirill's voice was rough with ragged wonder. As if Elias was some long-lost treasure he had dug up from a forgotten treasure map. As if they hadn't seen each other that very morning.

"I give up," Elias said after a moment. "What act are you putting on now?"

"Elias," Kirill said again, which wasn't an answer. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I never remembered." He let out a soft, broken laugh. It felt like broken glass against Elias's skin. "But I guess that's your doing, isn't it?" Kirill said.

As Elias stared into those pale eyes, another shiver came over him. Photo negatives...

"You didn't know either, did you?" Kirill asked. "It's me." And even though Elias knew it was impossible—he would have known if it was him, he would have recognized him—they said the name together. "Max."

"I asked if I could change it," said Kirill. Elias couldn't bring himself to think of the man as Max. "My name. The old one would have been too much of a reminder. It might have broken the obscuring."

Obscuring. Kirill had never used the right word for it before.

Elias had seen the resemblance, of course. He had noted it the first time they had met. But there were a lot of people out there with pale hair and pale eyes, even if most of them weren't as pale as Max. And in the rest of his face, there was no resemblance.

Kirill's face was a mask. It showed whatever he needed it to show. Mostly, it was cruel. It was only kind when kindness served Kirill's purposes. And even then, his brand of kindness bore no resemblance to his memories of Max.

The man in front of him now wasn't Max. He was Kirill—whoever that was. Whoever he had become without Elias by his side.

Whoever PERI had made him into.

Memories spilled out of Elias. He didn't realize it until Kirill gave a soft, sharp gasp, his eyes defocusing. Memories of Max. Of all the times Elias had worried he couldn't protect him. The hornets when they were six. The unexpectedly deep pool in the marsh when they were ten.