Yelena is not a stupid woman, for stupid women do not live long in the sixth world, but she would be the first to tell anyone who really wanted to listen that she knows little of what motivates people to be as they are. Sure, there are the obvious things, like money and power and greed and sex, all of which she understands to one degree or another. But the deeper motivations escape her. Most of her life has been about surviving. The early years were the worst, as she watched those weaker than herself fall and die. She should have died several times in those first years at the camp, but she did not. She lived and thrived in a world of sex, drugs, and death, first allowing the shadow to help her then forcing the shadow to help her as she grew stronger.
Yelena has taken many lovers, men and women, but only three stand out in her mind as important and influential. Nikolai was the first man to really recognize her raw talent for killing and to see that she not only accepted death but reveled it. He saw something beyond the drugs and sex that no one else had to that point. He took her in, trained her, and gave her a calling. She was a killer, a murderer of innocent and guilty alike and each death was cold and brutal. She preferred killing with a rifle, but that was not practical in a prison so he taught her how to kill with anything that came to hand. And she drank in his teachings like they were an elixir from the gods. She might have been his best pupil, although he did tell her of another he had once trained. But he was able to take the unformed girl that Yelena was and transform her into something darker, more like himself. She accepted the shadow path he showed her and walked it with him, desiring to know more.
The second lover had been the sax man. He had had no idea what the shadow was and tempted Yelena away from it with music and love. Or, at least, the illusion of love. Yelena had put her rifle in a closet for five years to live with him and learn about living instead of death. She had learned to play the saxophone and it seemed that she had an innate talent for the instrument, learning so fast that he often asked her if she had not already known how to play before she came to him. Yelena had pushed the shadow aside and was happy. She cooked and cleaned and laundered for them, and played with him in the clubs when he wished her to. He cheated on her, but always came back because he loved her. And she took him back because she loved him more than reason and common sense should allow. His betrayal at the end left her emotionally empty, drained of any desire for love and peace. She had sworn then to never let another man that close to her.
But Yelena had not counted on someone like Marco. Marco was different..............................so very different. He was not an innocent and she could sense the war within himself over what his life had been, and what it now was, and over her. She was everything he could not accept about the world but seemed completely unable to not love her. For her part, Yelena recognized someone on the knife edge of the shadow world. His skills and ability could have made him a great assassin, a feared and respected killer. She was prepared to wait for him to see that and make a choice. And for some reason, she was ready to let herself love again and she broke all of her own rules for the young Keeb. Love is not something easily explained or sold in a box from the shelf of a Stuffer Shack. If you can explain love then you are not in love; the best you can do is wave your hands ineffectively and mutter phrases like "Well, you just know when you are in love."
And Yelena is in love. She knows it. She cannot explain it. She feels pain when Marco is not around and now that is every minute of every day. His betrayal has nearly destroyed her heart, sending her deeper into the shadow world she lives in. But.............. But.................. But this betrayal is not the same as that of the sax man. That lover had died and left evidence of a betrayal of the worst kind. His expressed love for Yelena had been lies, words said to give him a steady companion and someone to have sex with. Someone to keep his apartment and cook for him. Yelena had been nothing but a tool to the man, someone to tide him over until he could convince his wife to take him back. A pleasant tool, certainly, but still a tool. But Marco is not the sax man. He wanted nothing from her but that she change to be a better person. And he loved her even when she could not promise to even try. What is that, if not real love? And this time Yelena could do something. The sax man had died and Yelena had lost any chance of being what he had wanted, but Marco was still living. He was changing to something and Yelena had not been strong enough to listen or even ask. She had simply taken his words and left.
But what if the words were more than that? What if they were a call for help and not a betrayal? If that were the case, then would not Yelena be the betrayer? Suddenly her world turns upside down. She can feel an ache in her heart for what Marco had put there in his perhaps misguided attempt to save her, but it was real and it was still there. It is easy to feel slighted and hurt and rejected, but It is hard to feel enough love to look past the pain and see that there might be something else behind what was said. In her more than sixty years of life, Yelena has learned that no one changes that much so quickly, but she had been so willing to believe in his betrayal that she had not thought of that in her moment of despair. True, she had not thought of that at all, almost reveling in her own misery and more than willing to believe the worst of a man who had said he loved her. The fragging sax man had hurt her more than even Yelena had realized if he could still affect her in this way so many years after he had died. This time Yelena has a chance to show that she, too, can love and that love can mean looking past the hurt and making an effort to understand......to help.
Yelena returns to the building where Marco had lived but is told that he had already moved out, leaving no forwarding address. The manager tells her that had changed so much that the neighbors had been complaining and that Marco would have been asked to leave if he had not already turned in his notice. He had simply left, giving away most of his things, apparently taking nothing. Yelena asks to see the apartment, telling the manager that she has left something there and could she please get it. Some money changed hands and Yelena is given the current code to enter the room. The transformation was appalling, even to Yelena, who had lived with none of the trappings of luxury for her entire life. Nothing was cared for and everything not already given away had been left behind. Yelena is looking for something in particular and finds it, a picture of a young girl. She carefully takes the picture and nothing else, leaving the ruin of Marco's life behind as she leaves the building.
Yelena walks to a café near the apartment building and sits at a small table in a corner of the room, calling up the AR menu and ordering a soycaf. While waiting for the caf to arrive, Yelena has her 'link search out every Catholic church in Seattle and begins calling them, one after the other. She is asking if there have been any new additions to the flock of late, perhaps someone who has given up everything. The first several calls are disappointing but then she remembers that Marco has been giving his things away and so the wealthy churches might not be where he has gone. She shifts her search parameters and begins calling the churches in the poorer districts, those that might staff a homeless shelter or soup kitchen. Two more hours of calling and still the answers are all the same; no one like that has been in the area. About to give this effort up and try to think of something else, there is a pause at the other end of the line. "But wait. There is someone. He has been here before so is not new here, but he has changed. He is dressed shabbily and cares not for his appearance, and has donated many things to help us with the shelter and soup kitchen across the street."
Yelena's heart leaps within her breast. Yes!. She softly speaks to herself in Russian then responds to the priest. "Yelena thank, Father. Priest has been much help."
Yelena notes the address of the church and frowns, thinking that her clothes will stand out there, not to mention the bike itself. She finishes the caf and leaves the café, climbing on her bike and driving towards the neighborhood where the church is located, letting the autopilot take her there while she tries to formulate a plan. A slight smile comes to her lips as she checks addresses and gives the bike new directions. She stops at a small shop specializing in off-the-rack clothing and buys something more appropriate to the area she will be going to, to include a shabby coat to hide her pistol and a winter hat to cover her stark white hair and Keeb ears. From the store, she goes to a parking garage and leaves the bike after transferring her new secret pistol to her ragged clothes and stashing the others in one of the storage bins on the bike. She returns to the street level and takes several buses to get as close as possible to the area supported by the church, walking the rest of the way. Her steps get more leaden as she gets closer and her mind starts fomenting doubts. He might really not love her. He might really dislike her so much that he wanted to hurt her in the worst possible manner he could. He had known about the sax man and his betrayal and this would have played out perfectly for a man trying to hurt her. But enough of Yelena's heart still remains that she forces those thoughts back into the shadows, claiming a small bit of herself to be still herself and still in love. She had been in danger of being the worst thing she can think of, a hypocrite. She knows that love is unexplainable and blind.....................Frag, everyone ever in love knows that. But is not love......true love.....willing to forge through hardships and pain, to muscle past obstacles and still be love? True, he might have stopped loving her, but she has not stopped loving him and she needs to......has to...........make an effort to show him that she is in love with him despite what he might feel or not feel, for her.
She can see the men and women lined up across the street at the shelter and soup kitchen. Even worse, she can feel the draw of Bliss and knows her own life is in danger here. She can see people in the line that are clearly ravaged by that drug and others like it and her hands start shaking from the need and her blood quickens at the thought that she could be at peace with just one hit. Something to calm and her and give her confidence. Without even thinking of it, Yelena's feet shift direction and she walks slowly across the street to where a man is standing, obviously the major pusher in this area. His stance and air of confidence is crystal clear to Yelena as that of a successful pusher, a leach of the worst kind. She stops ten feet from him and he turns to look at her, smiling as he recognizes the need of the junkie in her eyes, even reaching into his pocket and removing a small packet of the drug to show her. She can almost smell the powder from here and takes one step closer..............then two...........then she stops. This is not why she came here, is it? This is the risk she takes very day of her life. The beasts she had fallen in with in prison still haunt her today. Bliss and Kamikaze ruled her life behind bars and provided her the means to survive between killings. It had taken years to wean herself away from the effects and the cravings and yet she had fallen so readily back into that life with Bella and the club. Far too easily.
She frowns but shakes her head and turns away. The pusher smiles, knowing that she will be back. Yelena is trembling as she enters the church, not only from wondering what she will find inside, but also from the near lapse back into the stupor offered by the drug. Sliding through the door, she looks around to let her eyes adjust to the dim light inside. None of the few pews are empty, but most only have one or two people in them. She walks to the middle of the church, selecting a pew with only one person already there. She holds herself tight and slides onto the hard wooden seat, staying near the edge so she can leave in a hurry if she wants to. Yelena looks around, gazing at the people to see if she can spot Marco, but he is not among the worshippers here. She wraps herself in her love and waits.
And waits. He finally makes a showing, but Yelena almost does not recognize the man Marco has become. But not even his ragged clothes or the way his hair and body appear to be unkempt can hide Marco from Yelena. He goes into a cubical that she knows is for confessions and remains there. She stands and walks to wait near the entrance to the cubical. She has no need for confessing any sins, but wants to be there when Marco reappears. In her own semi ragged clothing, she does not stand out much as she waits. When he emerges, he does not seem to see her and attempts to walk past, but she calls out to him. "Yelena love Marco."
