COLLINS, james devon

[james devon sakahrov-collins]

VALKYRIECALIFORNIA

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JAMES DEVON COLLINS
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INTO THE NIGHT
DESPERATE AND BROKEN
THE BASIC INFORMATION[/center][/font]

SO, TELL ME. WHAT'S YOUR FULL NAME?

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"i was born yakov devon sakahrov-collins. but that's one bad name. i moved to the states when i was five, so i introduced myself as james, the english equivalent to an unfortunate russian name, on the first day of kindergarden. i dropped the 'sakahrov' from my name when i was seven. so, now i'm james devon collins."

AND HOW OLD ARE YOU?

"twenty-three. i was born september 7th, 1989. so i'm going to be twenty-four in a couple of months."

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?

"my cover job is located at the inferno, like the rest of my family. technically i'm a bell boy, but i look ridiculous in a uniform. so, when i'm in town, i act as floor manager for the restaurant lounge. in reality? i do whatever it is my superiors tell me to do; generally involving the russian-american communications with the mafia network.

have i taken a life, you mean? yes. many."

YOU SEEING ANYONE, OR ARE YOU SINGLE?

"i've never had a girlfriend in my life. a few targets, or girls i've been told to protect, have offered companionship, though. just don't tell - no one does."

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THE SOUND OF A FIGHT
FATHER HAS SPOKEN
THE PERSONALITY

IF YOU COULD DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN SEVEN WORDS WHAT WOULD THEY BE?

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"i couldn't. ksenia says i haven't lived enough outside of the job to know who i am. if i hadn't, i wouldn't be able to tell her that is absolute bullshit. i know myself well. i think.

unlike ksenia, i was raised a criminal. i was born in moscow, and was raised by the very people who now tell me who to shoot. because of those short years overseas, i'm unrelenting and aloof. i know that i have a job to do, and i do so without getting personally affected. i was taught to be distant when i started walking. ksenia, on the other hand, calls me merciless and rigid. but what does she know? like i said, i have a job to do. regardless of what anyone else says, the job is all i have. all i was ever taught to have. the family and the job - that is what gets drilled into your mind. nothing else. give in to someone who isn't blood and you're going to reap the concequences. i'm loyal. loyal to my work, to my clients, and especially to my family. my real family; my parents, their world. not the two people who call me brother.

the russian system taught me how to play the game right, which team i was on. i am loyal to those who raises me; i will do anything they ask of me. it's the right thing to do. but, i have to say, living in boston taught me how to play the game, period. i grew up on the streets, running around charlestown, like i didn't care. i grew up around people who showed me how they liked to live, full of enthusiasm and fire. i grew passionate. it didn't matter what, i learned how to really love something. even something like my job (although, secretly, i don't know if i love it like that). in the cold, yet loving arms of the russian system, the simple act of love often went unheard. it's a ridiculous emotion to tumble with. but those rowdy bostonians, they overlook whatever they were told growing up. it's all about living life, mate. and to live life, you have to love life. say 'fuck it' once in awhile and go for it, do what you want. i guess that's where my rebellious streak developed. ksenia says i don't have one. but she hasn't seen what i do when i want to. it's all about when i'm told i have to do something that's the opposite - that's when i do what i want.

i wasn't supposed to drop my name. i wasn't supposed to sleep with that girl i eventually killed. and i definitely wasn't supposed to cut off ties with family. blood is thicker than water. and water is going to come up and kill you if you don't kill it first. but i did it anyway. i took that blade and killed blood, not water. it was blood that ruined everything. when i rely on you to let me know when i'm about to get shot, i don't expect to get shot. i went through four bullets before i told her to go to hell. i had written him off long before. but when i heard she got arrested, i felt bad. when i showed up at visitation, she told me the drugs were his idea. she didn't do drugs. his idea was to plant them on me in order to see what they would do to me. i had been fine with cutting all ties, dealing with the concequences. but finding that out, i got hurt. betrayed.

i live for the job because it's the only thing i've ever known. and i've never had a reason to know anything else. that is the reason i'm the only collins to be considered worth it. i worked to get the respect i've been given. yet, even ksenia has called me obedient. just another blind soldier, is what temperance calls me. pierce says things i'm not comfortable repeating. like a guard dog with no other purpose in life. but, you know, i'm trusting. excuse me for putting a little faith in the hand that feeds me."

"he also gets nightmares."

"thanks for mentioning that. no, i don't get nightmares. i remember some of the lives i've taken, alright? i know i mastered how to look past faces a long time ago. but sometimes, the look in the eyes when the life is sucked out of them sticks with you. i don't get nightmares. i don't feel trapped when i let myself sleep because i don't let myself sleep. i don't forget how to wake up. i don't do any of that shit. because it doesn't happen. not to me."

"he's haunted."

WHAT KIND OF THINGS DO YOU LIKE?

"didn't you hear ksenia? i haven't lived enough of my own lfie to know how to like anything. i like my job, and i like my life. i like being told what to do and executing it perfectly, often literally. i like the feel of a gun after it's just been polished. i really like playing with slippery little bullets. i even like sitting on stakeouts.

but i like the sound of rain, when it's just loud enough to hear over music. i like a girl's smile after she stops crying. trivial board games are my favorite thing to do on a saturday night. black and white movies, dill seasoning on popcorn, bad coffee and echoes are what i like, too. i like standing in an empty parking lot, in the middle of the night, and seeing who left their cars there. i like to think up reasons why they would have to leave their card there. i even like cracking cheap beer and watching sports. but just hockey. the team from washington."

WHAT KIND OF THINGS DON'T YOU LIKE?

"i don't like when people assume one thing just because a nosy blonde says it's true. i don't like nightmares, or being trapped in my own head. wine of any kind, comedies, and butter on popcorn. i don't like beer that comes in cans, and i don't like watching football. it seems ridiculous. i don't like people who think my accent is stupid, or charming, or anything other than what it is: nothing. i really don't like people who stereotype me because i'm from boston, or from russia. russians have no stereotypes, and people from boston can kick your face in. i don't like having to shoot people who don't deserve it, but i will.

and, most of all, i hate people who think i should be damned because i kill people."

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY WERE YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES?

"if you were unable to guess, i was born into a world where weakness is not an option. ever. because, guaranteed, the other guy is going to have moved on from his. that in itself is a strength. i can put anything aside; don't allow anything to blind my judgement. you have to. especially with what i do. i mastered putting my personal issues aside for the so-called "greater good" when i was twelve. if i don't want something to ruffle my feathers, it's not going to. why? because i'm the one in charge of my emotions. not the other way around. i learned a long time ago that you can't let anything control you but the left side of your brain. or you. somewhere in the back of my mind, there is the ability to sort through every issue fired at me. then it will sift through, and decide what's important now and what can matter later. it took practice, to look at the world as an observer rather than a player, but it has only benefited me.

okay, well, not all the time. no one can be that in control of themselves. i've never told ksenia this, but there are times where emotions are just going to win. that's what human nature is. you can't fight it a hundred percent of the time. i mean, i'm a collins. there is the trademark irrationality you have to remember. i tend to let my emotions control how i treat people. if i want you protected, i'm not going to let you breath without letting me know. if i think you're pretty, you can bet that it's going to be much more personal when i take your life - i'll lie and cheat until you feel something. it's terrible, but it's true. i guess a lot of it stems from a lack of "respect". that's what ksenia calls it. i was never taught how to care; about myself or otherwise. i don't know how to care about people off the bat. it makes making your life hell easier."

DO YOU HAVE ANY SECRETS?

"i've been co-operative this entire time. no. i don't have any secrets. if you ask, i'm going to tell you."
"do i have to come in here again? haven't you been paying attention? i've seen jamie sleep. no one looks like that unless they live in the bahamas and just saw a murder. he sweats, he mutters, he thrashes. he has nightmares and gets trapped in his own mind. i know he remembers some of those faces, the look in their eyes when he took their life. and it terrifies him.
the reason he doesn't get close to people is because it will make him worry about them. jamie here is the most over-protective, irrational son of a bitch alive. he can sort through what matters now, and what to save for later, but he doesn't like having to confront the 'later' at all."

WHAT ARE YOU MOST SCARED OF?

"baseball bats. i don't like the thought of a blunt weapon coming at my head."

"i think it's remembering. he can't help but relive certain jobs over and over. i've seen what only a few of those can do to him. i don't want to see him if he remembers every single kill, every single pair of eyes that went dead as the life was swept from their body. there have been a lot of those."

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WE WERE THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF PROMISE
WE WERE THE VICTIMS OF OURSELVES
THE HISTORY

TELL ME A LITTLE OF WHAT YOUR FAMILY IS LIKE?

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"all my life, i've been taught the value of family. blood is thicker than water. blah blah blah. i got the speech eight times a day growing up. so, the bond is there. the trust. the support. but we aren't like the italians - all "papa!" and cheek kisses and suffocating hugs. we are respectful and distant. i grew up in a very quiet manor. little affection was shown; affection is a sign of weakness. i was told i was loved in the most desperate of situations, when i might not get told that again. my parents, especially my father, love their children. all three. as distant as we may seem, i have never been ashamed of where i came from. it's not their fault two of three children turned out to be errors."

WHO ARE YOUR PARENTS?

"ivan sakahrov - aged forty-eight. my father was raised in the sakahrov mafia group just like his cousins, mikahil and victor sakahrov. having no siblings of his own, he's always maintained a very strong connection with the extended family. something about how deep the sakahrov roots go into the history of the russians. the big family tree in his study shows the bloodlines connecting everyone. i looked at it once, for a school project. his name was beside "capo".

my mother is named daphne sakahrov-collins. as you can tell, she is the american wife to the russian crime "boss". she still calls him 'boss' affectionately. she's turning forty-five this year.i always thought she always just tagged along with my father and his dealings. i never felt too close to her. she always liked pierce, temperance sometimes. i try not to keep in touch with her. and no, i don't know what she's doing. living alone in the house in boston, i imagine.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SIBLINGS?

"i haven't talked to either of my siblings in two years. probably longer. as far as i'm concerned, i'm an only child."

"really? tell them. they want to know."

"fine. his name is pierce. he's supposed to be twenty-four now. he never dropped the 'sakahrov' from his name, because he likes the power that comes with it. but he doesn't know what it means to truly hold that name. he executes petty little plans to destroy the people he doesn't like - he almost got me. last i heard, he was living in new york, weaving his way through illegal networks.

she's temperance, my younger sister. i think she's almost twenty-one. she copied me and dropped 'sakahrov' because she didn't want to share a name with my mother. but she shouldn't have. our entire childhoods were spent with her following after pierce, putting his impulsive plans into action. except when he decided she wasn't worth it anymore. she was trying to plant drugs on me (why?) when she got caught. he wasn't there to save her ass. so she spent two years behind bars. i went to visit her once, soon after her sentencing. she said she was sorry, that she didn't want to see me burn. i haven't talked to her since. i don't care if she's dead or alive."

ANY OTHER RELATIVES CLOSE TO YOU?

"i imagine i was very close with my extended family when i lived in moscow. but my parents moved us all to boston before i started kindergarden. my father has always spoken about bonds that are wrapped in steel; he has always valued blood.
about a year and a half ago, i was flown back to moscow to help train a new member of the family. ksenia sakahrov, the one who has been interrupting me this entire time. she's the relative i am closest to, even if our relation is distant. we're partners, and i would trust her with my life."

"it's deeper than that. and not so creepy formal. he just can't use words to save his life."

TELL ME THE STORY OF YOUR PAST?

”why would anyone want to know my past? i couldn’t write a prize-winning epic and expect you to want to turn every page. the exciement was always left to the rest of the family. discovering your father is a dirty informant turned professional dirt-finder. being approached by an estranged brother to clean up his impulsive mess. hate and betrayal stemmed from being left behind by the one person who was never supposed to leave you behind. none of that has ever happened to me. my past is nothing interesting. it is nothing exciting.

but, most of all, it’s nothing i ever want anyone to know.”

“september 7th, 1989. it was a warm day, my mom told me, almost balmy. with that lingering cloud, like the weather couldn’t decide to shine or storm. when she brought me home two days later, moscow, russia was in a full-fledged downpour. i guess the weather decided storming was the way to go. because in the five years i lived there, it was not kind. our modest little house recieved damage so many times, our insurance gave-up. i don’t think they bothered to return phone calls after the fourth year. it was in the fifth that we moved away. i guess most people say the first few years of their life were redundant - nothing worth remembering. without the first five years of my life, i would be no where.

the day i was born was the day my training began. i’ve known nothing else. every day, my father would tell me that he did very bad things. but he had to, because that’s how he had been raised. and one day i would probably do “very bad things” as well. i later realized his definition of “very bad” is much tighter than mine. a devote man, i don’t think my father has ever questioned his heritage. he loved his family and the people he worked for. still does. but he was born with a wicked conscience. growing up, i remember every single night, my mother would quietly close the door to their bedroom and cuddle with temperance on the guest bed. he needed to be alone, she said. it was only a few years ago did i realize that “needed to be alone” is the same as “trapped in your nightmares”. he suffers for every life he’s taken, punishes himself for it. but that never changed his goal, what he was doing. i watched him in the mornings - he took deep breaths, apologized to his reflection, loaded his gun and disappeared into the streets. it was the same since day one - training. this is the family business.

it was the three of us - the sakahrov-collins children. two sons and one daughter of ivan sakahrov and his american wife, daphne. had my mother not been so loyal, i think she would have gotten executed soon after temperance was born. but she was the same as my father, devoted to the family. pierce, temperance and i. we were the children and it was their job to make sure we could stand on our own two feet. pierce was always the first. he’s just under two years older than me, but has always seemed five years ahead. and temperance was always behind. pierce always made sure to take her with him, so she thought she was the best, too. which left me. not to sound pathetic, but that’s how it always was. what started as the three of us quickly turned into the two shining stars. and james. pierce and temperance, son and daughter duo of ivan sakahrov and his american wife, daphne. and there’s james, too. he’s their middle son, but he’s never shined in the way they did.

that’s what i was told my entire life. “you will never be what pierce will be.” people had their own way of saying it, but the bottom message was always clear. even my parents. “pierce may stand out more, but you are going to be amazing, jamie. you too.” dad always told me that, especially as i grew into a teenager. people say he was just being nice. but i think he noticed my mother’s particular fantasty with the dynamic duo of despair; he always paid me the extra bit of attention he had. i repeat those words to myself whenever i’m confronted with those people.

i was a few months shy of five years when we moved to boston. big move. pierce was seven, and temperance was only two or something. she said she never remembered russia. i wouldn’t be surprised - she wasn’t given the speech until she was eight or nine. until then, she believed our training was just having fun. even pierce said he doesn’t remember why we moved. i never bothered to question it. i assumed it was all about assignments and connections and whatever else the bosses needed. i watched my father take the orders quietly and made sure we were all moved comfortably within a couple of months.

i remember a culture shock. most families in moscow functioned just as ours did - loving, but with strict boundaries and distance issues. boston, massachusetts is the heart of american attitude. the very day we moved into our old brick townhouse, there was pounding music, gangs of running eight year-olds and a lot of yelling in funny accents. i didn’t know english very well at that point. i still think i would be able to speak it better had i been taught somewhere like atlanta - short of weird accents. but this was home now, he told me. i had to do my best to adapt, and he would do what he could to ease the transition. i’m not like my siblings. i can’t go somewhere new and blend in without any sort of preparation. i think my father noticed that about me when i was as young as a toddler. unfamiliar situations always intimidated me, scared me even. and moving from nice, tame moscow to a town as filled with fire and attitude and boston is about as unfamiliar as it could have gotten.

i eventually learned to like it there. the old buildings and crooked sidewalks offered nice nostalgia; the people were less annoying than their accents; and my siblings soon fell into gangs of running teenagers, so i didn’t have to deal with whatever issues came with them. i refuse to call them inferiority issues. i was always as good as they were. and i’m not in jail or on america’s most wanted. the transition eased in the summer before i started school. it offered me time to get accustomed with my surroundings. sounds and voices grew familiar, the awkward consturction of the city offered warmth. it just took some time for five year-old james to settle into these new surroundings. like dad always told me, i might as well. it’s not like i can do anything about it. now, i consider boston my home. and i miss it when i’m here.

while i learned early on things like distance and emotional division, i don’t think i could like life as i do had i not eventually gotten involved in life in boston. i spent my entire youth running around with a particularly rowdy group of townies. both pierce and temperance had made friends with our neighbours early on. i quickly realized the boston natives, the ones who like to break windows for fun, were more willing to give me space. i was never judged by them. granted, half of them ended up behind bars by eighteen and the other half are still hanging around boston, working in restaurants and auto shops. but i learned to value friendship from them. up until i was sixteen or seventeen, i was roaming around charlestown. we had garbage can bonfires and drank cheap beer out of thin bottles. we smoked cheap cigarettes and listened to our music too loud. but i was always welcome to the carter home for dinner; or to spend the night at the mackenzie’s. blue-collar fathers, housewives and the smell of cheap scotch dominated the places i spent much of my time. i wasn’t at home very much, especially when dad was off to new york or atlanta. i guess i really didn’t want to be. i knew i was loved at home, but no one ever said it. when i stayed for dinner at jimmy carter’s, his mom fussed over the state of our shirts and tried to make us eat third helpings. it was kind of nice to be fussed over.

i learned how to love life in boston. i figured out what i liked. i had all the freedom in the world, no siblings to get angry at, and was developing my own funny accent. the people were passionate there, rebellious. this life is the only one you’re going to get, and might as well do what you want with it. it’s not like anyone else is going to use it to the fullest advantage.

i wish i had stayed there longer. while i was still heavily involved in the family business training, my mind was often drifting out to the old alleyways we would mess around in. for my childhood, that worked. you never have to do much when you’re wide-eyed. the strict rule is to never get children involved. it’s like cheating on your wife - a line you don’t cross. when i was seventeen, in may of 2006, my father quietly told me to come with him. i hadn’t seen him in weeks. pierce, in months. most of my time was spent taking care of mom and temperance, or the shooting range, or reading the family history, or doing everything i wasn’t supposed to be doing. i had become comfortable in my role, which the wives and mothers often had. stay on the homefront, to make sure everything is okay where everyone that matters is. i was angry when i followed him to the airport, and the endless flight back to moscow. i wanted to stay in boston longer, living in my teenage wasteland.

i haven’t seen jimmy carter or matt mackenzie since i was seventeen, six years ago. once i landed in russia, i was told i had to cut all ties with people. we don’t value affection like the italians. and we aren’t as careless as the irish. the russians are adamant about safety. and it’s easiest to keep fewer loved ones safe. unless they were essential in my life, i was to keep them at a distance. it was easier that way. i guess i agree. if i saw jimmy’s face splashed on the news, “another execution in boston parking lot”, i wouldn’t be able to live with myself. you keep people safe this way.

my finger was pricked, and the blood dropped slowly onto an old picture of some saint. i was to balance my hand there while a tow-headed underboss burned the picture under my palm. the bond is secure, but if i was ever to betray them, i would fade out as this saint did. it was a blood tie. it was may 18th, 2006, when i was officially introduced to what life in the russian mafia is like.

part of me wishes it was more interesting. but it wasn’t. nothing had ever been interesting with me. people made a big deal about it when pierce came back from moscow. mom made a huge dinner, and we invited everyone with the same funny accents over for dinner. the friends he insisted on inviting were told we were celebrating his health. a cancer scare. if pierce sakahrov-collins dies of cancer tomorrow, it will not be fate enough. he deserves so much worse. but no one made a deal when i arrived home later that month, may 29th, with dad. for the first time in almost six months, the entire family was under the same roof. mom was ashen-faced, but i never found out why. temperance was too happy to see pierce to care. and pierce only smirked, because he knew he had better respect than i did. he always has. while our ties are loyal, blood ties go to the grave; no one ever tells on him. mom and temper made a nice dinner, and we ate with the good china. that was nice of them. although i hate pot roast, and mashes potatoes from the store taste like glue. i wanted to pick up the phone and call jimmy or matt, but i knew i had ties to cut. later that night, though, dad clasped my shoulder and told me, in a barely audible whisper, just how proud of me he was. he still does that sometimes.

pierce was right about one thing: he did have better respect than i did. respect is everything to us. you rise in ranks with respect, and you get shot if you lose it. when he was eighteen, he had his own gun and his own operations. something about hacking and computers. temperance was sixteen when she got to go off with him for the first time. all i did was tag along with low-level assignments. securing drug deals, watching laundering money, and checking up on the locally mob-run businesses. a laundromat and butcher shop. way to fight the stereotypes. that became my new formula. it only took a year or two for me to embrace everything my russian father ever told me. from time to time, i would see jimmy and matt and the rest messing around downtown boston. but i had lost the touch for it. where i once longed to ditch target practice to go set things on fire, i was now spending all free time at the shooting range. i could kill a sniper with my eyes closed. no one made a big deal when i was initiated, and they made an even smaller deal when i was on the job. i would pop in for dinner occasionally. but it was never the gong show it was when dad or pierce showed up. i moved out when i was nineteen.

to be honest, i never lost the love for boston i got in my teenage years. i had practiced rebelling and starting fires in trash cans. i know how to play with fireworks, and i can break into just about any building. i guess family just had to come first. between you and me, i don’t know if i could make that choice again.

after i moved out, i lost almost all contact with my immediate family. i got in touch with my blood overseas. things were simpler that way. did i miss my father? more than anything. he had been the best anyone had ever been to me. i learned to be independent of that. i still picked up on the opinions people had of me, without a doubt. i just moved past them. filed them in the back of my mind, where i let my logical side put it on the bottom of the pile of things to deal with. i have a job to do here. and i have no doubt i do it well. my respect has increased, and now people bow their head when i walk buy. no one does that to my father, leaded of the russian-american communications. i guess they were right back in moscow - you have to cut all ties of people you love in order to keep them safe. i cut ties with people i sort of loved and i kept myself safe. had i stayed under the shadow, i would still be checking in at the butcher shop.

i was twenty-one when i got the call. just turned. it was late september. i hadn’t spoken to anyone in over a year; my father six months previous. i was on strict orders to protect some financial heiress from life. head of the operation, yankov, was supposed to keep this guy’s banking empire from going clean. they were corrupt, and the stingy stanley simons wanted to go to the cops to lose everything. but at least he would have a clean conscience when he went to prison. that’s what i thought when i saw the number for the boston police department flashing on my phone. it was a detective mira jansen. she hadn’t lived in boston long, because i could understand what the hell she was saying. she mentioned temperance. my then eighteen year-old sister who i hadn’t spoken to since i ditched out of the homefront two years earlier. she’d gotten arrested, and they had discovered my name on her file. family. why not call my mother? had pierce managed to get her to cut it off with our parents, too? nice. i didn’t pay attention to her, not anymore. when she threw it in with pierce, i didn’t want anything to do with her. she gotten arrested on drug possession, tresspassing and other things i wasn’t pay attention to. she got two years, and requested to see me.

i was at the prison in baltimore for less than an hour. more than three hours of driving, and all i got was slapped. i know i had cut it off, but blood was still important. we had all been taught that. so when she told me she’d been holding the drugs to plant on me, to mess with my very delicate operation, i didn’t know what it meant. all i knew was blood goes deeper than anything else. you put your family before even the bosses. that’s what dad always taught me, and i always practiced that. i never turned pierce in, despite the number of people i knew wanted him dead. as long as he looked clean to the bosses, he could continue. she sat there, absolutely defeated. pierce had decided not to bring her along anymore. add another to the people who wanted him dead. i knew she wouldn’t say anything, because ”blood is deeper than that, remember jamie? i couldn’t turn him in.” i told her not to call me jamie, and that i had thought we were blood. last i heard, she got released. not for good behavior.

six months after her initial sentencing, i had forgotten about it. i stopped returning my father’s phone calls and confused faxes. he still doesn’t know how to text message. if blood goes deeper than that, consider my blood of a different type. i’m in no way one to feel betrayed, but i had gotten slapped that day. time to focus on the new mission, collin. that’s what yankov told me. when i landed in moscow for the third time that year, the new mission was different. people playfully call me the “janitor” because i clean up messes. how witty. she was blonde and confused, with a thick russian accent. almost three years in california did nothing to waver ksenia sakahrov’s thick accent. it was my job to train her up into whatever i wanted her to be. why was i chosen? i don’t know. because no one else wanted to do it. and if the order came down from the don directly, i had no choice. i call her my little sister now, because temperance is something of another lifetime.

in the last year and a half, i’ve spent nearly every waking moment with ksenia. i haven’t worked an operation with yankov in months. i keep her close, tell her the same things my dad told me. i think she’s picking them up. except i haven’t told her the blood thing, just in case. i see temperance and pierce in my dreams more than any of the lives i’ve taken. and she says i see a lot of those. she calls them nightmares - loud, struggling dreams i can’t get out of. i guess i feel trapped in my own mind somtimes. she has what it takes, though. when the earthquake struck valkyrie, she was in russia by herself on a simple operation. drugs, i think. i haven’t introduced her to the execution or sex trafficking sectors yet. i don’t want to see ksenia in my dreams, scorned and in pain because of something my family did. if i have to keep things simple for awhile, i will. i want to keep her safe, too, even if she’s in the game.

that’s why i don’t want her in valkyrie. november called me the day of the earthquake. the irish value blood like the russians. her brother, christian, did something bad. and she didn’t want this to get out of the inner circle. i had never turned in pierce, so she guessed i would be a good place to start. i guess she’s right. i could never get him arrested, even though he deserves it. but my orders are to keep ksenia with me, and she’s landing in los angeles now. so, excuse me, i have to go pick her up at the airport.

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MAYBE THE CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL
THE EARTHQUAKE

SO, YOU KNOW THE EARTHQUAKE THAT OCCURRED ON JANUARY 7TH, 2012?

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"of course. i watched the coverage from boston."

WHERE WERE YOU THE DAY OF THE EARTHQUAKE? WHAT DID YOU DO?

"i was sitting in my apartment back home in boston, actually. i think ksenia was being told she had to be at the airport that night when i saw the alert. i'd known for awhile that we were going to have to come down to valkyrie in order to help out some relatives. "off the record help for family” is what my father told me in that hurried phone call. i got on the next avaliable flight to los angeles, and bussed it to valkyrie that afternoon."

DID YOU KNOW ANYONE THAT WAS AFFECTED BY THE EARTHQUAKE?

"ksenia told me her parents’ home was damaged. and something about her old friends. i wasn’t paying attention. no one i know. i’m pretty sure i broke my hand when i got off the bus, though. i tripped and some rubble shifted and fell on it. i won’t go to the hospital, though."

WELL, THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO TALK TO ME. HOPE YOU HAVE A NICE REST OF YOUR DAY.[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size]

WE STOLE OUR NEW LIVES
THROUGH BLOOD AND PAIN
THE ROLEPLAYER

NAME asia the mini-kiprusoff.
AGE nineteen thousand.
RP EXPERIENCE no joke, i set off the big bang.
FACE CLAIM max irons.
MEMBER GROUP visitor.
RP SAMPLE once upon a time, asia said “hell no”.

credit format by lainey, lyrics by 30 seconds to mars

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[asia ?!]