Read Online The Scioneer by Peter Bouvier - Free Book Online Page A

and screams of the women who had been
locked downstairs in the cells next to his, and while his own
living conditions might have improved over the years, he never once
forgot what he was: a prisoner.
    He
chanced his first escape when he was eight years old, slipping out
of his room when his keeper was distracted. He calmly walked
straight out of the house, across the frozen ornamental gardens and
into the woods as though he were off for an afternoon stroll. He
was picked up two hours later, when the dogs caught him and Boris,
the gamekeeper brought him home to a genuinely disappointed
Taloquan.
    ‘After
all I have done for you, Lyubomir.’
    ‘My name
is Aloysha Petrov and always will be,’ said the boy, in a measured
tone, and although he did not understand its meaning, he copied a
gesture he had seen American actors make in the videos he was
allowed to watch in his room. He petulantly raised the middle
finger of his right hand to Herat Taloquan.
    Without a
word, Taloquan took him by the arm and marched him into the
kitchens where he picked up the cook’s cleaver.
    ‘This will hurt
me more than it will hurt you, Lyubomir.’
    He chopped the finger off with one
swipe.

Chapter
11
    ‘I don’t
want to see you, Lek Gorski.’ Crystal peered at his distorted face through the
fisheye peephole of her front door, ‘Now fuck off.’
    ‘Please can I
come in Crystal? I’m running out of places to go. I need your
help.’
    Crystal
took a deep breath and
against her better judgement, she opened the door. She was shocked
at what she saw. Never had Lek looked so vulnerable. She bit her
lip, shook her head and let him in.
    ‘You
look… awful, Lek’ she said, taking in his wild eyes and tousled
hair, not to mention the XXL gym-strip and giant spring-boks he was
wearing. ‘What are you doing here? What’s going on?’
    ‘Can I trust
you Crystal?’ Lek asked the question so abruptly, it sounded like
an accusation.
    She
immediately thought about the phone call, but answered, ‘Yes. You
know you can.’
    ‘I’ve got
to be careful,’ he said, striding into the room. ‘I’m on the
run.’
    ‘Have you been
sampling the goods Lek?’
    ‘This is
serious. They’re after me. Pechev’s thugs are after me. I’ve got to
hide out somewhere for the next…. ,’ he checked the living room
LED, ‘eight hours.’
    Crystal
knew there and then that he wasn’t lying, but she was so overcome
with a cocktail of conflicting emotions, she didn’t know what to
tell him. Part of her wanted to kick him out on the street and have
nothing more to do with the guy, but part of her wanted him to
stay, no matter what that meant for their safety. She remembered
the phone call.
    ‘What have you
done?’ she almost whispered.
    ‘It’s...
complicated. No it isn’t. The simple truth is I’ve stolen something
from them,’ he whispered back, ‘I think I know too much, and it was
beginning to spook them. They were testing me. And I failed. And
your finger is bleeding.’
    ‘I know.
You’re nothing…. I mean, it’s nothing.’
    ‘Let me look at
it.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Don’t be
silly, let me see.’
    He gently held
her hand in his for a moment, then without a word, raised it to his
lips to kiss it better.
    ‘Don’t.
You don’t know where I’ve been.’ she said, half-joking, but when
she felt his breath against the palm of her hand, and his lips
brushing her wrist, something inside her became undone. She closed
her eyes and gave in.
    ‘What are you
doing Lek?’ she whispered softly in his ear.
    ‘What I should
have done months ago.’
    He kissed
her then, and for a moment - all the money, all the drugs, Pechev
and his gangsters – none of it mattered. He kissed Crystal Purcell
as though his world might end in the next eight hours, and he
wanted to imprint that kiss forever on his memory. Crystal fought
back the tears pricking her eyes, and like a true professional,
began to play the part she knew so well. She smiled coquettishly
and