.
.
There are flowers on his desk. Petrov stops, setting his briefcase down and circling the desk with frowning suspicion.
"We got them this morning," his secretary says, and Petrov startles. "Seems you've got a secret admirer."
The petals are still dewy, and when Petrov turns the vase over he can see the smiling pink card tucked neatly into the stems of the vase. He fingers the card, then plucks it in his hand.
"Have a good morning," his secretary says, and she closes the door.
xXx
.
His office staff, as well as the prosecuting attorneys next door, are going out. Petrov watches, silent and impassive, as lawyers and secretaries pull on their coats and chatter idly.
"My mother is in the hospital," Petrov says, after one well-meaning staffer extends the invitation, and thankfully it's enough to shut her up. Apparently the rest of the office has taken it upon themselves to help him loosen up. "She has pneumonia," Petrov says.
"Oh, really? Oh wow, I hope it's nothing serious."
"It is not," Petrov says. He snaps his briefcase shut.
His office is dark except for the lamp on his desk, and his reflection is almost mirror-like against the dark backdrop of his windows. Petrov stands, closing the blinds and rubbing his temples, frowning a little at the vase of flowers at the corner.
An admirer. From what he could gather, they were sent by a well-meaning family involved in a case he had adjudicated. It is just as well; Petrov has no time for the petty trappings of an office romance.
He sits heavily at his desk, switching on his laptop. There is a man going up for parole, a murderer who had stalked and killed this teenage girl. He had strangled her as he fucked her, and when the coroners examined her body they found thumbprints in her windpipe and bruises around her eyes.
Petrov will arrange it so that his parole is secured.
Night falls like a thick black curtain over Sternbild, the city skyline marked by streetlights and low-lying clouds. Petrov walks down the street, hands shoved deep into his pockets and listening to the sound of his footsteps echoing on the damp pavement. Steam rises from the gutters and he can hear the car horns blare. "Judge Petrov," someone says. Petrov turns.
The girl behind him, he can't quite remember her name, she's walking alone and waving for him to wait up. The night is late, and Petrov can't quite bring himself to ignore her. He slows his footsteps, waiting patiently for her to catch up.
"Counselor," Petrov says, and the girl smiles, tugging her coat and hunching against the cold.
"I'm so glad you're here! I was going to walk to the bus stop, but it's creepy walking around this late. It's so dark," she says, and Petrov can see her shudder, hunching up into herself. "Thanks for waiting," she says, but Petrov keeps walking. The night is cold and he had wanted to think to himself, not play pretend with one of the office staff.
"You're working late," the girl says, finally. "Did you get the flowers?"
"Yes," Petrov says. The girl smiles.
"Did you like them?"
"I suppose."
It's cold and his skin is numb, and he thinks things would be so much easier, killing without conscious and doing what he wants. What he wants to do is burn the poor little woman to a pathetic crisp, wants to watch her wool coat shrivel and her skin blister and burn.
"You're nervous," she says, and Petrov's jaw tightens. "You don't talk much to women, do you?"
"Wha-?" For the second time tonight, Petrov is caught off-guard. He almost tells her, I have no time for such foolish things, but he just walks silently, his eyes fixed on the ground.
"Hey, you know..." the girl stops, then fidgets. She's wearing a red scarf, which wraps around her neck and hangs loosely at the front of her coat; reflexively, Petrov imagines how it would look, flames rising and the fringes of yarn beginning to char. "You know, the rest of us are going for drinks tomorrow, and I was thinking...if you don't have to do anything that night, then maybe...?"
Her eyes slide upward. Bright eyes, like the liquid sheen on a slick of oil. "Maybe you'd want to come?"
"Thank you, but no," Petrov says. He looks at the girl and decides it's time to end things. "Perhaps I should call you a cab."
"Oh, no, we're almost here," the girl says. And then, "You don't have to walk with me, if you don't want to."
Her voice is soft, and for some reason, (and Petrov wonders how his mind could work like this, even past midnight in the middle of an empty street), she reminds him of his mother. Passive, earnest. Someone soft and malleable and begging to be slapped and kicked. "I do not mind," Petrov says. The girl looks at him and smiles.
The bus comes at 1:15, and Petrov waits politely as the girl boards, waving and hitching her purse over her shoulder. He wonders briefly if he should follow them-the last string of murders had happened outside a bus stop, after all-but he decides it isn't worth it. There's heroes there and Sternbild suffers from a glut of them.
xXx
.
The flowers on his desk are drooping, and dead petals are starting to fall around the vase. Petrov stoops to put the whole mess in the trash, but stops to think the better of it. His mother might like them. Funny how he hadn't thought of it before.
He walks, this time with the little vase of flowers tucked under his arm, while he mulls over his plans in his mind.
The parolee, the scumbag murderer he helped release, should be out around town by now. Petrov closes his eyes imagining it. Yes. Without the protection of concrete walls and prison guards, it should be easier to hunt him. They hastened his parole for good behavior, but also because the prisons were getting too crowded. There would be one less body to worry about, now.
Sternbild General is only a few blocks away from the courthouse, and it only takes Petrov a few minutes to walk. He signs in at the hospital front desk, the security guard pressing the bright "MY NAME IS..." sticker on Petrov's lapel, the word "VISITOR" scrawled in black magic marker instead of his name.
"Visiting hours are over at nine," the security guard says, as if he needed to remind him.
There are interns and residents on the elevator riding with him, and Petrov listens as they talk amongst themselves, disguising their patients with initials to protect their privacy. "E.P. on 417 bed two, she's wicked demented and she sun-downs pretty bad, I wrote for risperdal today so hopefully she won't be a problem."
Even without the initials, Petrov can figure out they're talking about his mother. The night before, the intern on-call had put his mother in soft restraints because she was tearing out her IV. "She was pretty bad," the nurse had said, but Petrov really wasn't surprised.
"Yuri!" his mother tries to get out of bed, but the bed alarm wails and the nurses come running.
"Mrs. Petrov, you're not supposed to stand!"
"My son is here!" his mother says, and Petrov's jaw tightens.
"Mama. Sit back down," Petrov says.
"Why are you yelling at me?" his mother says, and her face wrenches. The nurse puts her back into bed and resets the alarm.
Petrov places the flowers on his mother's windowsill, then gingerly sits on the visitor chair beside her. Unlike the other patients, his mother was placed on fall precautions, so her bed is practically on the ground and the floor is surrounded with soft, heavy mats, should she trip over herself on her way to the bathroom. "Yuri, are those flowers for me?"
"Yes," Petrov says. The doctors had said she still sounded bad, still required a lot of oxygen and that she would benefit from a few more hospital days. They also suggested rehab to further help her strength. "How are you feeling, Mama?"
"Good! Now that my sweet Yuri is here." His mother is smiling. Whatever medication they put her on, it seems to have helped. "Is your papa coming too?"
"No," Petrov says, and he's too tired to remind her.
In the alleyway, Petrov dully takes off his coat and shirt, and his briefcase, which has no identifying papers, sits neatly behind the dumpster as Petrov pulls on his mask, hair tied back and tucked into the rest of his suit. A police siren wails. There are footsteps running beside the hospital.
He leaps. Vaults up against the red brick walls, a thin ribbon of blue flame trailing him as he does.
The next morning, HERO TV runs the headline that LUNATIC HAS STRUCK AGAIN! and the papers print a picture of the parolee, burnt to a crisp and smoldering like so much ash. That same morning, the office staff finds him asleep at his desk. They think he's ill and Petrov doesn't correct them, pouring himself another cup of coffee before quietly shutting the door.
xXx
.
It is a strange thing, his mother not being home with him. For once his house is blissfully, beautifully quiet, and Petrov sits on the couch and pushes his chopsticks into a carton of take-out chinese. He doesn't turn on the light, the ambient glow from the television the only thing illuminating the room.
He will probably go to sleep early tonight; there's no one worth following now, and with his mother away, he can probably get more than the meager few hours of sleep he usually has.
The TV is blaring. Petrov leans back, closing his eyes.
"...and here we have Wild Tiger, who shares his thoughts on the matter."
"Lunatic is a lunatic!" Wild Tiger says. He's on the TV now, wearing his mechanical suit and his voice amplified by the speakers on the sides of his helmet. "It's my job to capture guys like him! Lunatic, if you're watching, watch out, because Wild Tiger is on to you!"
The telephone rings. Petrov frowns, turning the volume down.
"May I speak with a Mr. Yuri Petrov?"
He looks at the time, and his hands clench when he realizes it's the hospital.
"What happened?" Petrov says. The resident on the other line, he fumbles a little, then says, "Your mother was intubated. I mean-" and it takes Petrov a moment to comprehend. "She was put on a breathing machine. I think you need to come in."
"I'm coming," Petrov says, and he hangs up the phone.
xXx
.
The resident isn't a very seasoned one, his first year running the ICU and still nervous talking to patients. Petrov watches, heart hammering in his ears, as the resident says things like, "desats," and "fluffed up pretty bad," and it takes Petrov a moment to realize his mother at some point had stopped breathing. "She was a full code, so we intubated her," the resident says. "We didn't have a choice."
"I see," Petrov says. His head is swimming. The resident stands.
"I can take you to her, if you want."
"Yes," Petrov says. He stands and follows after.
xXx
.
His mother is naked. It's the first thing that hits Petrov in the gut, nurses shoving in a foley between his mother's legs while his mother gags on the breathing machine. "We're not done yet! Sir we're not done yet, step back!" and they yank back the curtain.
"I'm so sorry," the resident says, and for the first time Petrov thinks, I could kill this man, could burn him and the entire hospital staff into a withering crisp, because his mother is naked and on a machine; the hospital is a tinderbox and Petrov's fingers twitch uncontrollably.
"How long?" Petrov says. His voice is hoarse. "How long will she be on it?"
"Fourteen days is the max," the resident says. He fidgets uncomfortably. "After fourteen days, if we can't get her off, we'd have to give her a trach. A permanent breathing tube through her neck," the resident says, as if catching himself. Too much medical jargon. Petrov's head spins. "After two weeks, the tube starts to erode through the windpipe. That's why there's the time limit."
"I see," Petrov says. He can hear his mother struggling.
"Jason, we need sedation!"
"Give her four of versed," the resident says, and he disappears behind the curtain.
xXx
.
His mother. She's sedated now, the breathing tube shoved down her throat and held together with tape against her mouth. She looks like that girl in the crime scene photo. "Mama," Petrov says, and he sits. Next door, he can hear someone crying. "Get them a bereavement tray," a nurse is saying. "Their mother finally died."
There is a TV at the corner of the ceiling; the channel is set on Heroes TV. Petrov listens dully as the announcer talks about Lunatic and his next potential victim, but for once Petrov doesn't really care. He bends over and presses his hand to his mother's forehead. Her skin feels cool and her hair is damp and limp, and that helpless, hopeless feeling bubbles up within him like so much bile. "We'll try to take her off the vent tomorrow," the nurse says. She checks the IV bags and pulls back the sheets. "With any luck, she'll be able to come off."
Petrov says nothing. He feels fire burning at the backs of his eyes.
xXx
.
There are flowers on his desk, one large arrangement and a card tucked against the long stems in the vase. "It's from everyone," the girl says, and Petrov looks up. She smiles kindly, and it takes a moment for Petrov to remember who she is. "We all heard," she says, and she sits beside him. "We were out last night and we thought we should get you this. We know what it's like to lose a loved one."
"My mother's not dead," Petrov says, and the girl's eyes widen. Her hand flies to cover her mouth.
"Oh no no, that's not what I meant-"
"It is fine," Petrov says. And then, "Thank you. It is a thoughtful gift," before he looks back at his papers, forcing his eyes down and waiting for the girl to leave. She does finally, softly closing the door.