Hello! I'm back :). Hope you enjoy this chapter, and thank you for reviewing!
-Lauren
x.x.x
Tamara felt disappointed when the ferry came to their destination - right where they started.
She got off the boat with Yassen, holding his hand.
'We should go back and get ready,' he said.
'True,' she said.
They walked back up to the apartment, hand in hand.
As soon as they entered and closed the door, Tamara pulled her hand away. She found that she was rather disappointed at this, though she'd never admit it.
'I'll take the bedroom,' she said. 'You can have the bathroom.'
She took the dress and accessories and headed to the bedroom, closing the door.
Tamara slid into the dress, smiling. She loved the feeling of feeling beautiful.
She put on the necklace and earrings, doing a quick twirl in the mirror. Expertly she put on some make up - a light layer of silver eye shadow and light pink lipstick.
She swept her hair up into a bun, secured it and sprayed a small amount of hairspray to make sure it held.
She opened the door, to find Yassen waiting.
He smelt of cologne and wore a black suit with matching trousers, and a white shirt without a tie.
'You look beautiful,' he said to Tamara.
'You too,' she replied, twirling her hair in her fingers. She wasn't mature enough yet to know how to accept compliments properly. 'I mean, um, you don't look beautiful, you look –' She stumbled on her words.
'Shall we go?' he asked, saving her from having to say a full sentence in such a flustered mood.
Tamara nodded. Yassen held his arm out - Tamara linked her own in his and they left.
'Shall we have dinner first?' asked Yassen. Tamara nodded.
They entered a chic restaurant by the harbour side, and sat down at a small two seater table. There was a candle in the middle of the table; Yassen and Tamara could see the reflected candlelight flickering in the other's face.
'What would you like?' he asked.
Tamara scanned the menu.
'You order for me, sweetie,' she said.
Yassen made another attempt at smiling.
He lifted a lazy hand in the air to get the attention of a waiter. One came to the table.
'Would you like to order, sir?' he asked.
'Yes,' said Yassen. 'One Penne Bosciaola, one Linguine Marinara, and one bottle of Moet,' he said.
The waiter scribbled down his order on his notepad and left with a bow.
'What do you think of Sydney, then?' Tamara asked Yassen.
'It is a beautiful city,' he commented.
Tamara wanted to ask him about his past, what he used to do, get to know him more, but she knew she couldn't do it in public. It was pretty obvious that the conversation would not go anywhere while they were acting as someone else, so she didn't bother talking further.
Soon enough the food and champagne came. Yassen uncorked it and poured some in her glass.
'Cheers,' she said, holding her glass up. 'To us,' she said, the obvious thing that a couple would toast to.
'To us,' agreed Yassen, knocking his cup against hers. They each took a sip before putting it back down on the table and starting to eat.
Tamara watched him eat. He did not eat as she did; he paused after each mouthful, as if taking in all the flavours. From what she could see, he thoroughly enjoyed good food. Tamara, on the other hand, ate quickly as she always had done, not really taking in the flavours.
As expected, Yassen paid for the meal. They left the restaurant and proceeded to the Opera House.
With confidence, Yassen held their tickets up in a cavalier attitude as they were shown to their seats. Tamara was shocked to see that they had been given very good seats - right in the middle and quite close to the front. She didn't want to think about how much they would have cost.
She reached up to hold his hand, looking at him and smiling. He did try to smile back.
'You're getting better,' she teased.
He didn't have time to reply - the ballet had started.
The orchestra started to play, and ballet dancers filtered onto the stage. The first act featured the Prince Siegfried, who would fall in love with the beautiful Odette, who turns into a swan. Yassen almost let himself smile – he had played Prince Siegfried in a production, and remembered when he danced the same moves. In his opinion, the dancer who was playing Siegfried now was exaggerating his character too much – he sighed and danced like showing sadness and distress was more important than feeling it. Nowadays, Yassen neither showed nor felt emotions, but still thought that the performance was a bit fake.
'So have you ever danced this ballet?' asked Tamara, trying to make conversation.
'Once,' answered Yassen. 'I was Prince Siegfried.' Yassen was surprised. This was the first time he'd talked of his life before his parents' death to anyone. And he hadn't told an old friend (because he had none) or an ally, but an enemy CIA agent. Though, as Tamara sat there smiling gently at him and looking beautiful, she didn't seem like an enemy at all.
'Really?' asked Tamara. 'That's pretty cool.'
Yassen nodded.
The rest of the ballet went by in silence – once or twice Tamara considered asking a question, but decided against it. He might just think that she was annoying, and she didn't want that.
Yassen was left slightly vulnerable to his memories as the ballet went on, as he remembered his own performance, at 13 years of age. It had only been a small scale production; the costumes being made by the mothers of the dancers (Yassen blocked out memories of his own mother), and only been performed at the community centre. He remembered breathing deeply backstage, before the curtains opened and the spotlight fell on him. He remembered people congratulating him, smiling warmly at him after the production was finished. He remembered his mother kissing him on the forehead and his dad telling Yassen that he was proud of him.
And as the curtains closed, Yassen felt a little sad, for the first time in a long time. If his parents hadn't died, could he have gone on to be a ballet dancer? To travel the world, performing and living the way he wanted to? Could he have saved lives, by not becoming an assassin, and not killing people, but instead bringing them joy with his dancing?
No, he thought, that life hadn't been given to him. He'd been handed the life he was living now, the life of a contract killer, and no amount of wishing could change that.
x.x.x
After the performance, the night had suddenly grown cold. Yassen gave his jacket to Tamara, and she was too cold to refuse. She could only smile and thank him, and he was pleased by that. He'd pushed away thoughts of ballet and focused on getting Tamara to trust him again.
'That was good, wasn't it?' she asked, bringing up the dreaded subject again.
'Yes,' replied Yassen coldly. Really, the acting was a bit fake, the dancing exaggerated and the feeling of love between Odette and the Prince nonexistent, but the costumes were good, it was well-staged and the orchestra played superbly. But he didn't say any of that, because he didn't want to talk about the ballet. 'That building is Stevenson's company's offices. Do you want to have a look around?' asked Yassen, pointing to a building.
Tamara smiled, feeling a rush of adrenaline. 'Sure.'
They walked around the building, but the whole place was locked up and heavily alarmed.
'We'll have to get in from the top,' said Yassen. They could have broken a window, and gotten in and out before the police got there, but 1. That would have drawn too much attention to them, and 2. Stevenson would almost certainly have guards inside. And whoever kept guards inside a mere office building at night was definitely someone to be suspicious of. Yassen had suggested that they go in through the top because that way they wouldn't be able to get in, and Tamara wouldn't know anything suspicious was going on.
'Alright,' said Tamara. 'I'll climb the building?'
Yassen nodded. 'You go first, I'll follow after.'
Tamara took out the yoyo from her pocket. It was actually a string of super-strong nylon, that could easily hold twice her weight. She threw it up onto a ledge, and immediately the mechanism opened up and attached itself to the ledge. Taking hold of the string, she started to climb.
Yassen heard footsteps in the distance. He took out his gun and looked around. There was nothing for a few minutes, but then a figure loomed ahead of him.
'Ivanovitch! You're dead!' shouted a man dressed in black. Out of the darkness more figures came, obviously in the same league as the first.
Yassen made split second calculations. The people were probably after Dimitri Ivanovitch. He recognised them as a large Asian gang in Sydney, most of them murderers or robbers. Somehow he had made them his enemy and now they were coming for Yassen, thinking he was Ivanovitch. Yassen didn't hesitate to shoot.
The bullets ripped through the air, hitting the man who had called out first, and one by one, each of the figures in the background. They all fell to the ground in a comical but macabre unison. Yassen smiled to himself, content.
He looked around, and, swearing, saw more coming. Quickly he pulled out a second gun, and a third, and emptied them both.
Tamara watched from above. Her partner had just killed around 30 people. She didn't know what to think - whether his thinking was so quick that he'd avoided death or that it was unnecessary.
Then she saw more figures coming towards him that he missed while looking around to check for more.
Yassen snapped his head around to find more approaching him. He took out his gun again and shot at the figures. He swore in Russian. He'd run out of bullets.
The man smiled and took out a gun.
'Don't try anything, or this bullet goes in your head,' he said, pointing it at Yassen's skull. Yassen cursed himself. He couldn't believe he'd run out of bullets. He couldn't go down like this. Not to some second rate gang leader.
There was a loud crack, and Yassen expected to feel his head exploding, but there was nothing. There were more cracks, and all the people surrounding him fell to the ground, lifeless.
Yassen looked around to see what had happened and spotted Tamara on the roof.
'You ran out of bullets?' she shouted incredulously. There was an odd look on her face – like she wanted to smile, but was too worried to.
'Thank you,' he shouted back. He shot a rope attached to his waist onto a rail of the roof, the hook on the end catching the rail perfectly. He started to climb the building to reach Tamara; it took him less than a minute.
'Thank you,' he said again, standing a few feet away from her. He was not sure what to do, whether to bow, or to hug her, or to kneel at her feet. He settled on looking busy with something else, taking more bullets out of his backpack and loading them into his gun.
'No problem,' she said. 'That's what partners are for, aren't they?'
Yassen nodded stiffly.
'Who were they?' asked Tamara, casting her eye to the fallen bodies on the ground.
'They're a gang,' said Yassen, looking down as well. 'Last time I came here for a mission I got involved in a fight with them, as they were aiding the person I was meant to kill,' said Yassen. 'I guess they still hold a grudge,' he said, shrugging.
'Oh,' said Tamara. 'Well it's good to see you're ok,' she said, stepping closer to him. He stood still, not quite sure what to do.
She stood on the tips of her toes and hugged him tightly. Yassen froze. He was not used to physical contact, unless he was fighting someone. Sure, he'd touched Tamara while pretending to be her boyfriend, but that was all fake. This was a genuine hug, from Tamara herself.
Yassen patted her on the back, not sure what to do. He'd never shown any of his real emotions, and especially not in direct actions. He'd never hugged anyone before. He found the new experience quite enlightening. It was nice knowing someone cared about you.
Yassen cursed himself. He would not start to get attached to the girl. Even if he didn't have to end up betraying her, bonds between people are signs of weakness. He worked alone. He didn't need anyone but himself; no one could be trusted but himself.
Something inside argued with him. He did need someone else - he would have died in that lonely alleyway if it had not been for Tamara. Yassen didn't know what to think, for one of the first times in his life.
Yassen realised then that he was starting to succeed in the hardest part of the mission. Tamara trusted him, or at least liked him as a person. That was a good start, if anything.
Tamara finally released him from the hug.
'Thank you, again,' said Yassen.
'You don't need to thank me so many times,' she said. 'It's not as if I didn't get anything out of saving your life.'
Yassen was perplexed by that statement.
'What do you mean?' he asked.
'Well, I would have been devastated if you'd have died. You're a good partner,' she said.
Yassen, again, didn't know what to think. It was happening far too many times lately; he reprimanded himself.
Was he to be happy because his plan was working in getting her to trust him, or did he feel guilty for deceiving her?
Nonsense.
Yassen Gregorovich never feels guilty. Or so he told himself. He'd killed many people, his first at nineteen, and many more, especially tonight. If he had any reason to feel guilty, it would be because of that. And he never felt guilty about cutting short people's lives, possibly one of the worst acts a human can commit, in the narrow minded person's eye.
But he knew he wasn't happy. He knew that.
So what was he feeling?
'Dimitri?' asked Tamara. He hadn't answered for a good 2 minutes now.
'Yes. Sorry. Shall we go back to the apartment?' he asked.
Tamara nodded.
'Probably not a good idea to stick around here, more of them might turn up and we'll be in trouble then,' she said. 'Not that we weren't in trouble before,' she added, following him back to the apartment.