In the Shadows of Kroy

"If you touch me, I'll feed your hands to the street mutts," she said coldly. She finished hooking him up and started the drip, then sat back down. Around the same time, Bobby finished bandaging his leg.

"Bobby," Queenie said, "how did you sleep?"

Bobby hesitated. Kept hesitating.

Queenie sighed, "Go, rest up. The master bedroom is perfectly safe."

Bobby looked like he wanted to protest, his gaze flicking between Queenie and his friend, but he eventually complied.

Now alone with the intruder, Queenie turned to him, "Back to my earlier question, who are you?"

Kazimir watched as Bobby left to sleep before looking back at Queenie. He was glad Bobby would have a place to rest, but he had a feeling if he didn’t choose his words carefully, Queenie could go from helpful to harmful very quickly. They were both in bad shape, and he didn’t want to hurt a friend of Bobby’s. It didn’t seem like there were a lot of people Bobby trusted, but Bobby seemed okay with Queenie.

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you, kid. I have no idea where the hell I am, but I’m definitely not from Kroy. Last place I was before I ended up here somehow was Los Angeles, California, and I’ve got no fucking idea where that is in relation to here.”

He sighed and leaned his head back on the couch, still looking over at Queenie. “I don’t know what you want me to say. My name is Kazimir Petrov, and Bobby and I met in a freakish ghost town a while back. That’s how we know each other.”

Queenie stared at him. Blinked. So he wasn't from this world.

"Well," she said, leaning back in her seat, "Los Angeles isn't somewhere you can really go on this world. Not unless you bring a whole lot of diving equipment and probably some radiation gear."

Kazimir scoffed. “Am I in some fucking end of the world novel? Damn.”

Queenie laughed, then winced as pain shot through her ribs in protest.

"You're from, when, exactly?"

“1996,” he said. “I’m guessing that’s like, ancient history for you, huh.”

"It's 2085," she responded.

Kazimir stared at Queenie, and blinked slowly. 2085? That wasn’t a real year. He didn’t know how to even comprehend what that would look like, but apparently, he’d leapt forward in time.

“Fuck.” He groaned and tilted his head forward. “You don’t have time machines, do you?”

"I mean, people have been trying, but nothing functional. I imagine it would cost billions just to use one, anyway. I know I wouldn't be funding you for that," she chuckled, restricting her breathing a little this time to keep from upsetting her ribs.

Kazimir groaned again in frustration, flopping his head back into the couch.

“Yeah. Of course you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t either,” he said, sighing through his nose and closing his eyes for just a moment.

He didn’t want this to be real life. He wanted it to be a dream, but he knew it wasn’t, because the bullet wound was very very real.

“This just... wow. Okay. God, I need a minute.”

Queenie nodded and let him process. In the meantime, she took out her gun and got to cleaning it. It didn't really need it, but her free hand needed to be busy.

Kazimir opened his eyes and looked back up at the ceiling, trying to think, and that the same time, couldn't think. His leg was still throbbing, blood was slowly re-entering his system, and overall, he just felt all sorts of wrong even without the new and terrible knowledge that he was somewhere else, far in the future, where neither he nor California existed.

Was Bo still alive in this world? Or was this an entirely alternate universe? Would he ever see his son again?

God, that was not a question Kazimir wanted to ponder on. A pit formed in his stomach, and he let out a slow, quiet exhale through his nose.

He looked down into his lap, and at his wounded, now bandaged leg.

The wound was the least of his worries now.

He stared at his leg for some time, while his mind recycled the same thoughts on loop, like radio static mixed with an anxious, incomprehensible chatter. All he could think of was Bo.

"You know, I've got a son back home," he said. "He's around your age. He's 16 now, and he would've been 17 next month, for me."

A pause.

"In 1996."

Another pause. He needed to stop thinking about the year.

"His name's Andrei, but I've always called him Bo. He's the light of my life."

He stared into his lap, his eyes sad. Solemn.

"He got expelled from school last year," he said, a little laughter entering his voice. "He did some stupid prank on his teacher and something else. Jumped out the window and scaled the building or some shit. Scared the hell out of his teachers. He's a good kid, though, I swear. He does a lot of stupid shit but he only ever does it to make people laugh. I don't know what I did for him to turn out that way. Sweet. Kind. Nothing like my father. Nothing like me, really."

He laughed. "Well, maybe a little."

Queenie watched him with a mask of detached disinterest. She didn't know why his words made a pit open in her chest. She didn't know why that pit hurt so much.

He's a dad, she reasoned with the void, he's going to think about his kid.

The void only hurt more.

"He sounds like a nice kid," she said absently, piecing her very-clean gun back together. The familiar pieces, the familiar process, it distracted her.

Would my dad think about me if he were in a situation like this?

She shoved the unwanted thought from her mind. It didn't need an answer. Her dad wasn't like this guy. She wasn't like Bo. They weren't comparable situations. Briar would point that out in a heartbeat, before Queenie could even pose the question, most likely.

Kazimir smiled at that, and looked over at Queenie. "Yeah, he is."

His eyes lit up, and he reached into his jacket pocket with his arm that wasn't all needled up. He pulled out his wallet and flipped to little plastic sleeve that had one of Bo's recent school pictures in it. Bo didn't like how it turned out, but Kazimir thought Bo looked great.

Kazimir turned the photo towards Queenie, revealing the photo of a teenage boy who resembled him quite a lot, save for having a slightly darker complexion and hair. Bo had hair that was short and a little messy, but in a way that looked charming. He was smiling big.

"This is him," Kazimir said. "People joke that he's my clone, but I still see a lot of his mother in him."

He looked down a little, his smile fading. "She's not around anymore," he said simply. "But yeah, there's a few photos in here, if you want to see. My favorite -" he didn't wait for Queenie to say if she was interested. He flipped to it, revealing a picture of a chubby baby in the arms of a much younger Kazimir in his 20's. Kazimir was smiling and holding baby Bo up a little, and Bo was laughing and holding his hands out towards his father's face.

"Is this one," Kazimir said. He chuckled. "He spit up on me right after that."

Queenie only half-glanced at the photos. They hurt to look at for reasons she refused to explore.

"He does look a lot like you," she said, feigning disinterest. She'd reached a point in putting her gun back together where she needed her other hand. With half of the fingers on that hand in makeshift casts, though, she couldn't maneuver the pieces properly. She fumbled one of them and it dropped to the ground.

She cursed quietly and debated if she could pick it up without hurting her ribs too much.