Die for Me

Tchaikovsky’s music soars from the orchestra pit, while on stage a Christmas party is in progress, with the dancers in Victorian-era costumes.

That we were fundamentally the same, and that in consequence neither of us could ever fully possess or control the other.

I think that this is why she acts up so obnoxiously, demanding my attention at the same time as rejecting it. She knows that I love her, but she also knows that the usual psychopathic love narrative, the one ending in my obliteration and her savage triumph, will not play out. Instead, it seems, we’re moving toward a tentative equilibrium. I know that there’s a place where I can’t follow her. Where she has always been alone, and always will be. I tell myself that I can live with that. That all I have to do is be patient. Be waiting there with open arms when she returns.

“Of course. All the so-called important ones. They’re actually quite funny. All those creepy guys desperately trying to figure us out. You know, don’t you, that all the case studies are male? They just assume that female psychopaths work the same way.”

“They get it wrong?”

“All the time.”

“Give me an example.”

She yawns. “Like, for a start, they say psychopaths aren’t capable of falling in love.”

“And are they?”

“Of course they are. I mean, I love you, baby bee.”

I can’t speak. Oxana reaches out and I feel her hand close over my heart. “Listen to you,” she says. “Boom, boom, boom. You’re so sweet.”

“Why didn’t you say?”

“Why didn’t you say, dumbass? You do love me, don’t you?”

“I… yes, of course I do.”

“Well then, there we go. Now turn over, so that I can spoon into you, and go to sleep.”

I’m not sure how, but I always knew that Mama was sick, and would die before long. I hated her for that, for forcing this sadness on me, and sometimes at night I dreamed that the waiting was over and she was already dead. She looked so helpless, so vulnerable, and that made me angry too, because I knew that was not how things were supposed to be. She was supposed to look after me. She was supposed to teach me all the things I needed to know

she the one who killed Kristina?” Dasha asks, her voice so low I can hardly hear her.

“Are they the one,” Lara corrects her. “My pronouns are ‘they’ and ‘them’ now. But yeah, that was me. Sorry.”

Kris, looking like a minor character from Anna Karenina in the velvet coat, steps out of the front door.

It takes us very little time to get ready to go. We’ve decided to take the train to Sochi, a modern city on the Black Sea, find a cheap guest house, and review our options

She takes me into the bedroom she shares with Dasha. I’ve never been in here before and I look around with amazement. The bed is a four-poster with purple damask curtains, the walls are decorated with framed posters of Amazonian women riding dinosaurs and giant dragonflies, the shelves hold velveteen unicorns, Beanie Babies and statuettes of Marvel Comics heroines.

“This look is more you than Dasha, isn’t it?”

“She said I could have it how I wanted. What do you think?”

Killing people like the Pakhan makes me feel powerful. Konstantin always used to say: ‘You’re an instrument of destiny.’ And I loved that. I love that I’ve changed history, and that if it wasn’t for me the world would be a different place. Because in the end, that’s what we all dream of doing, isn’t it? Making a difference?”

“That’s so disgusting. He’s what? Forty-five years older than her?”

“Poverty’s disgusting, Eve. Believe me, I’ve been there.