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“Because we brought you here,” the third guy says, his voice lower and rougher than the other two.
“Why?” I croak again.
“Because you’re ours,” the third man says, so matter of factly, that I actually question myself. Am I theirs?
Tilting my head, I blink, then blink again, searching for some kind of recognition. Waiting for something to flash inside of my head and tell me who this person is. But there’s nothing. Nothing about him is familiar.
He’s attractive, but obviously considerably older than me, not that I think age matters. I’m the oldest twenty-year-old in the world. His hair is short and styled into a messy perfection that probably took him longer than it’s ever taken me to style my hair. His eyes are dark and assessing, but from this far away I can’t tell if they’re dark brown, or a navy blue. His features are classically attractive, almost aristocratic. His cheekbones are high and defined, his jaw square and chiseled. In short, he’s beautiful, but I’m confident I don’t know him.
Straining, I push to recall the last thing that I can remember.
I remember losing my job.
I remember finding the flier for the apartment.
I remember walking to campus and calling the number.
I remember talking to a girl and getting an address.
I remember walking through town and into a converted warehouse.
I remember knocking on the door and a girl opening it.
I remember stepping into the apartment and then… then nothing. That’s the last thing I remember.
No, it’s not the last thing I remember. The last thing I remember is pain and then darkness.
“Who are you?” I ask, hearing the tremor in my voice.
“My name is Dimitri Belov. This…” He gestures to the man sitting beside him on the couch. “Is Lev Adamovich, and this…” He points to the man sitting in the chair. “Is Viktor Sorokin.”
“I don’t know you,” I stammer.
“No, you don’t. But we know you, Alena.”
“My name isn’t Alena,” I scoff, wondering for a moment if this is just a fucked-up case of mistaken identity.
“The name on your official birth certificate is Alena Grigoriyyovna Polakoff.”
“No.” I shake my head. “My birth certificate says my name is Alabama Georgina Delaney.” My voice is high and panicked, my limbs bursting back to life in a shower of pins and needles as I force myself to turn, my feet flopping to the floor as the blood rushes back to them.
“Your father was a man called Grigoriy Polakoff. It is our understanding that he met your mother when he visited America during a business trip. We do not know the nature of their relationship, but we do know that he was aware of your birth. He named you, and his name was on your original birth certificate. However, that birth certificate was buried, and the one that replaced it had your new name and no father listed,” Dimitri tells me calmly.
I’m shaking my head before he even finishes speaking. “No. My dad was one of my mom’s paying customers, who either couldn’t be bothered to pull his dick out of the whore he was fucking, or just didn’t care enough to put on a condom. When my mom gave birth to me, she must have been feeling sentimental or something, because she named me after the only things she knew about him, his name and the state he was from,” I sneer. “I’m not who you think I am, and I’d like to leave now please.”
“I know this must be difficult for you to hear, growing up the way you did,” the guy I think is Lev says.
“My mom was a junkie whore, she sold herself to feed her drug habit.” I shrug. “No point sugar coating it. But you still have the wrong person. I don’t know which hooker that Grigoriy guy shoved his cock in, but it wasn’t my mom. Or maybe it was, but either way that hump and pump didn’t result in me. So again, I’d like to go home now please.”
“Alena,” Dimitri starts.
“My name is Alabama, if that’s too difficult for you to understand, then you can call me Ali. My name never has been, and never will be Alena,” I say through gritted teeth.
Dimitri’s jaw tics, and I brace for the hit that usually comes when a guy looks at you like he’s looking at me right now.
“I apologize. You’re right,” he says, shocking me. “Just because it was your name once on a piece of paper, doesn’t mean it’s your name.” His voice is soft, but the expression on his face is anything but. In fact, he looks pissed.
“Look, this is clearly a case of you picking the wrong person. I guess that kind of stuff happens, right? So, you can just put me on a plane home and I’ll pretend this never happened. I won’t ever mention it again. You can carry on looking for your Alena, and I’ll just go back to my life.”
