"Kai?" she asked cautiously when she reached the scene and saw her friend standing near the balcony railing. His back was turned to her. "There you are at last," she noticed that he swayed slightly and had to hold on to the railing again and again to find his balance again. When he finally turned to her, he stared at her expressionlessly with emotionless, almost dead eyes. His features didn't move. He opened his mouth briefly, probably to say something, but couldn't utter a sound. He looked falteringly towards the ground again. His cheeks were slightly flushed - she wasn't quite sure if this was due to the amount of alcohol that Hillary said he had destroyed in the past few hours or whether he had been crying. In its current constitution, the latter would not have been so unthinkable.
At the sight of him, all her words stopped suddenly in Frankie's throat. The otherwise cheeky, self-confident and eloquent young woman was speechless.Even though Kai might try to hide it - the pain he was emanating from literally screamed at her - numbed her for a moment. He was still clutching the railing with one hand, the other he slowly clenched into a fist. Unrestrained tremors gripped his body when Frankie saw how small drops of blood ran down his closed fingers and dripped softly to the floor.
"Kai, open your hand," she said calmly, but still commanding, and reached out for him. He shook his head vigorously and jerked back, his hand still tightly clasped. A small, red puddle had formed on the ground and mixed with the drops of rain that were still falling relentlessly from the sky. "Kai ... please." the closer she came to him, the more he backed away from her - until he had reached the wall behind him and desperately braced himself against it - as if he were hoping to force this obstacle to collapse with his own physical strength.Frankie was only a few feet away from him and saw him looking around for help - like an animal that was about to be captured. His eyes wandered almost panicked across the floor to the apartment next to him and rested on the balcony railing. With the free hand with which he had held on to the parapet until then, he felt the wall behind him. Another tremor seized his body when he found he was trapped.
"What's up with you?" the German asked him gently, still not taking her eyes off his bleeding, closed hand. "I just want to help you."
Slowly he raised his head and looked her face for the first time. "Help?!" he repeated, startled, as if the word were completely alien to him. Frankie watched him fight the tears that had gathered in his eyes and were eager to find their way down his cheeks. Even now he tried to maintain his composure, even now he did not want to admit any weakness to himself or, above all, to her."You ... can't help me," he stammered in a trembling voice and pressed himself even closer to the wall than he already was.
He twisted under her touch as she grabbed his hand and turned his head ironly to one side.
"Of course I can help you," she contradicted him as she ran her fingers over his. "You just have to finally let it happen, you thick-headed old man"
She was relieved to see that his fist relaxed. With a faint clang, the broken glass fell to the ground and shattered again into several small splinters. Fine threads of blood ran from the wound in all directions.
Frankie looked carefully at the incision. It was deep, going through almost all layers of the skin. It would not have been missing much and his hand would have been pierced.
"We have to treat you," she said calmly, so as not to upset him further. "Let's go inside"
There was no reaction from Kai. He stared out at the Moscow city that spread out below him, the lights of which shone brightly and distinctly through the dark night.Frankie followed his gaze, which suddenly came to a stop. When he suddenly began to whimper, she knew which building he was looking at.
The towers rose unapproachably and coldly over the roofs of the city - the black color of the stones, from which the rest of the walls had been built, conveyed death, absolute ruin. Within a radius of a good 1 km, the area around was swept empty - not a house had been built there, everyone avoided it. They told each other the horror stories of experiments and murders that had happened a long time ago, but they secretly thought it was nonsense - horror stories.
Few of those who escaped from Hell knew the painful truth. They knew the real history of the abbey.
Frankie also had to swallow hard as she brought her old home back into view, but she quickly tore herself away again. She shouldn't take possession of her past again.She looked over at Kai and noticed how his condition deteriorated drastically again. You had to be downright blind not to be able to recognize how much he was suffering, what a state of shock had seized him and now couldn't let go. His hands clung to the balcony parapet again, the trembling became more violent - he stood there almost as if electrified. Deep purple-gray shadows dug under his eyes into the deathly pale skin, which formed a horrifying contrast to his blue-gray hair. He had never looked healthy, but now his image resembled that of a terminally ill.
And he was sick too, Frankie knew that only too well. Unlike her, he still hadn't managed to leave his past behind. She had caught up with him since hearing from Mr. Dickenson that a trip to Moscow was coming up. From then on he had become one of the world's greatest assholes again, putting his anger and hatred in the foreground so that no one could see his real thoughts and feelings, the fear and the pain that had filled him."Don't look there Kai," she finally said and briefly shook his shoulder. He didn't respond. Frankie sighed heavily before she pulled him around with all her strength and held his head tightly in her hands so that his eyes couldn't wander. "Stop it. Don't you see that you're making your own life hell with this shit?"
The Russian screwed up his eyes. His face twisted into a painful grimace and then he tore himself away again. "Let me ..." he shouted "You don't have any ..." his voice failed and he stared out at the city again.
"I told you to stop, Kai" - it took less than 3 minutes before Frankie had grabbed his wrist again and pulled him to him. This time she tolerated no resistance. As much as he resisted, as much as he tore, wriggled and screamed - she held him tightly.
"Leave me alone" he shouted and glared at her with angry eyes. "It's none of your business.Mind your own shit "again he tried to break free - again to no avail." Frankie. Let go. I ... "again his voice and the strength to defend himself loudly vanished. When he looked at her this time, the anger was gone. He looked tired and drained." Please ... let go of me "he fell on top of her Knees, head bowed. Frankie followed him and crouched in front of him. There was a moment of silence as he looked at her again. He was crying.
"I don't want to go back. Tell them I don't want to go back."
Slowly she closed her arms around him. He sat in front of her like a pile of misery and let himself be hugged. Every now and then he gave a short sob - a sign that he was still crying. As she gently stroked his back, he suddenly clutched her and buried his face in her shoulder. His hand was still bleeding and immediately stained her white T-shirt.
"Who should I tell this to?" she asked "where do you not want to go back?" Inwardly she could give herself the answer, but she waited until he spoke - in his condition he could mean anything."The Abbey" - so she was right with her assumptions "Boris, my grandfather ... I don't want to go back to you. Please tell them that" Kai whispered and Frankie had to try hard to understand him. His voice wavered slightly and sounded heavy and dull. Now and then he slurred a bit, but then quickly got himself back under control. She didn't even want to know what he had already thrown into himself - forgotten the effect he had apparently hoped for - had apparently failed to materialize and had only turned his mood into the opposite.
She knew what alcohol could do to a person and therefore hoped to get him to bed quickly, quickly removed from the danger zone balcony. Even he, who had endured enough in the abbey, would not survive falling three stories deep.
He was still crouching next to her and she hugged him as tightly as she could.
"Boris and Voltaire have long been under lock and key, Kai," she said soothingly to him, "They'll never bring you back to themselves."As if stung by the tarantula, he said, "You're lying!" he shouted "You're lying! I saw her!"

is already quite old. I found it yesterday while browsing my computer. just want to show you ^^