Chapter 10

      Nina walked to the subway, dragging her feet. The life left the bright, cheerful girl, as all the air left the balloon. During this night of waiting, Nina has matured by at least ten years. Now it was not a young, gentle, light ninth-grader who looked into your eyes, but a sophisticated, experienced, adult girl who was poisoned, betrayed, abandoned, and then, she almost lost her mother through her own fault. Nina remembered this lesson for the rest of her life, crying at night in the hospital over her mother. They say that children are cruel and selfish, it's true. The older they get, the more they appreciate and understand, the more often they pay attention to how their parents are aging, how valuable it is to be around, to feel like a child while the mother and father are alive. And the parents.... parents end their lives, they begin preparing for a long and painful exam "were you a good parent for your child". And they, sparing no effort: take them to mugs, check (hammer) with lessons, help to get a diploma, worry about work, worry about family life, help with the purchase of housing, nurse grandchildren and teach how to properly educate. And this exam for parents lasts a lifetime, because they stop living for themselves and thinking about themselves. There are exceptions. But you and I don't know such people, right? (The author sneakily giggles into the iPhone screen, the author knows such people and wholeheartedly feels sorry for these unhappy, angry, lonely people).

      Nina's mother was sure that she had not passed her life exam, that she had not brought up her daughter correctly, if she was still alive. Looking for Nina at night in the metro area, parks, sleeping area, Tatiana Sergeevna mentally drew the dismembered corpse of her girl at the trash, or in the river, or near the bushes. Her heart was pounding, a stone hoop was squeezing her chest, it was getting harder to breathe, and her mother wandered around until dawn and howled only one thing: Nina, Nina, my girl, Lord have mercy, for what? Now Nina was taking the exam, she must prove to her sister, her sick mother and herself that she is strong, she is brave, she is smart and she will atone for all mistakes at the cost of bravery and courage.

      Gypsy, Egor's right-hand man, was so professional in his field, solving problems, that he overdid the organization of the operation according to the forces involved.

      At the age of twenty-five, the Gypsy knew and was able to do much more than some forty-year-old men.

      In those far terrible nineties, Egor pulled him out of the pit and practically saved him from death, and for this the Gypsy paid him with his devotion and his life. No one knew how old he really was, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. The doctor and part-time friend of Egor determined the age of the internal organs of development by fifteen to sixteen years, but no one knew how long the boy was starving and completely slowed down in development physically. Then showing his psychiatrist friend, Egor was extremely surprised by the results. Alexander Alekseevich Samokhin, a psychiatrist, observed all of Egor's fighters, then opened his practice with his help, but he did not trust anyone with admissions to competitions, issuing belts, certifications and examining all of his friend's wards.

      After examining the Gypsy and talking with him, Alexander asked the boy to wait, and invited Egor to his office.