Wonderful. He didn’t even want me to worry about his current location.
“Avryo. Rantevou stees paleaes apothykes steen othos Praseenee.” He paused. “Kseereetee tee thesee?”
“Da.” I could meet him tomorrow at the warehouses on Green Street. “Ne,” I assured him. “Tha sas seenanteeso ekee.”
The call ended, leaving my jaw hanging open. Perhaps Pietr had found us help, but it seemed he’d found himself a nest full of trouble in the bargain. And I realized that the only type of trouble too big for Pietr to handle was probably way out of my league, too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jessie
Dad’s next visit did not start on an encouraging note.
“I don’t know what else to do, Jessie. The lawyer’s doing his best, but things are being held up in the local court. It’s looking like at least another week,” Dad said, his eyes full of disappointment. “Pietr’s gone AWOL—nobody’ll say what he’s off doing, like he’s on some secret mission.”
My stomach trembled knowing that was just it. And knowing that was all I knew, too.
Dad sighed and continued. “Amy and that boy Max have started coming over to help with the horses, but I’m surprised they get anything done the way they keep lookin’ at each other and kissin’.” Dumbfounded, he asked, “She’s livin’ over there with them?”
“Dad, it’s not what you think.”
“The way they act around each other I can’t imagine it being anything else.”
I sighed. “Dad, I really need to get out of here.”
“I’m doing all I can, Jessie.”
“What if I said it’s a matter of life or death?”
His eyebrows shoved together. “Are you in danger?” He leaned closer.
“Uhm.” Untouchable, they’d said. “It’s someone else. And I’m the only one who can help.”
“You start talkin’ like that and I might start to think you need to stay longer.”
“Okay, okay.” I waved my hands. “Never mind. It’ll work itself out. Somehow.”
“Dr. Jones said you’re doing better. She’s thinkin’ about giving you a better room. Without a camera.”
“That would be so awesome.”
“And I brought you something.” He passed me something beneath the table.
I shoved it into my waistband. “Another one?”
“Longer battery life, since I can’t sneak you a charger, and there’s a ringtone on it programmed with Pietr’s number—a ringtone nobody over age twenty can hear.”
“Cool.”
“Ain’t technology grand? You’re obsolete at twenty-one.”
I snorted. “Thanks, Dad.”
We both stood and I hugged him. Tightly. “Think about what I said. About life and death.”
“And you think about what I said about maybe you need to be here longer if that’s what you believe,” he repeated.
“Fine.”
He left and I flopped into the chair and the back of my neck tickled as I realized someone was staring at me.
Christian.
Shivering at the uncanny way he watched me, I stood and returned to my room, guards trailing behind me.
Inside I sent Pietr a quick text, saying I missed him and avoiding the weird and frightening things going on that I might have mentioned. I resigned myself to sleep, my fingers wrapped around the phone and tucked beneath my pillow.
The next morning I woke and called Pietr. Straight to voice mail. I readied to hear his standard message, but his words and tone had changed.
Tremendously.
“Leave a message, but don’t expect me to return your call promptly.”
I hung up and hit the number again. Definitely Pietr’s voice. But it was the voice he’d used with me when he’d dated Sarah in a misguided attempt to keep me safe. The cool, matter-of-fact voice made me shiver. It was like his mouth, his brain and his heart had somehow disconnected.
Pietr was in trouble.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
I just hoped someone else could help.
Alexi
Parking the car on a nearby side street, I walked the perimeter of the abandoned property looking for an easy way past the chain-link fence and the razortape crowning it. I hadn’t dressed for climbing. From the graffiti-tagged buildings inside, I knew kids had wormed their way in before.
And since only serious taggers came to a site prepared to cross razortape I paused, looking beyond the chain links to study the craftsmanship of their lettering.
Amateurs.
There had to be a hole in the fence easy enough for potheads and slackers to find.
Nearly around the property’s back I found the hole and slipped through. I picked my way around the rows of buildings, coming to the one Pietr had mentioned.
I glanced at my cell. Two minutes late. Not needing to rely on a watch or cell phone Pietr would be inside already and waiting impatiently.
Testing the door, I shouldered it open and let my eyes adjust to the dark. An open window flooded a section of the old warehouse with light, illuminating piles of pigeon droppings and shards of dusty broken glass. I passed a worn mattress dotted with a variety of stains, a large baby doll missing its right arm and head, the same doll’s hollow ceramic head with an attached handle making it a fine drinking vessel … I rubbed the chill from my arms near a discarded pair of children’s sneakers and finally found my way to him.
“You have certainly discovered a location where no one in their right mind would meet,” I congratulated him, stepping over the rotting body of a rat. I balled up a handkerchief and pressed it to my nose. “How can you stand it?”
His back to a wall, he stood cloaked in shadow. “Sometimes you must adjust your standards, da?” He took one small step forward, into the light where dust motes danced. This was not my little brother, the idealistic boy who tried to rescue kittens from trees not realizing how easily he tripped their prey-versus-predator senses.
This Pietr’s eyes never stayed still, never quite settled on me though we were not far apart. They danced all around us, searching shadows and watching all possible entrances and exits.
“I’ve made a deal,” he confirmed. “We’ll have the manpower we need to free Mother.” His eyes now simply avoided mine and although a smile slipped across his lips, it fled as quickly as it appeared. “But—”
“There’s a price you cannot quite pay.”
“I can pay the price—I’m more than capable of delivering on the promises I make,” he said. The words landed hard, smacking across my face. “But I don’t want to pay this particular price.”
“Jesus, Pietr.” I rubbed a hand across my brow. “What sort of bargain have you struck? And with a devil I know, or another?”
“The less you know, the better. I just need a couple things—consider it a morbid shopping list.” He handed me a folded paper. “Nyet. Don’t open it here.”
“Delivery: When and where?”
“It’s on the paper.”
“So that’s it? I’m your personal shopper?” It seemed I’d be shopping for us both.
“And research assistant,” Pietr said with a dark grin. “Tell me, Alexi, can you—can regular people—tell the difference between the scent of pigs’ blood and human blood?”
“If there’s no flesh attached…” I said, my stomach churning at the reasons Pietr might need such information to begin with. “It depends on amounts, but probably not.”
“Horashow. It only needs to buy me time…”
“You’re always trying to buy time, Pietr.”
“Da. Beg, barter, buy … maybe steal,” he whispered more to himself than to me. “I just need a little more—otherwise, time’ll be up for us all faster than we imagined.”
I grabbed his arm, but he shook me off. “Pietr. Tell me what’s happening.”
“You’ll know soon enough.” He tapped the paper I still held stiffly in my hand.
And then he turned and slid back into the shadows of
the old warehouse.
Exiting a different way than I came in, my instincts—or my training—still echoed in the back of my head. Never take the same path twice. Never let someone anticipate your next move and get the drop on you.
I never wanted this life—this lifestyle—but what choice did I have? I was raised in it. It was like breathing—second nature. Eventually I’d understood you couldn’t easily live without it, like breathing.
Diving into the black market again to run our shopping errands would most likely bring me closer to Nadezhda—my White Crow. And most likely closer to death.
Perhaps breathing would not be so very necessary for long after all.
Jessie
“Good news, Jessica,” Dr. Jones announced even before I’d settled on the couch for my session. “You’ll be getting moved into your new room tomorrow. No camera, additional privileges … You’ve earned it.”
“Great. Should I mention it’s tough to not make a comment like, ‘Thank goodness I have a whole day to pack my things’?”
She didn’t blink, didn’t scribble down my quote on the clipboard. Like it didn’t matter. “Change—even change for the better—can be difficult at first, Jessica. I cannot fault a sarcastic response at this stage in your therapy. Besides, you’ve gone above and beyond in helping with laundry detail for your hall.”
I blinked.
“Though there was the little matter of one of your checklists not being on your clipboard.” She leaned toward me. “Do you remember that day?”
Crap. The missing paper from the day I found the bodies in the basement. “Was that the day my regular nurse was absent?”
“Mmhmm,” Dr. Jones confirmed.
“The substitute nurse did seem flustered,” I tried, my stomach knotting as I struggled for a viable lie. “I’m sure she just made a mistake—misplaced it.” I shrugged. “I know everyone got fresh laundry every day I worked, though.”
She studied my face. “Well, that’s the important part.” She flipped a page on her clipboard. “How has your journaling been going?”
I sat. “Fine. I tried to take your advice and write about Mom. Well, losing Mom.”
“And how did it make you feel?” she asked softly.
“Like absolute crap,” I admitted.
“Excellent.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alexi
It was shortly after Pietr, Max, Amy, and Cat had allowed the bus to again drag them to school that the knock sounded from our front door. I’d locked the door, marking Wanda’s words, and rose, coffee in hand, to see who was on our porch.
Lifting the curtain, I nearly dropped my mug, going for the gun under my shirt.
The blond boy—Derek—from the bunker stood on the porch, watching the road in front of our house.
Gun in my right hand, mug in my left, I gingerly unlocked the door and gave the knob enough of a twist and a tug that the door slowly opened and I spilled little of my drink.
He looked at me, smiling so deeply his face dimpled.
I kept the gun pointed at him, just below the door’s modest window, and stopped the door with my foot. “How can I help you?” I asked, more mindful of his hands than his expression. Jessie’s brain had been fried several times when she’d let him get his hands on her. A social manipulator of sorts, Derek Jamieson had the ability to change a person’s perception with a touch and a little time. Whereas the oboroten were created, some more monstrous things, like Derek, were merely born. A simple human, there was little simple about him.
“You’re so much more polite than your brothers,” he commented. His eyes unfocused for a moment and he shook his head. “Except for that gun.” His eyes cleared. “But you don’t get fangs or claws, do you? That must be quite a disadvantage in the Rusakova household.”
“Consider me differently abled,” I stated, moving the pistol up to tap its snout on the glass. “What brings you here?”
“We share an asset,” he said. “A brown-haired girl currently residing in an asylum.”
Jessie.
“And it seems as much as I want to keep her, some others in my company—”
“Is that what it is, then—‘some company’?”
“Finally you’re catching on.” He cleared his throat. “Others see her as a liability. They haven’t told me why specifically, but it appears”—he winked—“that there’s something even more special about her than I thought.” The smile dropped away from his face along with any hint of charm. “They’re going to kill her.”
“When? Where?”
He shrugged. “Soon. The asylum.”
My vision narrowed as I read his very open expression. Shouldn’t this be a trap? “And you’re telling me this because?”
“Because you have no idea how badly I want to get my hands on Jessica one more time. For old times sake,” he said. “And I’m used to getting what I want—one of the drawbacks of being spoiled as a child with absentee parents. Both Pietr and I want her out of the asylum—alive. I can’t get her out; Pietr can.”
“He won’t give her to you.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he assured me as if he expected Jessie to just come to him. “Just pass along the message.”
A Mercedes pulled up.
“Ah. My ride’s here.”
He strolled off, down my sidewalk and to his waiting car.
I closed the door, locked it, and put my gun away. Our situation had all the makings of a Russian tragedy: a young woman torn between two men—neither of them truly good for her—a battle over family and life itself …
The train sounded. Da, there were even trains and horses.
And so much hung in the balance. If Jessie broke, then it would all be for nothing. Without her blood there was no cure, no way to fix the damage already done to Mother. Of course, we’d never tested anyone else’s blood. Would it not be but one more cruel twist of fate to find out the cure lingered in everyone’s blood—that it was as common and as simple as humanity itself?
Peering into my coffee cup I wanted something much stronger to drink.
But Cat was right. They needed me sharp.
Alexi
The wonderful thing about the black market—if anyone dared string such a phrase together—was that the black market was never where most people expected it to be. People working in the shadows also indulged themselves in bright lights and odd comforts.
The contact I needed to tap for information and supplies was rumored to have a love of carriage rides through big city parks. So I took the money I had squirreled away thanks to hustling an occasional pool game and understanding American football better than most other Americans, drove a distance, and hunted down the correct horse and carriage at the appointed time.
After, of course, I had delivered Derek’s message to Pietr.
Waiting in a line with others, the carriage nearly disappeared against the growing evening oozing across the rolling park’s cobblestone paths. Its dark horse stomped impatiently, nearly as black as the carriage it was hooked to.
The convertible black top up, it shielded my contact from view. Whereas most of the carriages had low doors, if doors at all, my appointed carriage had doors that rose high enough no one from the outside could see what bargains were made within.
A small and mean-looking driver examined both me and the case I carried. “Strasvoytcha.” I waved. He nodded and reached behind him to open the door.
I stepped up into the carriage, its interior even darker than the falling night outside.
Before my vision had cleared and my ass had even hit the seat, there was a gun to my head.
She reached around me, tugging the door shut, her perfume like flowers blooming in Russia’s wild forests. “Sit,” she commanded, kicking the seat ahead of her.
The carriage jolted forward and I sat.
Even holding a gun to my head, Nadezhda was undeniably hot. God. I needed to get out more. I sank into the seat, holding the case to my chest.
?
??You’re not Boris,” I mentioned, peering openly at her. My eyes traveled the length of her sleek form. She was so definitely not Boris.
No black catsuit for this Russian femme fatale, Nadezhda sat straight and stiff beside me, dressed in the finest European fashions, her long blond hair wrapped elegantly up and away from her slender neck.
I gave her a look—but the same look that landed Max invitations to flats from Moscow to Paris to New York City played differently across my sharper features and could potentially get me slapped with a harassment complaint.
She was a princess, not a mobster, I thought. Hoped.
But something seemed wrong—something was just a bit off.
“Do not look at me,” she snapped. “You have no right to look at me after what you’ve done.”
This was going badly.
I looked straight ahead and rested the case on my lap. I needed to think of anything other than the beautiful woman seated beside me. Da. Like the reason I was here.
“You promised to return for me. And then—what? What, Alexi? You drop off the face of the planet. You disappear into the backend of the American nowhere.” The gun’s muzzle jabbed my temple as the carriage turned.
Down an even more isolated pathway.
“I—”
“Shut up! Did I ask you a question?”
“Actually—”
“Shut up!” She drew down a deep breath. The gun poked me again. “You turned on the family,” she murmured. She sniffed, pouting. “Alexi, I understand why you did what you did. There is no good life with this family—it is so splintered, so filthy, as bad as the CIA and common street gangs.”
I couldn’t help it: At her mention of the CIA, I blinked.
She sighed, stretching the sound out. “You did what you did out of love, Alexi. Yah pohnemyoo.”
“Da. It is good you understand.”
“Then why did you not finish things? Out of love? Why did you not come for me?” she asked softly. “Did you not love me?”
I sat as still as the jostling carriage allowed, my spine fused.
“Tell me the truth, Alexi.”
“Uh…”
“Oh.” She set the gun down between us. “The truth.”