The box hit the ground and files fell, forgotten, as people rushed for the stairs.
“Last door, Sophie,” I said, and we turned back toward the room where I’d just dug the bullet out of Pietr.
“Not so fast.”
Dr. Jones.
I froze, thinking about the location of the gun at my head. How fast could she pull the trigger? If I fell to the ground …
And then there was a shot and I felt the gun slip away and fall, clunking loose to the ground, followed by the limp body of the doctor.
“Now that’ll require therapy,” Wanda apologized loudly, lowering her gun in the next room.
Sophie glanced behind us and went a shade paler.
Pietr’s eyes focused over my shoulder and I knew he saw the scientists slipping their way up the stairs and away. His gaze fell on me a moment and instead of the anger I expected to find, I caught a sense of relief shining there. Until he noticed the doctor, dead, behind me.
His face tightened.
One last agent fell to Max, the gun falling out of his grip. Guiding Sophie by the shoulders, I steered her into the last room and in front of the control panel at Mother’s cage. Soph tapped in the ghostly pattern she read on the touchpad; the sirens sounded their warning, lights flashing one last time, and Pietr’s mother tore into the free world. Hugs were quick embraces, snatches at arms and hands, and kisses brushed cheeks.
In Pietr’s arms, Mother looked around the room at the people, fallen and still standing, and her gaze settled on Wanda. “Traitor!” she howled, lunging for her and nearly breaking free of Pietr’s iron grip.
Struggling to hold her back, his eyes narrowed. “No, Mother. Nyet,” he insisted. “She’s helped us. She’s no traitor.”
“She must be confused,” Alexi justified, stroking Tatiana’s arm gently and speaking soft words in Russian to sooth her. But his eyes stayed sharp addressing Wanda. “Da, Wanda? Tell me she’s confused.”
“Yeah,” Wanda agreed, keeping a wary distance. She glanced from Pietr to Dmitri and back before announcing, “I’m going for the files.”
The moment she was out of sight, Mother calmed down and Pietr passed her into Alexi’s guarded embrace.
Dmitri looked at his watch.
Pietr didn’t need to.
Turning, Dmitri said, “To a fresh start.” He shot his three nearest men. “A new way,” he added, shooting another to leave only his original second. He looked at Pietr.
A chill flashed through me and I realized I couldn’t read Pietr’s expression.
My father squeezed my shoulders before shoving both Sophie and me toward Max, his eyes still on Pietr. “Get the girls out of here,” Dad instructed.
Max nodded and Pietr paused to confer with Dmitri. “Let’s go,” Max said, glancing back to Pietr and his mother. “Sophia,” he rumbled. “Watch where you’re walking—don’t gawk at anything else.”
Sophie looked at me, pink as a fresh carnation.
Reentering the office spaces I saw the man with the briefcase dead in a puddle of blood, the bomb slowly moving through its countdown.
Behind us, Pietr’s mother suddenly called out. I spun back toward the commotion. Mother clung to Pietr, convulsing as the wolf tried to take control and Max dropped his arms from around our shoulders and rushed back to help his family.
“Where’s Cat?” Max called, racing to his mother.
I turned to look, but Dmitri’s second came up behind me, one hand on my back, one hand on Sophia’s. I couldn’t remember seeing Cat since she’d headed out on her perimeter search. “I’ll take the girls,” he called over his shoulder.
Distracted and struggling to again calm his mother, Pietr simply nodded and said, “We’ll meet everyone at the vehicles as soon as we’re able.”
We were all going to make it out. We were all going to be okay, I thought as we started up the stairs. So why did goose bumps race across my skin, chilling me to the bone?
“You did admirably, girls,” Dmitri’s second congratulated. “It is nearly over.”
My hand slipped toward my holster at something in his tone, and at the top of the stairs I turned left to head out of the house, but, a gun nestling in my ribs, he nudged me right, his hand clamped to my holster, sealing my gun to my body.
“Here is the problem, girls. As much as we admire your bravery, we have no need of you in the new organization.”
“Crap.” I was tired of needing to be rescued.
“You, especially, Jessica,” he continued, “are more a liability than an asset the way you yank the alpha’s chain. If he would screw you and move on, we might have no problem. But he believes he loves you. He is young—naïve.” He shoved us into a small bathroom. “We will help him grow up. Fast.”
The lights went out.
“Well, it’s about time,” Sophie called out. The lights snapped back on and Sophie confirmed what I’d guessed when a whiff of wildflowers blew past me. “Your mom’s ghost is here. She’s pissed.”
The lights snapped off and on again and in the brief darkness I shouldered the man back. Hard. His head slammed against the door, teeth biting through his lower lip and blood spilling down his chin. His gun fell and scrambling after it I drew my own gun, turning them both on him.
“I’m sorry, but as difficult as Pietr is sometimes—and as much as we argue, he’s the light in my frikkin’ world. And right now? You’re trying to screw up that light. Let us go.”
He lunged for me and I emptied both guns in disbelief.
Sliding down the door, he left a broad smear of blood.
Behind me, Sophie gagged. I grabbed her, tugging at the door and dropping the guns. No ammo meant no use. “Oh. God. Jessie,” she protested. “You just…”
I nodded, choking the thought down as I guided her out of the ruined bathroom. “I just eliminated someone who was going to kill us both.” Standing just inside the Colonial’s back door I caught my breath. “Let’s not talk about it.”
Eyes shut, I leaned against the wall, Sophie leaning against the door.
Now we’d all be okay. And least physically.
There was a creak—the door flew open and Sophie disappeared.
“Sophie—?” Words blew out of my lungs in a gust as I was yanked out the back door and fell onto the lawn with a grunt.
Sarah laughed and landed with her knees beside my ribs, pulling back a hand to hit me.
“Play nice, Sarah.” Derek. “I’m not quite finished here.”
Ahead of us I heard a hiss and, straining my neck, I saw Derek kick someone on the ground. Cat? Stepping away from her, Derek circled Sophia. I snagged Sarah’s arms and twisted, rolling and shoving her so I was on top.
“Don’t you touch me, you freak of nature!” Sophie snapped, winded but still able to climb to her feet.
Derek laughed. “Takes one to know one.” He rushed her, tapping her head with his fingers.
“Soph!” I shouted, but her knees gave way and she collapsed.
“Pitiful,” Derek muttered, looking at her crumpled form.
Taking advantage of my split attention, Sarah rolled me, snarling like a wild dog. Derek’s new little pet—she was who Wanda had meant.
“Sarah, stop!” My hands and hers linked, she leaned all her weight on me, trying to pin my arms back. “This isn’t you!”
“No, you’re wrong. You lied to me, Jessica Gillmansen. You fed me a string of lies about who I was and what I’d been,” she growled. “You tried to make me something I wasn’t supposed to be. To make me as miserable and guilt-ridden as you.”
“Sarah, you can be whatever you choose to be—”
“Quit trying to talk your way out of this,” Sarah snapped. “Get dirty, for once—Pietr likes girls with spunk.”
That was it. Remembering every time she had pushed herself at Pietr, every time I had helped her … With a shove of my hips and twist of my back, I tossed her.
She landed in an ugly heap.
“Sarah!” Derek shouted
.
“What?” I demanded. “Can’t you fight your own frikkin’ battles?” Regretting the challenge, I sprang to my feet, looking for a weapon. If I needed to fight Derek, I needed to do it without getting into his reach—without getting touched.
Otherwise?
Over.
One touch and Derek could get in my head again, mess with my body’s controls. My gaze raked the area, searching … There was an old greenhouse and garden behind me, probably kept up to make things appear more normal. I rushed to the garden, staying clear of Derek’s hands and Sarah’s limp form.
Maybe there was—a shovel? A hoe? Nothing. Didn’t people leave their tools lying outside in the suburbs? I glanced toward the greenhouse. “Sarah,” I called, “you okay?”
“No, you whore, I’m not!” She staggered to her feet.
Exasperated, I puffed out a breath, eyes on both Derek and Sarah to see who was the more immediate threat.
“You lied—”
“You’re right. I lied. I lied about not wanting Pietr. I lied about all the moments and kisses we stole behind your back. And I hated myself for every bit of it. And I lied about the day of the accident. But it all stops here. Now. Do you remember what I told you about June seventeenth?”
“That I was in a car crash. That I was lucky to be alive.”
“So true. And I wasn’t just referring to the accident then. Do you know why?”
Her brows knit together and she shook her head slowly.
“Because the first day I visited you in the hospital, when you were still comatose—I had my hands on your pillow. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to fluff it.” Raising my hands, I pantomimed, remembering. “I was going to press it over your face—”
“Why?”
“Because the biggest lie I ever told was a lie of omission. And I made everyone in school take part in it, too. I told them we all deserved a second chance—that we could have a fresh start with a better Sarah if they just gave me time.… It took some work. I wasn’t sure Jenny and Macie would keep the secret but, in retrospect, I should’ve known. They replaced you the moment they found out you were hospitalized!” I laughed.
From the corner of my eye I watched Derek. His eyes grew darker and I knew he was juicing up, using my anger and Sarah’s confusion to feed. I exhaled and eased back from emotion.
“I even got your parents to help me convince the police to drop all charges and wipe your record clean of your real role in the accident.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you killed my mother.”
Sarah gawked at me. “No,” she whispered. “Those were nightmares … Liar! Tell the truth, Jessica!”
Did she mean the nightmares she’d had right before Pietr and I made our relationship official? I blinked. There was no turning back now. “Your joyride cost my mother her life. She made me pull you out of your Beemer before she’d let me help her. She was all about forgiveness, redemption—she made the best parts of me—and you killed her!” Remembering Derek, I gulped down a breath and advanced on her.
“Instead of suffocating you, I did what I thought was the opposite of destroying you—but it was just as bad. I gave you a second chance—tried to make you into someone my mother would have liked … respected. To justify her loss.”
“I wasn’t driving—” she insisted. “No, your mom was…” She whipped around to stare in horror at Derek. “That night—you and I…” Clutching her head, her fingernails dug into the scar that proved she’d been part of an accident no one talked about because second chances were more important than past mistakes. “Ohhh…”
“Sarah—Sarah!” Derek yelled, starting toward her.
“No.” Focusing on Derek, her eyes narrowed; her words became clipped. “You were there,” she said. “You told me there was no way in Hell I could—” She pressed her hands together on her head and doubled over, screaming like something tried to break through her skull. “Oh…” She gagged. “In the nightmares, I’m not driving.” She straightened, her eyes fixed on Derek, “You are.”
He chuckled, a low, sick sound. “I’ve been driving for years,” he admitted with a helpless shrug. “Just not in a physical sense.”
Sarah swung back toward me, eyes wide. “I drove right in—right into her.”
As outrage and horror warred in my head, I saw the same things play across her face. Everything pointed back to Derek. Happy, smiling, social manipulator, remote-viewing, energy-sucking Derek.
Why couldn’t I just be justified in hating Sarah now that I finally realized that was what I’d felt all along?
Sarah’s voice was a thin whisper. “I’ve done horrible things,” she said, “but—that—that was—murder. That’s unforgivable.…”
Unable to disagree, I shuddered. She’d been his puppet even then. There he stood, watching, orchestrator of my mother’s murder and the guy who had warned the Rusakovas to save me.
Why was nothing black and white anymore?
“Quit it, Sarah,” Derek snarled. “I made you.” Rushing her, he jabbed her head with two fingers. Her eyes rolled back and she flopped to the ground. Out.
“What did you…?”
“What did I do?” he cooed, approaching slowly. “I did whatever it took to get to you, Jess.”
“Jess-i-CUH,” I barked, stepping back.
“Don’t you get it, Jess? I’ve wanted you ever since I realized the sort of power you have just under your skin. You’re the best damn battery—a psychotronic generator in the flesh.”
A chill spiraled around my spine, twisting through me.
“You just needed to be a little … off-balance? When I set Sarah—who needs a chauffeur—out on her little joyride, I never thought I’d get so lucky. I figured she’d maim a pedestrian and someone would freak and be a little emotionally damaged. But killing your mom? I had no idea how much energy you’d throw out.”
My gaze strafed the ground while he continued—what did people call it? monologuing—hoping to find a rock. A sharp stick. Anything. I looked back at Cat, lying limp, just long enough he noticed and spun to give her another brutal kick.
Damn it.
Rolling into a ball, Cat groaned, lungs rattling as she fought to breathe. Her eyes sparked against the darkness.…
“I didn’t even have to be in the same room with you to feed in those first months. The same town was close enough. But it was such a brilliant stroke of ingenuity and luck…”
“It’s only ingenuity if you really made Sarah—”
“You have no idea, do you, Little Miss Investigative Reporter?” he teased.
“Seriously. Where was the challenge with having someone like Sarah do your dirty work?”
“Sarah was nothing when I first met her. Pretty and popular, but so much potential pissed away. And all Sarah wanted was a date with Jack. That was back when Jack was number one and I was his sidekick.” He wiggled his fingers at me. “I was bored and suffering from a severe lack of attention, so I encouraged the situation.”
Thinking back to middle school, I shook my head.
“Come on, Jess. You’re bound to remember Sarah before she dated Jack.” His eyes narrowed and his grin widened, watching my expression race from angry to horrified.
Before Jack, Sarah was just like Derek had said: pretty and popular. Nearly normal. Even nice. “What did you do to her?”
He shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to ask her and put two and two together to figure it out. I think this is one secret I’ll take to the grave.” He cocked his head, looking at me. “Huh. You’re not as sparky as I expected. Getting tired?” He glanced at the ground between us.
Measuring the distance? Judging the time it’d take to get his hands on me?
Beyond Derek, Cat twitched; her chest quivering.
I needed to keep her alive. Buy her time. “So you did something to Sarah in middle school. And she turned nasty. Why’d she go after Pietr? He was a Boy Scout compared to the sharks she dated.”
He
grinned. “Maybe deep down she thought he’d be like other guys. But he was a total gentleman—a challenge to break down and dirty up. It drove her nuts.”
He shook his head. “She used to have her pick of guys. Then the one guy she wants doesn’t want her? She had to feel that creeping doubt in the back of her brain every time he kissed her with closed lips. Every time she caught him looking at us together like he could kill. But there’s so much you don’t know, Jess—so many questions you never bothered asking. You were so preoccupied. If you’d stop fixating on what unmakes something like Pietr—and ask yourself instead what makes someone like me, you’d learn a lot.”
What was taking Pietr and the others so long? Surely they’d gotten to the car and realized we weren’t there.… As much as I hated being rescued, I was finding the alternative—not being rescued—sucked waaay more. I needed to incapacitate Derek and get to Cat.
“By the way, that was pretty crafty, distracting me with you and dog-boy by the mirror. You definitely had my attention. I guess he beat me to the punch.” His lips slipped into a greedy smile. “But man, I was close.”
“What?” My stomach churned at what his words implied.
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t remember.”
Before I could blink, he jumped and tapped my forehead.
I gasped, blinded by the image of me sprawled on his bed beneath him, shirt up, jeans unbuttoned.…
“Remember now?” He laughed. “Lemme guess. Your buddy Max didn’t tell you about that, did he? I’ll bet he didn’t even tell Pietr. That’ll do some damage,” he said with satisfaction.
“Bastard.”
“Nope. Mom and Pops were married. Quite the arrangement, really.”
“Murderer.”
He rolled his eyes up in his head a second as if testing out that word instead. “I’ll take it,” he said. Rubbing his hands together, he looked me up and down, anticipation flooding his features. “I think we should wind this up. Get ready to evacuate the area, you and me. But first I think I’ll rip those memories right out of your head—make you forget Rusakova even exists.” He took a sudden step toward me.