“Not time for a conference!” Our hands locked, we rolled, and I gained the advantage.
I heard a pop. Her eyes glowed. And her teeth lengthened.
“Oh, crap!”
My sentiment was echoed by the nurse.
“Separate them!”
My guards finally moved, peeling us apart as easily as a kid separated sections of string cheese. I grabbed the arm of the closest guard and wrapped it in front of me like a shield. Pressed as close as I was to Gigantor, my pulse thumped so loudly in my skull I couldn’t even hear his huge heart beat.
Barely ten feet ahead of me, the woman twisted and howled in midair, gnashing sharp teeth and swinging her arms wildly, restrained by Thing One. Or was it Thing Two? Crap. There was so much to figure out.
Like: Why is there a werewolf in Thing Whichever’s grip?
The nurse pulled out a syringe and jabbed the woman, depressing the plunger with one quick push.
The red faded from her eyes, the first pop echoed by a second sickly sound as joints refit into more human sockets and her teeth returned to normal. She hung suspended by my other guard’s fist, strangely like Pietr had in his show of passive resistance.
Stomach twisting at the comparison, I heard the nurse say, “Take her back down to room seven. I’ll treat her there.”
My breathing only steadied when Thing Whatever disappeared down the hall and the nurse again turned her attention to me. I stepped away from the remaining guard, glaring at the nurse. “A: Did you see her? That’s not normal.”
“Of course not. She had a fit.”
“A f—” My brain rioted.
I needed to think before opening my mouth and challenging her with the truth: A werewolf tried to kill me in a place I was supposedly sent to for the improvement of my mental health. So not good for the successful completion of my therapy.
Quaking, I tamped down my anger. “B: I thought the patients were out of their rooms.”
“Sorry about that.”
My jaw swung open, loose. Sorry?
“She must have been brought back early for problem behavior.”
“No sh—” Think. “No kidding.”
“No one signed her back in,” she justified herself.
I blinked at her.
“Heads will roll for this.”
“Mine almost did.”
“Sometimes a situation seems more dangerous in the heat of the moment than it really is.” She set a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you back to your room.”
I shook out of her grip. “Fine. Don’t bother me until my father comes to visit.”
“I can arrange that.”
When my door closed behind me, I curled onto my bed, hugging my knees to my chest. She was a werewolf, wasn’t she? Could I have imagined the way her eyes flashed … and her teeth and claws … Was there an oborot living only a wing away in Pecan Place?
Wrapping my arms more tightly around myself, I totally understood why some patients spent most of their time at Pecan Place seated, muttering and rocking.
Jessie
The tap on my window made me jump out of bed. Face masked in the gathering gloom, his eyes bright, Pietr stood outside my room.
Remembering the camera in the corner, I walked to the window. Slowly. As if my reason for going was nothing more than simple curiosity.
His eyes brightened at my approach and something in my stomach did somersaults in reply.
Face-to-face, he opened his mouth and breathed out a single syllable, fogging the glass between us. I didn’t need to hear what he’d said. I read it in his eyes and across his lips.
Jess.
Closing my eyes, I tried to hold tight to the memory of how it sounded when he said it. There was a quality to even that simple syllable that couldn’t be duplicated by anyone else.
My eyes opened, wet. With the back of a trembling hand I wiped at them and steadied myself. I couldn’t touch him and he couldn’t hold me. But he was here when he could have been so many other places.
His eyebrows lifted, eyes so much more than sad.
I shook my head, smiled bravely, and reached a hand out, stroking the glass like I’d trail my fingers across the strong line of his jaw. His eyes fluttered shut, and he leaned his cheek to the glass as if he could feel me through it. He pulled back suddenly, eyes flashing as the red that heralded the wolf inside rimmed his irises. He took a deep breath and fogged the entire window.
On it he wrote backward in awkward, tilting letters:
I’ll get you out.
He cleared the words away with a sweep of his hand, nodding for approval. Grinning at the challenge.
I shook my head no. As much as the weird stuff going on inside Pecan Place had shaken me, I was okay. Besides, being on the inside might help me figure out what was going on. And Pietr, well, he needed to focus on other things. I’d be okay. As long as I was careful.
Things One and Two might not be the same guards who beat him bloody—him, a nearly indestructible werewolf—but they seemed their equals.
He mouthed my name again, drawing it out with an imploring look.
No. I shook my head. He had to know I wanted to be with him, but the idea of him facing off with Dr. Jones’s gigantic guards … the idea of him getting hurt or … I swallowed hard.
Or worse.
My freedom at his expense was too high a price to accept. I shook my head once more, so hard I had to push the hair out of my eyes when I finished.
His eyes narrowed, but he nodded once, just a curt dip of his head. Not pleased, he’d still do what I said. He placed his hand on the glass, stretching his palm and fingers flat. I mirrored the move, imagining I could feel the ripple of his heat reach through the layers of cool glass.
The baying of hounds rolled across the darkening landscape, seeping through the window. Patrols had stepped up. I looked over my shoulder at the camera, then back at Pietr. “Go.”
The noise of dogs grew louder and he glanced to his left before mouthing three final words and racing into the deepening dark.
I love you.
CHAPTER THREE
Alexi
I groaned, rolling over in my bed and covering my head with my pillow. It did no good. The pounding on my door only increased in volume.
“Alexi!” Pietr roared.
The clock on the nightstand read 6:15. Why did morning feel the insistent need to arrive so early every day?
“Alexi!”
“I don’t know why you bother.” Max. “He doesn’t want to drive. And I don’t want to go.” His voice became a low rumble. “There’re much more interesting things I could study here.”
Amy giggled. “Some of us need to learn more than biology and chemistry,” she scolded. Playfully.
I suddenly doubted it was last night’s vodka souring my stomach this morning. What day was it, anyhow? I rolled onto my back and thought about it.
“Come on,” Amy said. “I’ll make everyone some breakfast.”
Reluctant footsteps faded down the hall.
I groaned again, remembering. I’d been betting on American football last night. Tonight I’d know if I’d won. That made today—Monday?
Again.
It seemed every week was determined to have a Monday in it. This, I feared, would be a six-cup Monday. I breathed deeply. Coffee was already on. Amy certainly had redeeming qualities.
I threw the pillow against the wall and sat, drumming my feet on the floor. The drumming echoed in my skull. I stopped, scratching my chest and rubbing my head, yawning the whole while.
Pulling open the nightstand’s drawer, I withdrew Nadezhda’s photograph. “Dobray den, beautiful,” I said, skimming my thumb across the flawless surface of her face. As I rose in Junction, she continued a day started hours earlier in Moscow—time and distance only being two things standing between us.
Gently returning her photo to the drawer, I tried not to think about the other thing that kept us apart, but it scurried into view of my
mind’s eye, anyhow.
The oboroten.
Moyeh semyah. My family.
“Garr.” I scrubbed my fists against my forehead. Nadezhda probably wanted me dead. One did not break a promise to the daughter of such a powerful man—even if it was a promise that went against his dictates. He doted on her and would gladly have me killed if she asked. I should wipe her from my mind, get her out of my head.
And yet the drawer could not close tightly enough to lock her image away from my heart.
Growling, I grabbed some clothing and headed to the bathroom for a quick shower and an opportunity to clear my head.
Minutes later I was downstairs in the dining room, poking at the food on my plate and working through my second cup of coffee, left black as my mood.
“My cooking’s fine,” Amy said, looking at me. “Don’t you start acting like Pietr, just pushing food around the plate.”
Across the table Pietr collected dishes for the kitchen. Amy was right. It was as we sometimes said: He had eaten so little it was like underfeeding a worm.
“Your cooking is fine. My stomach is simply unsettled.”
“You’re too young to be developing digestive issues,” Amy complained. “What are you, Alexi? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”
I held up two fingers. It seemed so young numerically, and I had no right to complain being surrounded by the internally aging oboroten.
“Let’s go, old man,” Pietr called from the foyer.
“Go where?” I retorted, turning my two raised fingers to him in a distinctly rude gesture.
Amy missed it.
Max smacked my hand down and laughed.
“Drive us. To school,” Pietr demanded.
“Ask our brother, Max.”
The tension in the room became palpable. Max’s playful mood shifted hearing me use the term brother to relate to them. If we pretended to simply be roommates we were usually okay.
“His brother Max,” he corrected, his voice low, “knows he hates my driving.” Max shook out coats, holding them for both Amy and Cat.
“Pietr hates mine, too.” I flooded my mouth with coffee. The taste coating my tongue remained a foul reminder I was out of bed and didn’t want to be. I fought to swallow. “The fact you haven’t pursued getting a permit and preparing for your license is hardly my fault.”
Pietr opened his mouth to protest.
I stuck a hand up. “Nyet, you are correct,” I admitted, thinking back to the obstacles I had placed in front of my sometimes erratic little brother, a little brother who had gotten himself nearly killed testing his dramatic healing abilities again and again.
And paying more attention to girls than driving even his ATV.
Pietr’s brows lowered to shadow his eyes.
“It is my fault.” I barely kept the pride from my voice. Keeping Pietr from controlling an even bigger vehicle than the ATV that nearly tore his head off during a recent jump didn’t seem like a bad idea most days.
Just inconvenient most mornings.
He’d never drive illegally—Jessie would not look at him the same way since her mother had died in an accident with a car whose driver wasn’t legal. The fact Jessie had done so much to remake and forgive the girl—twisted, but somehow admirable.
“Take the bus. It seems capable of taking you to your destination. And the driver—relatively competent, da?”
“Come on, Pietr. The bus isn’t so bad,” Amy tried.
Pietr’s eyes darkened.
“It’s a status thing, isn’t it?” Amy jabbed him in the ribs. “You don’t want to be seen as a bus rider.”
“I don’t see why we have to go in the first place,” Max complained.
Dear. God. They could be so utterly annoying. “You do know why attending school is important. None of us should be left looking a fool, da?”
Max’s lips pressed together, drawing a grim line. He knew. It wasn’t for the sake of education anymore, though I wanted that for my family—I knew enough history to know education equated with freedom—but it was to maintain the appearance of normalcy. And it seemed odd things frequently occurred at Junction High, so being there was like placing our family’s hand on the pulse of the town.
I rallied a sense of what once allowed me to dominate the family—rule the roost, as Amy sometimes quipped—and said, amazingly firmly: “Ride the bus or have Max drive. I do not care. But I will not waste my time dragging your ass back and forth to school.”
Pietr’s eyes flared and Max’s hand settled on his shoulder, acknowledging the challenge to the family’s alpha.
I raised my mug in a salute and looked flat at Amy.
Pietr read my warning clearly.
Amy knew we were odd. She realized there were things vastly different about us. Most she probably equated to our Russian heritage and travels in Europe. But she didn’t want to know how different we were. And if Pietr changed just to show me who was boss in the Rusakova household, it’d ruin every tenuous thing holding Max and Amy together.
As much as Pietr and Max argued, Pietr would never ruin Max’s chance at a real relationship. He understood just how precious they were now.
We all did—especially in the absence of one in particular.
There was a noise outside.
“Crap. That’s the bus. Come on.” Amy grabbed Max by the hand and pushed past Cat and Pietr, swinging the door open.
The chill of autumn woke me further and damped down the heat burning in Pietr’s eyes. With a frown, he turned and followed the others from the house.
Alexi
I was headed to the kitchen with my empty plate and coffee mug when someone knocked on the door. “It’s open.” I no longer bothered to lock the door since the CIA and Russian Mafia knew where we lived. If they wanted us badly enough a single deadbolt surely would not keep them out.
Luckily the one thing all sides seemed to want even more than our capture was the illusion of normalcy. Breaking down our door and dragging out a bunch of good-looking teens (and myself) would certainly draw attention to what was going on in and around Junction and Farthington.
So we had an uneasy peace.
Or a stalemate.
Either was more nerve-wracking than a full-out onslaught. It was like having a quiet neighbor digging up his backyard. You wanted to believe it was in the name of gardening, but you never understood the depth of your unease until people started going missing.
Wanda found me in the kitchen. “Morning, sunshine.”
I grunted, looking her up and down. Even Wanda, with her brutally pulled back blond ponytail and all-business-like attitude, was beginning to appear almost feminine.
I needed to get out more.
“Is it wise for you to be seen here?”
“I took some precautions.”
“Hmm.” Refilling my coffee mug, I asked, “So how goes it for a guard of the order?” The steaming black stuff couldn’t be made strong enough to help me tolerate a morning visit from her.
“Ever get the feeling you’re being lied to?”
My sipping grew cautious. “I dealt with lies frequently when I was alpha.”
“But were you ever lied to?”
“Must I explain the nature of teenage siblings—or, better yet, the black market, to a member of the CIA?” I sat.
She moved to the counter and helped herself to a mug and coffee, emptying the pot.
Cruel woman.
“I get the feeling things aren’t what they seem at my job.”
“Do you refer to the cover job you hold as a research librarian or your actual job?”
“Actual.”
“And you thought the CIA would be honest with its employees—an organization that deals regularly with liars of all nationalities?”
“You wonder why your phone is tapped.”
“Nyet. I do not.”
“What if the CIA branch I work for…” She paused, staring into her coffee cup. “What if…”
“The very best fiction sta
rts with a simple ‘what if.’”
“What if it’s not the CIA at all, but something else entirely?”
I set down my mug. “That would be a fascinating bit of—”
“Don’t say fiction,” she warned, her tone dangerously flat. “I’m starting to think it’s fact.”
“Why?” I slugged back a swallow of coffee, needing the acrid heat to sharpen my senses. “And why tell me this?”
“I don’t know who else to tell. I need to work it all out. Puzzle the pieces together. Hearing it out loud might help.”
“Is there not a mirror in your flat? Say it there.” I licked my lips. Mentally I measured the angle of her eyebrows, the dimension of her eyes, the set of her mouth, the width of her nostrils, trying to find the truth in the mathematics of expression. Either she believed what she was saying or she was an actor of the finest caliber. “So tell me. How is the CIA not like the CIA?”
“When I was transferred out here, it wasn’t a promotion.”
“But Junction’s such a thriving metropolis,” I scoffed.
She ignored me and plowed forward. “There had been problems with my boss.… We had been…”
“… in a situation that made you appear to be a woman of loose morals? Of easy virtue?” I interjected. I was beginning to enjoy my morning after all.
“His wife objected to the intimacy of our relationship.”
I blinked. Wanda seemed the stoic type. The never-break-a-law-or-moral-code type.
“So I can make you shut up.” She was not proud of the realization. “He transferred me out here. I figured I’d be digging through bogus Cold War paperwork at the warehouse forever.”
I raised my hand. “Why do we have a warehouse of important government-type files in this region?”
“Cheaper real estate. Our government makes cuts in strange areas. So I was excited to get out of there—even on a wild-goose chase—well, a wild-werewolf chase. Even if I—who never understood the Dewey decimal system—was sentenced to spend time as a research librarian. I took a pay cut, another transfer, but other agents were losing their jobs back at headquarters. I couldn’t imagine that.”
“You didn’t ask questions.”
“No. I even felt lucky.” She looked up from the cup. “But with all this—me having to tell my superiors so often we couldn’t bust down your door and drag your asses out—”