Bargains and Betrayals

  “Thank you for that. What may at first appear a ballsy, self-confident move often equates with shortsightedness and stupidity. And Cat seems to like the door attached and the upholstery not so bloodstained.”

  But she rambled on, “And with Kent gunning for Jessie at the pistol range—”

  I opened my mouth to ask after Kent. His sudden disappearance had not slipped my mind completely.

  But she ignored me. “And the way I’m being told I need to keep you away from Mother right now…”

  “What? Why?” Kent, and the very real possibility the woman sitting across the table from me had left his body in a shallow grave, was not nearly as important.

  “Things are ugly, Alexi.”

  “Is Mother—well?”

  “She’s still aging rapidly. I don’t think they really know what to expect. How long she’s got.”

  “You need to get us in there.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Actions speak louder than words.”

  She nodded. She knew. “So all that and the royally weird beat-down Pietr took when they crated Jessie away…”

  “That was the doing of Pecan Place.”

  “What if they’re fingers on the same hand? One organization manipulating different things?”

  “For a CIA agent—”

  “Maybe I’m not.”

  “You’re quite a conspiracy theorist.” I shrugged and tipped my chair back. “Why does this matter to me? From my perspective, my family has a few specific goals and they appear to contradict yours. We want Mother out. We want Jessie out. We want our family healthy, whole, and sane. I want to be done with all of this.”

  “I want to be done with all this, too.”

  It sounded like a confession.

  “Until I met Leon, I couldn’t imagine life outside the CIA—or whatever organization it is I really work for.”

  “Tired of playing at being a cloak-and-dagger knight?”

  “Tired of running the risk that lies are going to screw up something that could be really great.”

  “You’re in love,” I accused her, kicking my legs up to rest my feet on the table’s edge. “I could ruin you with Leon.”

  “You won’t. You know exactly what I’m dealing with. Lies.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “There’s been some chatter.”

  “Terrorist chatter?” I suddenly felt off balance.

  “It’s all terrorist chatter if it might screw up my country. Someone’s looking for you. A woman, from what we’ve gathered.”

  I slid my feet back off the table and set the coffee mug down to make it less obvious my hand trembled. “Does this woman have a name?”

  “Just a handle. The White Crow.”

  I blinked, my most frequent tell, and the reason I was no longer allowed to bet at poker. White Crow was certainly a name Nadezhda would choose for herself. Part of a flock, but set apart. Different in more than plumage.

  “You know her.”

  My throat tightened until words only squeezed out in a whisper. “What intelligence do you have on her?”

  “Very little, but the chatter’s intensifying. She’s planning a visit. She seems anxious to be reunited with you.”

  I glared at the table.

  “So. Love and lies.” She stood. “Maybe we could each do a favor for the other. I’m looking for answers. And the best folks at speculating and researching the supposedly dastardly dealings of the U.S. have traditionally been our old Cold War rivals. You get me info from your contacts and I’ll keep you in the loop about the White Crow.”

  “Nyet. The only favor I want from you relates to my mother.”

  “From what intel’s passing on to me, your mother—a Mrs. Hazel Feldman—is quite available for visits at the Golden Oaks Adult Day Care and Retirement Home. She’ll gladly read your future with some weird sort of tarot cards, too.” She smirked and, taking a sip of coffee, made a face. “Though it seems her memory about all things oborot is faulty.” She looked at me for confirmation.

  I kept my face free of expression. So the old woman was clever even if she’d been heartless, giving me—her only child—away as a baby to grow up living a life full of lies. I doubted she wondered why I’d never yet visited. I raised and lowered one shoulder.

  “And her lockbox is empty.”

  Because she’d handed over the thirteenth journal to Pietr. “The only favor I want relates to our Mother. Tatiana Rusakova.” The woman who gave us all her last name because Father’s came with a more high-profile and dangerous history. And how many other Americans would know enough to ask about boys and a girl with Russian heritage and the same exact last name? It had been enough to keep our Russian hunters off our trail until I sought them out personally. “I want Mother healthy and out.”

  “You know that’s beyond my control.”

  “Then get us in. Soon.”

  “That, I think I can do.” She dumped the remaining coffee into the sink. Barely touched.

  Such a cruel woman.

  She strode from the room and I heard the door open and close.

  And open again.

  “You really should lock your door,” Wanda advised. “‘What may at first appear a ballsy, self-confident move often equates with short-sightedness and stupidity,’” she quoted me.

  Da, it definitely felt like Monday.

  Alexi

  “Why are you still here?” I asked when I spotted him curled on the love seat, alone. Cat had taken the evening to go to the mall with Amy and one of Jessie’s stranger friends, Sophia—maintaining the illusion of normalcy, she claimed. As if it was quite the sacrifice. I, however, had noticed the advertisement for the season’s hottest new sweaters and suspected she was window shopping—or more.

  Max was running—hunting—like Pietr should have been.

  Pietr shrugged.

  “When was the last time you hunted?” I asked, realizing I could not recall. Was it the night before our raid on the CIA bunker, when we first tried to free Mother? That was … I ran the tally through my head—weeks ago.

  Again, he shrugged.

  “How are you keeping your calorie count up?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Nyet. If you don’t hunt and—I’ve seen how little you eat … Your system’s stressed already. When was the last time you turned?”

  He looked straight at me, the alpha in his nature sparking for a moment. But his eyes were dull and narrow with disinterest. “Do you realize that if I’d been … normal”—he tore the word away from the rest of the sentence—“there would be no reason for Jess to be locked away?”

  “If you’d been normal”—I quoted with my fingers, the way I’d seen Amy and Jess do before—“Jess would have never connected with you in the first place.”

  “Wrong. Even when I didn’t wear my chain she showed remarkable self-control.”

  “She said you acted like an arrogant prick that first day. Her not throwing herself at you wasn’t a demonstration of remarkable self-control. It simply proves she exhibits an occasional bout of common sense.”

  His eyes narrowed further, becoming small blue marbles. “The point is: I acted normal around her. We bonded. If I’d just been able to do more than act normal—if I could have been normal…”

  I wanted a cigarette. Wasn’t I, as the family’s Judas Iscariot, destined to be the king of self-loathing? Did he need to take that title from me, too? “You are normal, considering your genetic makeup.”

  He looked away.

  “Pietr,” I urged, “you need to accept who you are. Embrace it. Jessie would approve of nothing less.”

  He examined the design of the love seat’s recently repaired upholstery. “I doubt that,” he murmured. “She has this need to have me cured so I live longer. Would that be normal for me, Alexi—given my genetic makeup?” He whispered the words, but they still snapped out and stung. “Would it be a cure, or the destruction of my self?”

  I hesitated
.

  “That’s the problem. You can’t have it both ways. I can’t cure—remove—the very part of me that makes me unique, the part you want me to embrace. What would it mean, living longer but not as myself?” He shook his head. “It can’t work that way.”

  My fingers twitched and my heart sped just enough that the call of the cigarettes grew louder in my ears. “Go. Hunt,” I insisted. “War with me about this once you have a full belly and a clear mind.” Turning, I stalked out of the house, leaving him.

  I had to agree with his logic, though I’d never say so out loud. He could not have it both ways, unless I could admit that the oboroten’s abbreviated lifespan was truly a mistake.

  And admitting yet another way my biological family had made a mistake—bringing more shame to my grandfather and myself? I wasn’t sure I was selfless enough to do that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jessie

  “What about a chess set?” I asked the nurse in the common room when she delivered my daily meds and again drew my blood. I recognized the tranquilizers that had been added to my numbered cup.

  Following my second day off sedation, Dr. Jones confessed a worry I was too anxious—already asking questions. Asking questions wasn’t my job, it was hers, she said. So she prescribed meds to “take the edge off.”

  After being totally out of it one day and missing Pietr’s regular nightly visit, I figured out how to cheek my pills. I wasn’t slick at it, but I was competent. Besides, how did it help me deal with my myriad issues if I was too tired to think?

  “No, Jessica,” she said. “We’ve found issues associated with the societal differences between kings, queens, and pawns frustrate our patients. And knights and bishops raise subliminal concerns about violence and a lack of acceptance by religious authorities.”

  “Wow. So what can I do? Are there books? What about schoolwork?” I was bound to be falling further behind in all my classes.

  “It’s Thanksgiving break. Didn’t you notice the cranberry gelatin and turkey gravy yesterday?”

  “Not so much.” Crap. Thanksgiving break already? Well, it wasn’t like I had much to be thankful for at the moment, anyhow.

  She tilted her head, speculating. “Are you journaling?”

  “I journal all the time. But it’s tough to find stuff to write when there’s nothing to do. It’s pretty dull: Woke up. Ate. Won bingo. Went to sleep.” I didn’t tell her about the other things I wrote.

  About Pietr. My outrageously hot boyfriend.

  She nodded. “Could your father bring a book you’d like? Nothing taxing. Not too stimulating.”

  Well, there went all my YA paranormal novels. And the few romances I’d squirreled away, that I’d never ask Dad to touch. “Maybe.”

  “I’ll put a request in. Dr. Jones and parents respond well to things like that.”

  There was a commotion in the hallway just beyond the common room’s open doors and the nurse grabbed her cart, heading toward the trouble. I rose and followed her at a distance, Thing One and Thing Two flanking me.

  “Really, it’s important you don’t get too worked up.…”

  Recognizing the voice, I tried to look around the nurse blocking my view. Was it really Ms. Harnek, my old middle-school counselor who’d come to my defense and taken over my case after I’d kicked two cheerleaders’ butts?

  I bent down, searching for her signature shoes. Yep. Bright red heels. I straightened again. I’d overheard a conversation between Harnek and Derek at school that cemented her connection to some company he was part of—something tied in with what we’d presumed was the CIA. Having her here—the nurse dodged around the cart to help and my view cleared—with Dr. Jones—connected them all.

  On a stretcher between two EMTs a girl was strapped down. “We appreciate you opening your doors to the hospital’s overflow,” one man said to Jones as they moved down the hall slowly. “I never would have thought we’d have so many kids rolling in with so many weird symptoms.”

  Jones shook her head. “Yes. Who would have ever imagined?” She shot a look at Harnek.

  I dodged around the cart and followed, nearly keeping pace with them and not worried they’d notice me because of the way Harnek and Jones focused on each other across the stretcher.

  Harnek’s hand clutched the girl’s as she writhed. “Really, sweetie, you need to relax. You’re swelling up because you’re freaking out.”

  The EMTs exchanged a glance.

  The girl looked at them both, noting their confusion.

  “Relax. Trust me. No,” Harnek urged. “There’s no reason to panic.…”

  Her hand fell away from the girl’s, no longer able to hold it as it swelled so large.

  Jones stepped back from the stretcher. So did the nurse.

  “What the—” The EMT struggled to disconnect the fluids bag he held above his head and stared at his partner.

  “Relax,” Harnek soothed the girl, patting her hand. “Count backward with me from twenty. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”

  Her head swollen to an impossible size, the girl’s bloated lips moved, but the sound was more of a hiss than a word and with a final fearful thrash came a noise like fabric ripping. Pieces of her flew free in a bloody spatter.

  Harnek and the EMTs were slick with gore and blood.

  I covered my mouth and shook back the trembling terror that rattled through me.

  Leaning away at a more comfortable distance, Jones flicked something unrecognizable off her shoulder and withdrew a handkerchief from her pocket to dab at the blood freckling her face.

  Harnek wiped at her eyes as the EMTs cursed and slipped backward in gore.

  “We need decontamination!” one exclaimed, panic edging into his voice.

  “No,” Harnek insisted. “Breathe. The girl was clean—there’s no contagion.”

  “Like the others—the symptoms don’t transmit?”

  “Exactly. Everything’s self-contained.” Harnek sighed, a shudder shaking through her as she slid her hands across her dripping face to clear it. “God, poor girl … What am I going to tell her parents?” Her body shook with a sob before she straightened and noted the distance Jones and the nurse had managed to keep between themselves and the exploding girl. “You knew…”

  Jones’s hands rose. “No. How could we possibly know?”

  But Harnek’s eyes grew small. Although I was no longer sure I could trust Harnek, I knew she didn’t trust Jones, so I wouldn’t, either. “Point us toward the showers.” She dug keys out of her pocket and threw them at Jones. “Get my overnight bag out of my car. I was going to stay with her.…” she said, strangling on the sentence. “I guess I’ll need my clothes, anyhow.”

  Jones flipped the keys to the nurse and pointed down the hall, away from me. Quietly I turned, heading back toward the common room. But not before I realized someone was watching me.

  Looking up, I caught the eyes of a new addition to Pecan Place—a guy a few years older than me, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He smiled as I dodged past to reclaim my seat at the round white table. But there was no warmth in his smile, just a cool slide of lips and the mimicry of a friendly expression that got lost somewhere between his mouth and his eyes.

  Silent and still except for the anxious drumming of my fingers on the tabletop, I sat with my back to the common room’s doors, waiting until I thought it was safe to head back to my room. A glance over my shoulder proved the hall was clean, the stretcher and EMTs gone, the dead girl just a grim memory.

  “Back to my room,” I instructed the Things.

  Nearly there I heard arguing as Jones and Harnek rounded the corner and stepped into view in the hall not far ahead of me. Hair still damp from her shower, Harnek startled when she spotted me.

  “Jessie,” she breathed. “That’s right. You’re here now.” Her face fell.

  “Not for long, I hope,” I replied.

  She nodded and faced Jones. “You do know how special this girl is, don’t you?”

&nb
sp; Jones’s expression stiffened, her eyes narrowing. “I’m aware there are unique things that caused Jessica to be under my care.”

  Harnek nodded. “So you’ll take very good care of her. I won’t have to worry about her having trouble while she’s here.”

  Jones licked her lips. “As long as she doesn’t create any trouble, she won’t get into any trouble.”

  Nodding again, Harnek placed her hand on my shoulder. “You hear that, Jessie? Do the right thing and you won’t have any trouble.”

  Watching the two leave before I slipped into my room, I got the sinking feeling I’d just been warned.

  But really. What were the odds I’d stumble into some sort of trouble? An unexpected sob bubbled out of me, and I collapsed on my bed, trying to forget the exploding girl and the strange new guy who watched me with such open interest.

  Jessie

  Sleep was hard to come by, and I woke exhausted and began my day doing everything by habit. It was as I loitered by the nurses’ station, shadowed by the Things and waiting for the laundry checklist that the newspaper on the counter rustled. Goose bumps rose on my arms and I realized there was no draft to cause the movement. The smell of fresh hay washed over me and I shivered, thinking of Mom. I focused on the headlines:

  VISITING WRESTLERS STILL MISSING

  THANKSGIVING BREAK SIGNALS MORE TESTS FOR JUNCTION STUDENTS

  But the one that made my heart jump was:

  LOCAL FOOTBALL STAR DIES

  My stomach did a little flop and for a moment both hope and fear fought in me, tightening my throat around my suddenly misplaced heart as I briefly hoped the headline was about Derek.

  Guilt swamped me. To hope someone was dead … even after he’d done so much …

  That wasn’t who I wanted to be.

  I adjusted my position to get a better view as the nurse rearranged pages on the laundry clipboard.

  Jack Jacobsen of Junction High School died tragically Saturday afternoon on the train tracks outside Farthington. Deemed another in the growing rash of Train Track Suicides, the local community is stunned.