Dad finally broke away, his face full of worry.
He slipped something into my hand.
A cell phone.
It buzzed, vibrating.
“Sit down,” Dad instructed. “Act normal. Alexi sent it. Looks like a piece of junk, but he said it’s exactly what’s needed in these circumstances.”
Realizing any phone Alexi provided was probably untraceable, I obeyed.
“It’s Pietr,” he explained. “He’s upset about last night.”
Thank God he was okay. Upset, I could deal with. Hurt. Dead? I fought for focus.
Dad pulled out chairs and I slipped my hands under the table, slouching for a view of the phone, and opened it. “I’m going to give you an update on my favorite sports teams and you just nod and react, okay?”
I nodded. “Sounds absolutely … purgatorial.” I typed in my message.
RU safe?
Da. I <3 you.
I <3 U 2. Don’t come here again. *Promise*.
No response. I tried again.
*Promise* u won’t come here again.
I try 2 keep promises. Failed b4. Don’t make me promise 2 stay away. = 1 more failure.
My stomach knotted. Even though they were tiny letters on a poorly lit screen, they meant huge things to him.
U did ur best. U always do ur best 4 me.
Nothing.
Do ur best 4 u. Stay safe.
She’s dying.
His last sentence was so simple and clear it seemed he’d whispered it in my ear, stealing my breath away.
Dad raised his voice, extolling the virtues of some football team’s kicker.
Have u seen her?
Da. Last x went badly.
Srry …
God! Why couldn’t I help him with this thing? Why was I so—helpless?
Can u get 2 her?
Nyet. Heavy guards. Derek’s inside. Watching.
“Damn it,” I snapped. Out loud.
“Now, Jessie,” Dad reprimanded in his jolly way, “just ’cause they didn’t win that game doesn’t mean we should get upset.”
U have 2 get her out.
No good unless ur out 2.
Even texting, Pietr had a gift for pointing out the obvious. They’d need my blood to make the cure.
Focus on ur mother. I focus on me. Do what u have 2 to get her out.
Nothing.
Do what u have 2. It will work.
Has 2.
I imagined the set of his jaw, the way his eyes would pinch near the bridge of his nose realizing there were no other options and so little time.
Time was running out so fast. For almost all of them. The distinct advantages of being an oborot were balanced cruelly with a huge disadvantage. They were stronger, faster, more nimble. They could hear, scent, and see better than someone like me—simply human. But the canine aspect of their DNA meant strength, agility, and superior senses as much as it meant shorter life spans.
By human standards, Pietr’s mom appeared to be middle-aged. But internally, her liver would be hardening, her heart racing even faster than its normally rapid rhythm, her arteries toughening. She’d be fighting an even harder battle to keep the wolf that always longed to claw its way out of her deep inside. If she hadn’t been dangerous before, she’d be a gun with a hair-trigger now.
Pietr and his siblings—well, not Cat, she’d sucked down the cure like it was nothing—might live even shorter lives because they were the offspring of two full-blooded oboroten. No one really knew what would happen as the generations progressed and the genetics compounded. Both powerful and poisoned by their own DNA, the oboroten were victims of their genetic code.
I love you, I concluded.
I want to hear it.
U will. Soon.
g2g
I snapped the cell shut and nudged it against Dad’s leg, obscuring the sight of the phone with my hand.
He shook his head. “Well, I just wanted to update you on the sports world. I know how you love that sort of stuff.”
“Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it.”
“I better get back to the farm,” he said, rising.
“Uh, yeah. Geez, is it hot in here?” I asked, tugging at my neckline just enough to pop the cell into my shirt, resting it in my bra.
Ha. An ample bosom wouldn’t have left room for such a clunky phone. Score one for the averagely endowed.
“Yeah,” Dad said. “It is a little toasty,” he agreed, swabbing at his forehead as if it were dotted with perspiration. He hugged me. “I’ve got us a lawyer. He’s going to push that I was under duress when I signed those papers. He says if court goes quickly, he’ll have you out in a little more than a week.”
My heart leaped, trying to lodge in my throat. “How much will that cost?” I asked, but he squeezed me tight.
“Freedom always comes at a cost, but no price is too high. God, Jessie, I’m sorry I put you in here.”
“You did what you thought was best,” I admitted begrudgingly.
“I had the very best of intentions,” he agreed. “I’ll get you out soon. It’ll all work out.” He pulled back from me, blinking rapidly as he looked into my own damp eyes.
I nodded sharply. “It has to.”
Jessie
Back in my room, I hugged my journal and thought things through. Dad would work from a legal angle to get me out, Pietr would work on getting his mother out, and I would try to be the best little patient I could and hope nobody knew where’d I’d been or, more importantly, what I’d seen.
It was official: We had something that passed for a plan.
But what Pietr had mentioned about Derek’s involvement, the way he was tucked safely away and watching things from a distance, worried me. I’d known Derek since I was in middle school and had crushed on him starting around then, too. He was Junction’s golden boy: fast on the football field, smart, smolderingly hot with all-American good looks. Very popular.
But I’d known all that before the Rusakovas moved in.
I’d lived in a comfortable bubble before the werewolves moved in and Pietr showed me what he really was the night of his seventeenth birthday. I accepted things I could see and prove—although I researched things that defied explanation.
I expected to find werewolves in high school just as much as I’d expected to meet the love of my life there.
So meeting Pietr blew my mind doubly.
But the world got even stranger.
If the company had Derek in their underground bunker, he could watch the werewolves coming. He’d done it using my eyes and we’d dug poisoned bullets out of Max and Pietr as a result.