“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.