13 to Life (22 page)

“Oh, my—”

“Holy—”

Max and Catherine wasted no time on words; they soared down to where Pietr lay like valkyries riding ATVs instead of wind.

My lungs were nearly bursting, my legs burning when I got to the site of the accident. Sarah and Amy were right behind me. I could hear one of them crying. Catherine had his helmet off, his head on her lap. His eyes were closed and he looked peaceful, even as a halo of blood spread around his head, staining Catherine’s mud suit and leaking into the earth.

“Ohhh—” My stomach twisted, knotting. “Call 911!” I yelled at Sarah. She unzipped her mud suit and fumbled for the phone that had never before been far from hand.

Max was suddenly beside her, snatching the phone away and looking at Catherine for support.

I stared at them both, agog.

“Max,” Catherine said.

There was a look that passed between them—a long pause full of subtext—as Pietr’s life leaked out of his head and into the mud. His chest barely rose and fell now. . . .

It seemed his breathing was stuttering. Stopping.

I was frozen.

Pietr was dying.

Phone in hand, Max jumped to his brother’s side. “Give me the count, Cat,” he ordered, digging his fingers into his younger brother’s mouth. “Airway’s clear.”

Catherine slid out from under Pietr’s head, tilting it back. “Go,” she said.

Max knelt at Pietr’s side, hands stacked on his brother’s breastbone. He pumped up and down on Pietr’s chest as Catherine counted rapidly to thirty. Max paused, and Catherine pinched Pietr’s nose closed and breathed twice into his mouth. Then Max returned to his job.

My knees weak, I fought against the fear swimming in my gut, fought for focus. “Need to stop the bleeding,” I whispered. I circled Pietr’s prone form and knelt beside his head. There was a gash about three inches long arching over his left eyebrow. But it didn’t take a big head wound to bleed a huge amount.

“Direct pressure,” I reminded myself, unzipping my mud suit and wiggling out of my shirt as quickly—and modestly—as I
could before zipping back up. No one spared me a glance. I rolled my shirt up tightly, pressing it over Pietr’s forehead.

And I prayed. I prayed Pietr would live. I prayed he’d forgive me. And, at one moment when Max exchanged a frightened look with Catherine, I even promised God that if He—or She—let Pietr live, I wouldn’t lie about my feelings for him again.

There was a cough, Pietr’s chest heaved, and his head jerked underneath the pressure of my hands.

“Thank God,” I whispered. “One more ride . . . risking your life . . . you selfish son of a bitch . . .”

Max and Catherine’s heads snapped around and they faced me, eyes narrow, lips tight. Like I had insulted their heritage.

Sarah was at his side, holding his hand. His eyes peering up at the nearly nude branches of the autumn trees, he said, “Jess . . .”

“She’s here, Pietr,” Catherine soothed. “She is helping to staunch the bleeding.”

“I’m bleeding?” he whispered. His pupils were dilated. He wasn’t completely back yet. “Jess is trying to stop the blood?” He chuckled.

The hairs on my arms stood straight up at the eerie, distant sound of it.

“Doesn’t she know I’m—”

“Utterly delirious?” Catherine asked, talking over him with determination. Again she shared a worried look with Max. “I’m pretty certain she knows,” she said, following the statement with a trilling laugh.

Max shook his head. “Let’s look at the wound.”

I carefully removed my bloody shirt from above Pietr’s eyebrow. It peeled away with a sound so much like Velcro parting I nearly wretched.

The bleeding had stopped.

“Could be worse,” Max said.

“He nearly died,” I said, stunned by his lack of concern.

“
Da.
Yes,” Max agreed, his eyes latching on to mine. “But he didn’t.”

“He could have a concussion,” I said. “He at least needs stitches. He should go to the emergency room.”

“We don’t use doctors,” Catherine tried to explain.

“What?” I wondered if my brain had gotten scrambled when Pietr’s had.

“We don’t believe in them,” Max stated.

“What?” I demanded. “I promise you—they
do
exist.”

Catherine laughed. “He doesn’t mean it
that
way.”

Pietr groaned, sitting up.

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted.

I moved around to stand in front of him and, stooping over, I looked at his eyes. His pupils were fine.

“I heal quickly,” Pietr said shyly.

“You also bleed quickly,” I admonished. “Why weren’t you watching the trail?” I’d shot right past fear and into outrage.

Pietr sighed.

Max helped him to his feet.

“We don’t count it as a real week unless Pietr’s done at least one stupid or reckless thing to endanger himself,” Catherine said with a smirk. But there seemed to be something beneath it. Something dark and true.

“Well—” I was having a tough time searching for the words, I was so angry. “Well . . . that’s just plain
stupid
!”

Catherine was helping get everyone back on ATVs. She paused, though, realizing Pietr, Sarah’s driver, was temporarily out of commission.

“I’ll drive him,” I growled. “I watched what you were doing. We’ll go a little slower, but we’ll get there okay,” I promised.
“Sit down now,” I commanded. “Put that helmet back on. I won’t have you scrambling your brain any more today.”

Sheepish, Pietr obeyed. I straddled the ATV before him and started the engine.

“I’ll follow with Sarah,” Catherine agreed. It seemed she wouldn’t challenge me. Sarah glared at me, angrier than ever.

Max led the way, and we lurched forward a few awkward times before I got the right feel for the ATV. An arm slipped around my waist, and then another came around the opposite direction, and Pietr held on to me, his chest warm where it pressed tightly against my back. A tangle of emotions stirred my stomach as we climbed the slope to the house on Pietr’s bright red ATV.

Cresting the rise, I saw Max yank his ATV to a stop and rocket off it, nearly flying onto the porch. In the thin shadows of afternoon a broad-shouldered man stood nearly toe-to-toe with Alexi, arguing. The man seemed to be in his forties, his salt-and-pepper hair cropped close to his chiseled face. He looked like he’d been handsome once, but the strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, and Roman nose I imagined once turned heads now made him look hungry, mean. No.
Cruel
. His jaw jutted forward, and his brow lowered brutishly over his eyes.

Alexi’s hands clenched and opened almost rhythmically at his sides.

Max was beside his brother in an instant, and I swear he bristled in anger, more beast than man. I cut the engine and jerked my helmet off, desperate to hear.

Pietr tensed behind me. Listening to the ruckus on the porch, I focused on keeping Pietr from following in Max’s footsteps.

“Step back, whelp, we’re all marked men here,” the unfamiliar man growled.

“Max, cool it,” Alexi warned.

But Max pushed. “Why? Is this the guy you’re dealing with? O.P.S.? Russian Mafia? Is that who’s financing—”

“Shut. The. Hell. Up.” Alexi spit each word out like poison.

“He’s frisky—this one. Temperamental. Perhaps you’ve been in the U.S. too long,” the stranger declared, an accent thickening the swelling self-righteousness in his voice.

As Russian as the Rusakovas were, they were still United States citizens. The contempt with which this man said
U.S.
made me wonder if
he
was.

“Our hearts are Russian,” Alexi stated, cool again. “Our endurance is great.”

I signaled to the girls to stay focused on Pietr. Better we not be noticed. Catherine and Sarah were with me, but I noticed Amy kept glancing toward Max, worried as much as intrigued. I couldn’t blame her. If I’d been dating Marvin, I would have easily been tempted by Max. Marvin was just lacking something.

“Catherine, what’s O.P.S.?” I whispered.

Behind me Pietr answered, “A business name the Mafia jokingly registered under in Russia. They are two different faces of the same coin.”

I heard the man laugh. “Good, Alexi. Now call off your dog before I tear the saber off his shoulder with my teeth.” Again, he laughed.

Pietr quaked with anger on the ATV, but I grabbed his wrist. Sarah grabbed his other hand. In unison, we said, “No. Don’t go.”

I looked at her. For a moment we were in total agreement.

“It could make things worse,” I added.

“You could get hurt,” Sarah said.

Pietr glowered.

“And you’re in no condition.” Catherine caught his eyes for the barest of moments. “He knows we’re right.”

“So just do what you promised, Alexi, and deliver the goods as soon as they’re marketable. Then everything can be happily ever after for you.”

I peeked over my shoulder at the trio.

The man smiled, showing every tooth he had. “But if you cross us, Alexi . . .” He curled his fingers, leaving just the index finger and thumb straight. Like a gun. He jabbed his index finger into Alexi’s temple and said, “BANG.
Vwee pohnehmytyuh menya?
”

To his credit, Alexi never flinched. “
Da. Yah
,
pohnemyoo.
”

“You’d better understand,” the man confirmed. He walked down the stairs nonchalantly, following the walkway back around to the curb. A sleek silver car with heavily tinted windows waited for him; a slender man in the driver’s side flicked a cigarette out the window. The mystery man came with money and a sharp-eyed chauffeur. None of this seemed good.

Russian Mafia, Max had suggested.

“What the f—” Max glared at his elder brother.

Alexi shoved Max in the shoulder. Hard. “You are far too eager to discover a truly unpleasant truth. Following me like some hound—” He glanced in our direction before shouldering Max toward the door. “Inside, dumb-ass.”

Max spun around him, taking the steps in a single bound and racing over to us. He held out Sarah’s cell phone to her. “You should go home now.”

She snatched it back, flipped it open, and made the call. “Ten minutes,” she said in brusque reply.

Max rejoined Alexi and disappeared into the house.

“Just enough time to get changed—my shirt,” I realized.

“I have it,” Catherine confirmed. “It’s seen better days, I’m
certain.” She grabbed me by the hand. “Come with me. You can borrow something of mine.”

And as fast as the accident had happened, I was wearing a top of Catherine’s and climbing into the backseat of the Luxoms’ car, my shirt in a plastic grocery bag, tucked in on itself to hide the dark red stain of Pietr’s blood.

“Soooo—” Amy looked at me. “That certainly rates up there as my most exciting study date ever.” She folded her hands in her lap. “How about you, Sarah?”

“Yes, Sarah, what was Pietr’s family like?” her mother asked from the front passenger’s seat.

“They were very nice,” Sarah replied.

It seemed to be enough for Mrs. Luxom, who simply said, “Well, that’s wonderful.”

But Mr. Luxom peeked at Sarah in the rearview mirror, his eyes skeptical. “Don’t discount nice, sweetheart. There are very few nice people in the world anymore. The business world has the least of them,” he muttered, refocusing on the road.

“I don’t think she
was
discounting—” Mrs. Luxom began, but he cut her off.

“God, Kristen, sometimes you can be so dense. I
had
to marry a natural blonde.”

Mrs. Luxom went back to quietly staring out her window.

Amy looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded
yes,
because the Luxoms were generally at odds with each other. Under her breath Amy asked, “So why do you think they didn’t want to take Pietr to a doctor?”

Sarah jumped in, speculating. “Perhaps they’re from one of those religious sects that believes God will heal you if He wants to.”

Sarah’s parents just continued driving and staring, one stoic, the other stiff.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they’re in the witness protection program,” I suggested. I could definitely imagine Pietr being part of some heroic story line that required bringing mobsters to justice and paying for it with a life on the run.

Amy went the other direction with her logic. “Maybe they’re a family of wanted criminals, and going to the doctors would signal the cops and the place would be swarming with police. . . .”

“Maybe they don’t have any insurance,” Sarah countered.

“Oh, my,” Mrs. Luxom exclaimed, suddenly tuning in to our discussion. “Did they
look
poor?”

I put a hand on Amy’s knee before words spilled out of her gaping mouth.

“No, Mrs. Luxom,” I assured. “They didn’t seem poor. But people don’t have to be poor to not have insurance.”

“Well, what do they do if they get sick, Jessica?” she asked, quite flustered to know how some in “the other half” lived.

It had been rumored for years that Sarah’s mom was merely a “kept woman,” but I had never imagined that meant
kept
from reality.

I could see Mr. Luxom’s eyes roll in the rearview mirror’s reflection. He portrayed himself as a man of the world and probably viewed his wife as a trophy. Pretty and moneyed, but not of real substance.

“They hope they get better,” Amy retorted.

“Or they go to a free clinic,” Sarah pointed out.

“Oh, I’ve written a check to support one of those,” Mrs. Luxom said, comfortably settling back into her seat.

“Or,” Amy concluded grimly, “they take out a loan against their mortgage if it’s a big problem like an important operation. Then they hope the interest rate doesn’t crush them and that they can get back to work fast.”

I looked at Amy, suddenly remembering the major back surgery her dad underwent two years ago. Did she speak from experience? She avoided my gaze, finding a dozen fascinating things outside that caught her interest.

Sarah continued, almost dreamily, “Maybe he’s like one of the characters in your books, Jessica—a
vampire—
and his family knows they’d go utterly and undeniably insane with hunger being so close to the hospital’s blood reserve.” She sighed wistfully.