13 to Life (31 page)

“
Eezvehneetyeh
,” he whispered, breath stirring my bangs and warming my face.

He was forgiven. Of course.

He suddenly stood me up; points of rock bit into the thin soles of my sneakers. Gravel? I gasped, panting a moment from the excitement of the run we’d shared. His breathing told me
he was not at all winded. He shifted on the stones as another set of footsteps approached.

“So. We are all here after all.”

Alexi.

He sounded disappointed. “She can’t see anything?” He surely tested my vision, but I couldn’t tell how. “Good,” he said, satisfied. He paused.

The train whistled again, sounding closer.

“The test is simple,” Alexi assured coolly. “Stand right here—still—until Pietr comes for you. Keep your hands at your sides. Do not move. Do not make a noise.”

I wanted to ask what to do if my nose itched—say something to lighten the mood—but I couldn’t guarantee the steadiness of my voice. Refusing to sound like a coward, I nodded.

“You can back out now,” Alexi tempted. “You can still be with Pietr, still visit.”

“But you would not let me be with him tonight if I
do
back out,” I clarified.
Yep,
my voice was shaky. Great.

“There are some things you do not have to know,” Alexi suggested. “Not every riddle needs a straight answer. You can go home. Be happy and safe without knowing everything.”

The lure of knowing Pietr’s secret was too great. I straightened, raising my chin in absolute indignation.

Alexi snorted. “This will all be over in a few minutes.”

“I don’t think—” Pietr began, but Alexi snapped at him.

“
Horashow
. Good. Don’t think. Obey your brother.”

Two sets of footsteps crunched away from me. Then a set came sprinting back.

“It’ll be okay,” Pietr promised. “Just stand still. No matter what.”

I nodded.

He kissed me. For a moment I forgot where I was and just kissed him back. Then his lips withdrew and the gravel ground and growled as he raced away. And, just like that, I remembered my predicament. Acutely. The blindfold helped. I might kiss with my eyes closed, but most of my life was lived with my eyes wide open. Even when I was being purposefully left in the dark.

Alone and blind, I tried thinking about other things. The weather. Yeah. Brisk breezes, leaves falling and crunching beneath feet. Yep. Still autumn.
Done.
Trying to think more distracting—more involved—thoughts, I imagined riding Rio through jumping practice. But I couldn’t shut up my yammering mind. It ran in frantic loops:
Why are you here? Where is “here”? What do you really have to prove?

There was gravel under my feet. The train’s whistle sounded again. Louder yet. Definitely closer. Okay. I chewed my bottom lip. Gravel under my feet. An approaching train . . .
stupid girl!
I flinched at the realization. I was standing blindfolded on train tracks?

The blood poured from my head, arms, and chest, pooling like molten lead in my feet. I was petrified in terror.

The gravel shimmied beneath the soles of my feet, chattering against wooden sleepers and metal rails. I felt suddenly disoriented. The train, the tracks . . . Alexi’s words to Pietr as I watched via Skype: “She knows too much already!”

What if Pietr believed I’d be fine but Alexi had decided to get rid of me? My heart caked with ice. If I died here, now—flattened by a train—would anyone even wonder about the circumstances of my sudden death?

I tried to swallow the sudden lump filling my throat. Surely Alexi knew about the teen train track suicides. Maybe he
figured this was a good way to get rid of me—an emotionally unstable teenage girl (wasn’t
that
phrase redundant?)—without too many questions being raised.

My guidance folder
did
have a red paper clip marking its pages, after all. Maloy already had his doubts about my willingness to suffer life too long beyond my mother’s tragic death.

What if Pietr’s secret was too dangerous to dare comprehend? My brain sputtered, jumping to a scene from
The Matrix,
one of my dad’s favorite movies. If this were my red pill–blue pill moment, would I choose the comfort of my bed or the journey down Wonderland’s rabbit hole?

My stomach fluttered and stilled. And I knew. With certainty.

My fingers twitched at my sides. There was a grating noise, a steady rattle.
Stay still, stay still, it’ll be okay.
Metal clanged and clattered against metal, scraping, whining and growling—building into a deafening roar.

My jaw ached, my teeth clenched as I willed myself to remain immobile. Pietr wouldn’t let me get hurt. Not ever. Louder than any thunderstorm it came. The train hurtled toward me, groaning, squeaking, clanking—I wanted to cover my ears at the noise, but I had to stay still. . . .
Breathe. Just breathe. . . .
The soles of my feet tingled as the behemoth shook its track and swallowed the distance between me and—

“Ugh!”

The impact slammed me to the ground, knocking breath and sense out of me. Something heavy held me down. Heavy and hot. Had the train hit me? Was I bleeding out?
Damn blindfold.
But I’d been slugged from the side and whatever
pinned me down and kept my arms at my sides was breathing. And cursing.

Inventively.

My blindfold was yanked away and I yelped, the knot tearing hairs out of my head. I blinked in the dazzling sunlight. Pietr lay atop me, his head haloed by the most spectacular sky imaginable.

“That bastard Sasha!” he growled and raised himself off of me.

I turned, watching as the train rushed away—on an alternate track?

Pietr pulled back, resting crouched on his heels. “Are you okay?” He stuck out a hand.

I took it and sat up, my eyes locked on his. “It was on a different track.” The words were much clearer than my head.

He looked to his right and I followed his gaze. Alexi stood beside us, his face red with rage.

“Da,”
Alexi said, his eyes not on me at all. Each word carefully weighed and timed he explained, “It switches tracks a few yards earlier.”

“I was safe the whole time.” I laughed. It was a distant noise. Brittle.

“Da.”
Alexi crossed his arms. “You should have left. Given up. Anyone with common sense would have.” He literally growled in frustration, his hand raking through his hair, his eyes latching on to Pietr’s. “I think we’ve learned something here.”

“
Da
. That you ask
too much
of people,” Pietr snapped, tugging me to my feet.

Alexi shook his head. “
Nyet
. That your little girlfriend has more trust in me than you have in me—
my own brother
.” He turned and stormed away.

I was stunned.

Pietr, though—Pietr was pissed. He spun, poised to spring after Alexi. “You—”

I grabbed his arm. Stopped him in his tracks. All the anger, the fear—it washed right out of his eyes and he looked at me, ready to kill for me as fast as he’d die for me. His look of open loyalty stung. “Don’t,” I said. “I’m okay.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.” I took a step to prove it and my knees buckled. Laughing, I pulled myself back up by his arm.

“Jess?” His voice cracked.

“I’m just shaken.” I looked up at him and smiled. “Um. You did so well carrying me before—”

And before I could get another word out, he was cradling me against his chest. I looped my arms around his neck, lacing my fingers together and resting my head against him, sucking in the wild scent of him, filling my brain with whispering woods and muted meadows. Peaceful places far from train tracks.

“See ya, Dad!” I yelled up the stairs. Sleeping bag and backpack slung over my shoulder, I rushed the door. “Be back tomorrow morning—I’ve got the cell!”

Returning from my test of faith, I’d taken a nap and woken up feeling absolutely remarkable. Triumphant.

The amber heart pendant bounced against my chest, and I tucked it into my shirt’s neckline. Pietr had given it to me to wear for him whenever we weren’t around Amy or Sarah. So I had decided to wear it tonight.

For Pietr’s seventeenth birthday.

As the door swung shut I heard heavy footsteps pounding down the staircase after me. “Jessie—”

I saw Alexi’s car in the driveway, positioned to steal me
away from home and rocket me closer to understanding the mysterious Russian soul that comprised Pietr. I sprinted to the car, yanked open the door, and threw my stuff inside. I was buckled in by the time Dad caught up to us.

“Hey.” He tapped on the window. Alexi rolled it down. “Where’s the fire?”

I laughed. “Did I forget something?”

“A hug and a kiss for your old man.” He peeked in the car. “Oh, I guess y’all are off to pick up Amy and Sarah next,” he said, giving my cheek a peck.

Alexi didn’t skip a beat. “They seem to study well together.”

Wow.
Alexi was the master of the subtle subterfuge! I wondered how many lies
he’d
told. And more important, how many times he’d been caught. Actually, what he’d just said wasn’t really a lie—when we
were
studying, we
did
study well together, but even saying that didn’t have
anything
to do with
if
we were really picking the girls up or not.

“Yeah,” Dad was saying, smiling at Alexi. “That’s a good thing. Well, you learn lots of stuff tonight, Jessie.” He snaked an arm inside the car and gave my shoulders a squeeze. “I love you.” He paused and fixed his eyes on mine. “I trust you.”

“Ahhh—” I blushed. When were parents supposed to stop hugging their kids in front of their peers? There had to be a law about it somewhere. . . . “I love you, too, Dad,” I said as Alexi closed the window and we drove away.

We’d had a little father-daughter talk about trust between what was for me one lie and then another. Dad had sent Pietr out to the horse barn to tidy up and then explained how he really did want to trust me again. I explained how his allowing me to go on a ride with Pietr demonstrated that he
could
trust me. I mean, hadn’t we gotten back before our early-afternoon curfew? Dad conceded and said the study session and sleepover
at Sarah’s was okay as long as there were adults present. Alexi was driver and escort of part A, I explained, and Mrs. Luxom would certainly be home during part B. So Dad put his trust in me. And I was going to throw it away and hope I didn’t get caught.

Besides, I knew Dad was working another double.

“So,” Alexi started. “It seems you two have gotten me to lie for you. What’s so important that you’d need me to do that?”

The town was a blur. We sped through Main Street, every traffic light green like I was meant to learn Pietr’s strange secret even faster than I thought I would.

“Well?” Alexi prodded.

I saw Pietr turn to face him from the front passenger’s seat. He said nothing, but it seemed almost enough.

“Pietr,” Alexi demanded.

“It’s my birthday, Alexi.”

“So you are going through with it. I had hoped a few hours would make you smarter.” Alexi looked at his younger brother and then flicked his gaze to the rearview mirror. He stared at me a moment and I wondered how he could possibly see the road at the same time. “How old are you?”

“She’s almost seventeen, like me,” Pietr interjected before my mouth even opened.

Alexi laughed at that. “Almost seventeen,
like you
?” He laughed again.

Chilled suddenly, I zipped my jacket up higher.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Alexi barked the words at Pietr. “She’s not like you—none of them are like us. We come from a different
world
—”

“
Nyet
, we don’t,” Pietr muttered angrily. “We just live a different life.”

He sounded so hurt that no one but his family was like him. I sat forward, straining against the seat belt. “If it’s about
having Russian background—” I tried, “I’m learning about the Russian culture for a history project.”

Alexi jerked the steering wheel, pulling the car to the road’s edge so fast I gasped and held the seat before me. He adjusted the mirror to gaze at the amber pendant I wore. The Rusakova family pendant Pietr had given me. “
Are
you?” A blaze of blue glowed in his eyes.

I nodded slowly. It wasn’t as if I didn’t feel safe in the car at that moment with Pietr and Alexi, but still a sense of dread burbled up in my stomach.

Alexi spoke slowly. “Have you read about the Cold War?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, held fast by his sparkling gaze.

“And do you know how desperate our people were to gain some advantage over your people—what they were willing to try—willing to do?”

“Stop it, Alexi!” Pietr demanded, his voice so loud it rattled the car windows.

Alexi pounded on the steering wheel. “You are being so stupid!” he snapped.

But Pietr had cooled again. “Not stupid. Selfish,” he admitted.

“
Nyet
. Stupid. Utterly, irrevocably, f—” He glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

I could swear I heard his teeth grind together.

“Stupid. Taking her out into the woods tonight—”

“It’s supposed to be a nice night,” I defended. Weakly.

Alexi laughed. “This is not the time,” Alexi warned. “Taking her out tonight.
This
time.” He paused and changed tactics. “Catherine is celebrating alone.”

Pietr was unmoved.

I was being talked around. Like I wasn’t there. And although I knew they weren’t speaking Russian, still it seemed the words they said didn’t have only the meaning I expected.

Turning to Pietr, Alexi curled his upper lip in a snarl. “I guess she’ll learn everything tonight, though, won’t she? You’re playing with fire, little brother,” he warned, “And you risk burning our whole family.”

Pietr blinked once. “Will you stop me?”

Alexi squeezed his eyes shut and his jaw clenched.
“Nyet.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are
you
?” Alexi challenged. His tone, though, was resigned.

Pietr’s look was enough answer.