Secrets and Shadows (29 page)

She opened the box and withdrew a journal that looked amazingly like the ones Alexi had been poring over searching for a cure. “Take this when you leave. You should now have al thirteen journals. My notes are in the margins.”

I nodded.

Pietr dropped his hands from me and held my eyes with his. “Do you see
this
, Jess,” he whispered, widening his eyes so I could not mistake the red color glowing in them.

“Yes.”

“This is why I can’t … why I don’t…”

The deck of cards smacked into Pietr’s face and dropped to the ground.

“You are
not
the boy, Pietr Rusakova,” Feldman snapped.

He rounded on her. “How do you know?”

“This message came from a specific source. Does one of you have a spirit hanging around?”

I sighed and Pietr stared at me as I slowly raised my hand. “A friend of mine thinks my mother’s coming through.”

Pietr’s eyes widened.

“Big surprise, right?” I mumbled. “Werewolves, ghosts. Happy Hal oween.”

“Big surprise,” he echoed. Like he meant it.

“I’m sorry, Jessie. I did not realize,” Feldman lamented. “Sometimes spirits get stuck. In a time, or a place … Some can work themselves free, but others?” She shrugged. “When your mother was alive …

Who was the boy you talked about with her? Was there a boy there when she died? It could be either.”

I col apsed back into the chair. “Oh. It’s both. Like you,” I said to Mrs. Feldman. “One and the same.”

Seeing the concern on Pietr’s face, I assured him, “It’s not you. It’s Derek.”

Annabel e Lee turned to a fresh page in the book she was reading over the dinner I’d prepared, acting like she hadn’t heard Dad’s words. But I knew better.

“Dad, it’s perfectly safe. I need to get Rio to try different stuff. The old park’s perfect.”

“You considerin’ the competition schedule again?”

I nodded. “You know what they say:
‘Get back on the horse.’
I botched the Golden Jumper. I want to do better.”

“Hmm.” He speared a piece of broccoli. “Make sure you’re out of there by dark,” he warned. “Never know what sort of trouble may drift in.”

I shuddered, remembering the shootout. “Yeah.” I pushed in my chair and headed for the door, grabbing my jacket and a flashlight in case the path home was ridden in darkness.

I needed time to think—to get things straight in my head. And whereas before I might have gone to Skipper’s and stood beneath the dogwood to search for some modicum of peace after Mom’s death, my life had been rattled by more than her loss. I needed to face the spot I had lost what was left of my innocence. The place I kil ed a man and watched Pietr do the same.

Rio warmed up quickly and we jogged into the old park through what used to be its main entrance. The wooden sign had long ago been defaced, most of the marigolds stolen, and the few remaining rose bushes were seasonal y trimmed back by visitors with bud vases to fil .

I’d played here as a child, on swingsets that were now rusty skeletons of headless horses, the chains that once squeaked along their bel ies long gone, the moments my feet nearly kicked the clouds to earth

—al but memory.

I nudged Rio into a trot, passing the wobbling water fountain and broken benches where parents used to watch their children play as they gossiped about their neighbors (until their neighbors joined them and they gossiped about others).

Down a narrow path we went, only pausing when it opened into meadow. I steadied myself and felt Rio tighten beneath me in response. “S’okay, girl,” I soothed.

In the slanting light of late afternoon the image before me was pastoral, far from the night of Pietr’s birthday. I slid out of the saddle, pausing by Rio’s shoulder, looping the reins around my hand and running my fingers along her soft snout.

“Come on, girl, let’s walk.”

She matched my pace, ambling beside me as I kicked leaves and scanned the area. I’d hoped to find some answers here, some peace. This was the place everything changed for Pietr and myself—for him some answers here, some peace. This was the place everything changed for Pietr and myself—for him very literal y. Was there any way to get back to being us? To have a normal relationship, considering the facts stacked against us? I had to believe we could. But I needed him to believe it—to want it—as much as I did.

I kept my feet moving, shuffling through the crackling debris of autumn while I tried to forget the blood the ground had drunk down and the leaves had covered up.

The sky turned colors, the blue deepening to purple, and the world around me took on an eerie and unfortunately familiar cast. My stomach tightened and my mind argued against it.

I shivered and led Rio to where most of the action occurred, reminding myself silently I had nothing to fear. The threat—the danger—had passed. Casting aside the blaring memories of blood and gunfire, my mind drifted.

And I realized there were no definitive answers here. I could only get the answers I wanted from Pietr.

Suddenly the knot of emotion nestled inside me began to loosen. “Let’s go for a ride.” I slapped Rio’s shoulder and slipped my foot into the stirrup to mount.

We moved from a trot to a lope to a ground-swal owing gal op. We terrorized the park’s vacant trails, spinning back the way we came at the lightest touch of my knee to her ribs, making hairpin turns, testing our abilities.

And then, down one trail long abandoned we found my favorite obstacle: a fal en log. “Rio,” I whispered, leaning forward to prick her ear with my breath. “Let’s give it a go.” We trotted back a few paces. “Ready?

” I asked, and I felt her muscles coil in anticipation.

“H’yup!” We raced down the narrow trail, leaves flying in our wake and as we neared the downed tree I rose up in the saddle, leaned forward and straightened my back. Rio flew across the log, her legs long, extension perfect. A little jolt at touchdown, but the thump might as wel have been my heart fal ing back into place after a great jump.

“Awesome!” I cried, thumping my palm on her neck as she continued forward at a rapid clip.

One of her ears pivoted to the right and I felt her tense beneath me. “Easy, girl,” I soothed just before I heard it.

The hair at the nape of my neck tickled as it struggled against the rushing breeze to rise in warning. A half stride behind and holding steady something raced through the brush and brambles on a paral el course.

Something big.

I gave Rio her head and felt her stride lengthen, a spray of foam flying out of her mouth and off her neck. The pounding of her hooves on the old packed path rattled me. I gathered the reins and tried to hear beyond her heavy breathing and thundering hoof beats.

I caught a glimpse of something zipping along the undergrowth, dodging the worst of the briars on astonishingly nimble feet. My heart raced to outrun whatever chal enged us, beating so fast it quivered in my chest instead of pumped.

The light bled from the sky, violent shades of red and purple twisting in agonizing beauty above us. I wouldn’t be out of the park by dark, regardless of my intentions.

Ahead the path widened, the brush separating us from our chal enger disappearing as the trails merged in a smal clearing. “We’l know soon,” I muttered, lying across Rio’s stretched neck, my jacket sleeves sopping up her sweat.

The brambles between us were suddenly gone and a shadow leaped out—huge, canine, and wild. But not a simple wolf.

Rio panicked, rearing up, dancing on her hind legs and kicking out with her front.

She screamed and the beast was no longer a wolf, but Pietr, grabbing her reins in a move so fluid Rio turned with him and I plunged from my saddle.

Into Pietr’s powerful arms.

“Down!” he commanded Rio, his voice so low I barely caught the single word.

Rio heard it clearly. With a squeal of indignation she obeyed, rol ing her eyes and stomping her hooves.

“
Eezvehneetyeh
,” he whispered toward Rio. “I didn’t think I would frighten you since we’ve known each other…” He blinked and focused on me, stil in his grip. “
Strahsvoytcha
,” he said, his choice of greeting al owing him to rol it under a thick purr. He set me down, my hands slipping along his naked chest.

Naked.

I blushed so fiercely my face could have set dusk back an hour or two. I turned my head away from him, concentrating on Rio. And breathing. My knees shook. I didn’t dare look at him.

He seemed confused. His brain stil hadn’t puzzled back together with the wolf’s.

“Hel o,” I echoed lamely. “Pants,” I said.

“
Da
. Pants.” A wolf again, he dashed down the trail. I heard him stop, curse, and wrestle with some sort of plant. Then he returned, pants on, T-shirt in hand. “Sorry,” he said. “I drop things sometimes.”

“Mmhmm. Like clothes and girlfriends,” I al eged.

“What?”

There was no fooling me. Pietr’s hearing was remarkably keen. “You heard me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You need a new line,” I retorted. “That one’s old.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say that the past was al a nightmare.”

“You know better.
This
is what I am,” he hissed.

“That’s not the past I want erased. That’s not what needs to change.”

“Then what?”

“Say that you’re breaking up with Sarah—cleanly—and choosing me. Say you never wanted her but you didn’t want to hurt her. For me. Tel me you know you’re not the boy I’ve been warned against.”

“I—” He looked away.

“Damn it, Pietr,” I said, unable to hide my disgust, “Why bother to run with us, to talk to me now, if you’re going to keep hurting me? It’s one thing to play guard dog at school, but I need more than that from a friend.”

“I can’t be your friend.”

“Liar.”

“You know I don’t lie … not like that.” He pawed at his eyes and groaned. “I mean it, Jess. I can’t be your friend.”

“Jackass.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Jess. I want you safe.”

I blinked at him.

“Why are you here tonight?”

“I lost something,” I muttered. “The night of your birthday. I wanted to find it again.”

“What was it?” he stepped closer.

His scent flooded my senses—al woodland and wild—and my world wobbled. “Shirt,” I whispered, too near his bare chest for clarity of thought.

“You lost your shirt?” His expression twisted. “I don’t remember that.”

“No.
You
. Put on your shirt.”

He nodded, raising his arms to pul the thin tee over his head. The move only accentuated his wel -

muscled stomach. “What did you lose?”

Oh, God. It was time for the truth. I’d lied so much recently, I wondered if I remembered how to tel it.

“What did you lose?” he repeated.

“My heart, Pietr. I lost my heart.”

He sighed. His forehead touched mine, searing the spot just above my nose, eyes blurring a shade of violet, hanging between sky blue and stop sign red.

“Have you seen it, Pietr?” I asked. “I gave it to someone to guard, but I’m not sure he wants to anymore.”

He sighed again, his body shuddering, his eyes screwed shut against my words. “Perhaps you’re right,”

he whispered hoarsely. “He may not want to hurt you, but I don’t think he can help it.”

My jaw hung open, eyes wide.

“There are things—things beyond his control…”

Oh, God … What could I say? “Control is learned. It just takes time.”

He pul ed back far enough to shake his head. “Some of us are short on time.” His hair brushed my forehead. “It’s beyond my control.”

My heart clenched and as much as I wanted to babble until I somehow stumbled across the right words to say, nothing came.

“You were right about him,” he confided. “He
is
a monster.”

“No.”

“Do you know why?” He didn’t wait, but plowed ahead: “Because he lost something that night, too.”

My lips quivered as I formed the single word. “What?”

“His soul.”

I slapped him. “Don’t you ever say that again, Pietr Andreiovich Rusakova! You may have thrown away my heart, but you have not—
not—
lost your soul.” I pounded on his chest with my fists. “That night … you did what you did to save my life.”

And then it hit me.

“Oh. God.” My vision wavered. “I thought you were trying to hurt me, or avoid me, but … You
are
trying to protect me … everything you’ve done…” I swal owed.

Stepping back, he sank into shadow like it was second nature.

“No. You stay right here. You talk to me. Who are you protecting me from, Pietr?” I thrust out my hand to tick off my current threats. “Sarah, who could snap at any second and go back to being a social nazi?”

He tensed, but that wasn’t it.

“The CIA? They stil believe they need me to keep tabs on you. The closer we are, the safer I am.”

He shook his head, doubtful.

“Is it the Russian Mafia? Did you think by being separated they wouldn’t look for me? They found me at the Golden Jumper. If they want to they can find me again.”

Thick in shadow he stood even tal er, lips open to show the tips of his teeth.

“Oh. Pietr.” I reached out to him.

He stepped back again, going even deeper into the darkness.

“It’s al that and you. You’re afraid you can’t protect me from you.” I grabbed his arms and held on.

He tried to twist away, but it was a half-hearted effort. “You don’t understand the danger, Jess,” he insisted, words grinding out like gravel lined his throat. “I—I’m not myself.”

“You
are
, Pietr. You are absolutely who you’re supposed to be. And you’re perfect,” I swore, stepping so near that when he inhaled his chest brushed against me. “Don’t fight who you are.”

“Ugh.”
Pop.
He stepped back again.