Anastasia Forever (6 page)

“Papa? It's his dad.” Tess is still clutching at me.

One of the Cossacks raises his sword. “No!” I scream along with the boy. “No.
Nyet!
Don't!” Does he hear me? Does it matter?

The Cossack shouts something, and the riders make a circle around the man so that he can't escape. I'm screaming at them again and so is Tess, but when they break the circle to ride off, the man is lying facedown on the ground. One of the Cossacks waves his now blood-smeared sword in the air. Even from where I am, I can see that the man on the ground is dead. A red stain begins to spread across the back of his shirt.

The boy—I can see for sure now that he's a boy—reaches the dead man and throws himself in the dirt next to his father.

The Cossacks don't stop, just ride away laughing. All except one. He wheels his horse around. Trots back to the boy and his dead father.

“No,” I scream again, even though I'm sure that none of them can hear me. “Leave him alone.”

Except one of them does hear me. The boy. He stands and turns to the sound of my voice. Looks directly at me. Then shakes his head and looks back at the Cossack.

The Cossack leans down and yanks him by the shirt. Pulls him into the air so his feet are dangling, then spits in his face. He leans in closer and says something to the boy. He points a finger at the dead man on the ground and shakes his head. Then he lets go. The boy drops to the dirt. The Cossack rides off.

I stand there watching. My body shakes like the world is made of ice. The boy looks at me again. His eyes are an amazing blue. A blue you couldn't forget once you saw it, and I think I've seen those eyes enough to remember.

“Holy crap,” Tess says. “That's Ethan, isn't it? Oh my God, Anne, is that why we're here? So we can watch his dad get slaughtered?”

I nod. It's impossible. Except it feels real. It is real. Little Ethan with his blue eyes. Ethan, whose story I already know. He'd found his mother and sister dead, slaughtered by the Cossacks. He'd tried to stop his father from going to avenge their murder. And then—now—he watched his father die.

Should
I
say
something
to
him? What's the protocol here?

“So, um, why can he see us—or at least you—and the crazy Russian horse guys can't?”

I'd have attempted an answer, but I don't have to. Because suddenly the world shifts and folds, and the last thing I see are those blue eyes staring at me, clearly seeing me and wondering who the hell I am.

•••

My room materializes around us. Outside on the driveway below my window, I hear the slam of a car door and then inside, downstairs, I hear my father walk in, close the front door, and say, “Chinese takeout is here. Who's ready for egg rolls?”

“Egg rolls?” Tess mumbles from where she's flopped on my floor. “Does he not know we almost just got skewered by some back-in-the-day Russian crazies?”

Outside, I hear another car screech to a stop in the driveway, and then the front doorbell starts ringing over and over like someone's desperate to get inside.

“Anne!” Ethan is shouting when either my father lets him in or he just walks in without waiting, neither of which I can see. I hear him bolting up the stairs and the sound of my father saying something—possibly that he should have called first because there aren't enough egg rolls.

He races into my room and hugs me to him. Presses his face into my sweaty hair. I wrap my arms around him and hold tight. My heart doesn't want to slow down. I breathe in Ethan—all solid and real. His hands rest on the small of my back. Somehow this makes me feel safe and edgy at the same time.

“Hey!” Tess says. “What about me? I almost got shish-kebabbed too. And by the way, you were one skinny little boy, did you know that?”

I ease out his grip and study his face. The eyes are the same as the boy we just saw. No way could I ever mistake them.

“I felt it,” he says. “I don't understand. But I knew it was happening. I—” He turns to Tess. “What do you mean, little boy?”

“We saw you,” Tess tells him. “You were a little boy. Your father—” She stops. Claps her hand over her mouth.

“Are you guys okay up there?” I hear my father on the stairs. We've got like three-and-a-half seconds before he gets up here. My father, who unlike my mother, has no clue about the magic wackiness I've been up to.

I cut to the chase. “We ended up in old-time Russia. We saw the Cossacks kill your father. We saw you.” My heart pounds again as I say it. Suddenly I'm aware of how horribly intimate that moment was. Something that was Ethan's own private memory. Now it's my memory too.

Ethan goes very still. His face pales, and those blue eyes look grim and dark.

“The one Cossack,” I say quickly. “He said something to you, Ethan. Before he dropped you to the ground and rode off. You never mentioned that to me before. Did that happen? Did he really tell you something?”

Ethan looks startled. “He said he would kill me,” he whispers. “But that he'd been told not to. I thought he was lying. I thought he was afraid of me. Later, I always imagined he just didn't want my blood on his hands. He'd killed my entire family. What did I matter at that point? But what if that wasn't it at all? What if he really had been instructed to leave me alone? That would mean—”

“It would mean that maybe your father was murdered on purpose, not just someone's whim. It would mean—”

My own father now stands in my door, watching us all like we're escaped criminals or something. Buster wanders back in and starts rubbing on my leg and purring. I notice for the first time that there are still a few drops of blood on Tess's forehead. It's the first proof since we've been back that this whole thing really happened. That I haven't just been hallucinating or something.

“Later,” I say quickly.

“Hey, Mr. Michaelson,” Tess says cheerily.

“Are you bleeding?” My father points to her forehead.

“Am I?” She touches her hand to her forehead, then wipes the smear of blood on her jeans sort of casually, like it's a speck of dust or something. “You know your daughter. She's a wild one. We got hungry waiting for those egg rolls. She fought me over the last tortilla chip. But I ate it. Good for me, right?”

My father narrows his eyes.

“Food's on the table,” my mother calls from downstairs.

“How did you get back?” Ethan asks quietly as we head for the door.

“Wish I knew,” I tell him. “Maybe it'll be written in the fortune cookie.”

Dinner lasts an eternity. Eventually, Tess and Ethan and I convene in my room and talk. We lounge on the floor, Ethan's back against my bed, his legs stretched out, while Tess and I share the beanbag. My stomach is full from an overload of shrimp fried rice.

“I'm sorry, Ethan,” Tess says. “What they did to your dad, to your family? I don't know how you live with that.”

And this is how I know that Tess is ripped apart by what we've seen in our trip to the past: she pries herself out of the squishy beanbag, knee-walks to Ethan, and pulls him into a hug. He looks shocked—it's not just me who knows she's no Ethan fan—and gently wrestles himself free when she doesn't let go soon enough.

In the end, we realize that we don't know anything. Did Viktor have something to do with the death of Ethan's family? Maybe. Maybe not. Was it my power that brought us home? A little, I think. I'm tired of not being sure.

“You need to stay with her,” Tess decides for Ethan. She's squashed back against me in the beanbag, and I can smell garlic pork on her breath. “I'll stay too, if you want. But you need to be here. If she starts to disappear again, maybe you can stop it this time.”

“I don't need a baby-sitter,” I grumble. I've eaten too much Chinese food, and my fortune cookie read, “You live in interesting times.” My mother picked at the food with her chopsticks and watched Ethan and me with a worried look on her face. My father insisted that Tess eat the last egg roll. Now Ethan looks conflicted about the prospect of spending the night in my room. Not exactly the reaction a girl hopes for.

“Really,” I go on. “I'll be fine.” In the end, we all decide that this is probably not the case.

So after my mother's fifth pointed “It's getting late” visit to my room, Ethan and Tess say a noisy good-bye and I walk downstairs with them. We make a point of shutting the front door loudly, and then Ethan and I sneak into the kitchen and he waits in the darkened mudroom off the back door in case Mom or Dad decides they need a late-night snack.

From the bottom of the stairs, I yell, “Going to make some hot tea. Either of you guys want any?”

They both yell back, “No,” and eventually I hear them close their bedroom door.

We sneak up the stairs.

“You really don't have to do this,” I whisper, except I know that I don't really mean it. “We both know we're not safe until this is over. It's part of the deal.”

“I'm staying,” Ethan says.

At which point it occurs to me that there are two of us and one bed.

It occurs to him too. “I'll sleep on the floor,” he says.

“There's the beanbag.” I point to it like he won't be able to figure out where it is unless I do. “Sorry about the pink. It's pretty girlie, I know. You can take the bed. I'm good with the beanbag. When I was little, I used to—”

“Floor's fine. Trust me, I've slept on worse.”

I'm sure he has. All right then, mister, it's the beanbag for you.

In my bathroom, I change into shorts and a tank top. When I come out, Ethan—still fully dressed—is stretched out on the floor, his head on the pink beanbag, his bare feet brushing against my bed's white eyelet dust ruffle. In no way does this diminish his hotness factor. Not that I plan on telling him.

“You know,” I say quietly, because my parents' room is just down the hall. “This isn't exactly practical. I mean it's not like you can spend every night here until this is over.”

“This isn't every night, Anne. It's tonight. I'll stand outside, if that's better for you, but I'm not leaving. Not tonight.”

“Pretty firm on that, aren't you?” I huff.

“Yes.” He crosses his hands behind his head, elbows sinking into the beanbag. The edge of his polo rides up, and I catch a glimpse of flat, tan stomach and a thin line of hair that disappears into his jeans. A herd of butterflies flutter in my stomach.

I switch off my lamp and climb into bed.

The darkness somehow makes him feel closer.

I close my eyes.

In the dark, I hear Ethan's slow and even breathing. Has he fallen asleep? Is he just pretending? Why have I agreed to this? I mean, it's not like his presence has stopped me from a whole series of near-death experiences. In fact, he's brought most of them my way by just existing.

No way am I going to sleep while he's breathing down there.

So here's what I'm thinking. If I wanted to, I could lie down next to him. If I wanted to, I could tell him to lie down next to me.

If I wanted to.

Do I want to?

Does he want to?

We spent the night at his apartment only a few weeks ago, but that felt different. Possibly because I was in a panic about my magic getting stronger. Also because technically I was still with Ben and that made things awkward. And definitely because a rusalka who turned out to be Lily, my birth grandmother, appeared in Ethan's shower.

Or as Tess described it the other day when we were reminiscing about Crap That's Gone On Since That Day We Saw Ethan at the Ballet: “I think there's a clause in your magic contract that guarantees you stay a virgin. You could be the poster girl for our health-class abstinence-only policy.”

Here, now, in the dark of my room, it's different. Good, different. Nice. That butterfly herd starts doing dips and turns.

“Ethan,” I whisper.

“Hmm,” he says, clearly not asleep. “What?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Do you need anything? I can get you another pillow or something.”

“I'm good.”

Wonderful conversation.

We lie in the dark some more. The question I really want to ask sits on my tongue.

“You knew,” I say, deciding that I might as well just throw it out there, because eventually I'm going to say it and we're lying here in the dark with nothing better to do. Okay, there are lots of better things we could do, but I'm not quite ready to do them. “You knew that Tess and I had gone back in time, didn't you?”

He's silent for long enough that I actually peek over the side of the bed to see if he's been stricken mute or suddenly disappeared or something. Moonlight is filtering through the thin curtains at my window, the angle of light casting part of his face in shadow. He looks up at me. A muscle in his jaw tightens, just slightly.

“I knew when you were gone, yes. I knew that you were being pulled away. And that I wasn't there to stop it.”

He sighs through his nose. So what does this mean? That he still feels responsible for everything that happens to me? That's sweet. Romantic even. But misguided.

He may have set things in motion that day we collided with one another at school and the spark of power sizzled through me. But I'm over blaming it on him. Way over. It's
my
destiny. Not his. But now there's this.

“Like felt it?” I ask, and my stomach knots just the tiniest bit. “Or really knew? 'Cause I heard you in my head. Or at least I thought I did. You were telling me to—”

“I told you to wait. That I needed to be with you.”

As if we're still on the same tightly connected wavelength, we both sit up—me in my bed, him on the floor. Somehow this makes me even more conscious of how close he is. That it's after midnight and we're in my room. Together.

And both aware that we've been linked to each other since the beginning. Been in each other's dreams. Felt each other's emotions to some extent. But what's happening to us this time is different. It's more specific and more intense.

Intense enough that I ask, “So, um, is this the first time that this has happened for you? I mean with me, I guess.”

Ethan laughs. “As opposed to what? The hundred other girls chosen to save Anastasia from Baba Yaga?”

I hang over the bed and invade his personal space. “It's not funny,” I whisper. “Doesn't this freak you out? Me reading your thoughts and you reading mine? And when will this occur? All the time? Or just in certain situations? Because let me just say that of all the superpowers I could ever wish for, knowing what someone else is thinking is totally not one of them. I think all sorts of crap that I don't want anyone to know. Don't you?”

In my stomach, the tiny knot blossoms.
Can
he read my mind all the time? Or only when I'm in danger? And as I seem to be in danger most of the time, what does this mean? Plus, how long has he been sneaking peeks into my head? Only this time? Or has he been entering my brain at will? Like just now during the whole “Where are we going to sleep?” conversation—did he catch me wondering about what it would be like if we both shared my bed? All the stuff I tell Tess—has he been listening in?

And what about Ben, who Ethan is fully aware I still talk to? Is Ethan somehow tuning in to that too? That stupid moment after coffee when I kissed Ben, a reflex kiss really, did Ethan see that in his head? Or worse, feel it? The creeper possibilities are endless.

Annoyance and nerves do a jittery dance inside me, and because I don't know how to make them go away, I kick off the covers and plop down on the floor next to Ethan. He startles a little—like he's part surprised and part not.

“Have you?” I say, continuing my runaway train of thought.

“Have I what?”

“Been spying on my brain this whole time?” Does this explain what I felt at Wrigley Field too—that weird sense that Ethan has powers different from what he had before?

“No.” He sounds indignant that I'd even suggest it. “But it was distinct. I heard you. I sensed you. I didn't see you, exactly. But it was almost like that. I just, well, knew.”

He shifts toward me and cups his hands gently around my face. My nerve endings give a pleasant little shiver. “What about you?” he asks. “Have you been reading
my
thoughts?”

The question throws me. Have I? I know it's not something that's come consciously. “No,” I tell him. “Not like this.”

“Then like what?” Ethan eases closer, traces his fingers in light circles down the small of my back. It is a highly distracting move.

I fumble for the right words. “Since that first day at school,” I say, “there's always been something. We both know that. But since we came back from Baba Yaga's forest this second time, it's intensified. Not just feelings or images. This time I heard words. Whole sentences. It's so much more specific.”

Knowing what someone else—what Ethan—is feeling, thinking—it unsettles me. Like right now, does he sense that there's a piece of my brain registering the presence of his hands on my back? They feel warm and solid, both sexy and comforting.

“Don't be scared,” Ethan says. His hands stop circling and rest low against my back—a nice pressure. “I'm here.”

His words make my worry spill out. “But doesn't it bother you? Me being able to look into
your
head? What if you have stuff you don't want me to know about?”

It's just barely a breath, but I hear Ethan hesitate. “Everyone has secrets, Anne. I've been around a while. I suppose I've got more than my share.”

“Secrets you want to tell me?” Ones I want to hear?

He eases back to look at me. Raises one dark eyebrow, his face still half-shadowed in a slice of moonlight. “Then they wouldn't be secrets, would they? But even then—I trust you.”

Do I hear hesitation in his voice again? Maybe it's just my imagination.

“Come here.” He pulls me tight against him, kisses my mouth. I don't have to be a mind reader to realize that he's done talking. My own thoughts vanish—other than a fleeting idea that possibly he's seducing me, and that I'm good with that. Or maybe he really does have secrets and figures if he distracts me enough, I'll forget about mind-melding and just let him have his way with me.

Which is totally working until just as I kiss him back and our tongues touch and every nerve ending in my body sets itself on fire, I do see into his mind. Or maybe he's seeing into mine. At this particular second, it's impossible to tell the difference.

I just know that he's in my head—that skinny little boy he used to be, with those huge blue eyes watching his father die.

“Anne,” Ethan says. “Do you—”

“Shh,” I tell him. “It'll fade.” I mean the vision, not the kiss.

Bad
vision. Shoo
. I want to be in the present, not the past. I scoot into Ethan's lap and wrap my legs around him. He smells insanely good.
Take
that, you stupid vision.

For a second it even works. My senses shift into overdrive—the smoothness of his skin, the firmness of his muscles, the thick, wavy texture of his hair. The blue of his eyes, wide open and watching me. He skims his hands up my back and his thumbs graze my sides.
Oh
crap, that feels good
. He nuzzles my neck, presses tiny little kisses along my jaw. My body has never been so happy.

Another image flashes, as bright and real as if it were in the room and not just in my head.

“Shit.” Pressed against me still, Ethan freezes.

I suck in a breath. Narrow my eyes. “You're kissing me and thinking about someone else?”

“No. I—”

“Well, she's not in
my
memory bank.” In our mutual heads, the girl with the long dark hair smiles. I scoot away from him. This particular peek into his brain is a definite buzz kill.

Dark-haired girl is not alone. Ethan, dressed in dark wool pants that belt at the waist and a silky cream-colored shirt, is holding her hand. His hair is still thick and longish, but it's slicked back somehow. He looks, well, smitten. Fabulous.

In our heads, he kisses her.

Seriously? Out. Out. Out
.

I squeeze my eyes closed. And when that doesn't work, I dive back into my bed and pull the covers over my head.