Secrets and Shadows (22 page)

“She often pretends to ignore us,” the tal er of our two escorts pointed out. “Maybe a self-defense mechanism?” He rubbed his chin, looking at the remaining Rusakovas in speculation. His eyes settled on me. “Do they ignore unpleasant things?”

“They’re ignoring you now,” I pointed out.

The escort blinked at me. He cleared his throat so he could project his voice more powerful y. “You have visitors.”

There was no reaction from Mother except to raise a single, specific finger in our direction.

Our escort laughed, and I dug in my heels and clasped Pietr’s arm against me to keep him from leaping at the man. His back unnatural y straight, he was so stiff his muscles twitched beneath my fingers. He at the man. His back unnatural y straight, he was so stiff his muscles twitched beneath my fingers. He didn’t look at me; he was far too comfortable with the anger pumping through him faster than even his blood.

“Stay calm. They’d love an excuse to lock you up, too.”

Our escort’s eyes flickered in my direction, confirming my fear. I watched the lump in Pietr’s throat slide as he swal owed. He shut his eyes for a moment. “Mother?”

She spun so quickly I didn’t see the movement, only the result. Nose pressed to the glass, head cocked to one side, and fingers splayed across the thick invisible barrier as if she would claw her way to us, she asked, “Pietr?” Her voice was scratchy, raw from disuse. Her eyes focused on Pietr just before she screamed his name like a battle cry.

He closed the distance to her in two ground-swal owing strides. His hands mirrored her own, pressed flat against the glass like the force of his wil alone could get him inside. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear her words. Pietr rested his forehead on the glass, his shoulders slumped, al the rage draining from his body.

Max and Catherine flanked him, Alexi close behind.

I hesitated, suddenly aware of how different I was, how much more like the scientists and guards holding her captive than her wild and graceful children. It may have been my battle, but it was not my family.

My mother was gone; theirs was alive. And a prisoner.

I bowed my head and folded my hands, determined to wait while they tried to catch up with the parent they had long thought dead.

“Jess.”

Pietr looked in my direction, signaling me over with a move of his head. My heart stopped, seeing the look on his face. I tried to keep calm. Not to run to him. To breathe.

Eyes down, I crossed the distance between us, nerves jangling, unsure of how to act around a mother who was also a werewolf. As soon as the thought formed, I realized the flaw in my logic. Pietr was a werewolf. Max was a werewolf. Catherine was, too. And most times I was quick to forget the fact. Often our shared humanity overrode our distinct differences.

Cat reached out and threw an arm around me, tugging me before the glass wal . “This is Jessie,” she said.

Their mother studied me, her lips thin, eyebrows lowered. Crow’s feet branched around her glinting turquoise eyes—what were once laugh lines ran into furrows of worry and anger. God, she was so young and yet so old.…

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Rusakova.…”

Behind me, Max said to the guards, “We were told we’d be al owed inside.”

One guard pushed a button on the wal . An intercom buzzed, blaring a reply. “Yes. Al ow them al inside the cubicle.”

I spun out of Cat’s grasp. “
No
. Two in, three out,” I said, heart pounding. How hard would it be to just not unlock the door once you had al the werewolves you could want in one cel ?

Cat echoed my suggestion. “Max and I wil go in first. Then Pietr, Jessie, and Alexi.”

Their mother gave me a smile, and my heart jumped. “Cleverrr girrrl,” she said, her words equal y strong with a Russian purr and a werewolf growl.

A set of four more armed guards entered the room as a precaution. Alexi and I looked at each other.

We were doing the same thing: taking careful mental notes. Numbers, weapons, speed of response.

A code was tapped into a number pad by her door, and a guard pressed his palm onto the surface of the pad. Lights flashed and a siren purred “Red-red-red” as a seal broke and a door slid open, nearly seamless in the transparent cubicle.

Cat and Max stepped inside, the door sealing behind them. I shifted from foot to foot beside Alexi.

Pietr had already left me to stand by the door.

There were hugs and tears, and Tatiana—Mother—pul ed the single chair over and sat. Max, the family bad-ass, sniffled and fel at his mother’s feet, resting his mop of hair against her knee. Tatiana sighed and played with his dark curls, doting on him as if they had al the time in the world. Cat sat by her other knee, posture rigid, absolutely alert.

She was seeing what I had noticed: stress, strain, and age marring the natural beauty of a woman without her family. A woman whose love was lost.

“Who is she?” Their mother pointed at me again.

“Mother,” Cat’s voice rose. “I said her name is Jessie.”

I looked at Alexi.

“Senile dementia begins early in the species,” he whispered.

“I am not senile, Alexi,” their mother barked. “And I hear quite wel . I want to know who Jessie rrreal y is.

Who is she to my family?”

Who is she to my family?”

I got the impression it was not my place to define my connection to them. And what would I say, anyhow?
I almost dated your youngest son, but my sometimes-psycho friend got to him first, so we just
sort of messed around behind her back until he changed and now I’m dating the one guy at Junction
High he seems to really hate?

Not
a way to endear myself to Pietr’s mom.

Cat said simply, “She opened the
matryoshka
.”

Their mother’s head nearly ripped off, it moved so fast. “She opened it?”

Alexi nodded.

“Then…?”

“Nothing,” Alexi reported. “I have no answers yet. I am at a loss.”

I got the feeling they were talking over my head. About me. Cat, Max, and Pietr looked like they were out of the loop, too. Al eyes were on Alexi.

“Therrre arrre no acceptable losses,” Mother said, her eyes glittering red.

“Heart-rate-is-elevated,” the siren announced.

“Of course it is,” she snarled.

“Mother,” Alexi said. “I am doing the best I can with limited resources.”

Now I was certain the CIA was taking careful mental notes, too, trying to decipher their conversation.

She shook her head, long hair tumbling. “I do not doubt you, Alexi. No matter what steps you had to take to get to this moment.”

Max looked up at her, his expression clearly reading stunned. “You knew? You
know?
”

“Alexi knew there would be a time he must make hard decisions—his life has been ful of harsh truths.”

Her face fil ed with pain, and Alexi dropped his gaze. “My poor boy,” she whispered. “He has done his best to protect you, has he not?” she asked Max pointedly.

Max blinked. “But the Mafia…”

“Did he cal them to take you?” she prodded. “Or did he stand beside you? Help you?”

“You know about that?”

“They talk,” she muttered, motioning toward our escorts and guards. “Gossiping like il -bred girls to get a rise out of me.” Her eyes flashed, then calmed. “You should not doubt Alexi, either,” she admonished her eldest ful -blood son. “Just because we do not share a direct heritage does not mean we do not share a legacy. Life is a puzzle, is it not, Alexi?”

“
Da
.”

“And you are missing one piece?”

“
Da
. A very important one.”

“Then there is stil hope.”

“
Da
,” he said, reluctant to commit.

“There is always hope,” I confirmed, though I didn’t know exactly what we were hoping for.

Alexi rested his hand on my shoulder. His fingers shook. He hadn’t had a cigarette since sometime before we’d left the house, and his nerves were starting to show. “You need to quit smoking.”

“You arrre smoking?” Mother growled.

Nuts.
Werewolf ears.

Alexi stepped back, hanging his head in shame.

“You are my son, Alexi. Not by blood, but by choice. We adopted you. I wil not tolerate one of my children endangering themselves with something as deadly as…”

I couldn’t handle more railing against Alexi. He’d been a wreck recently. Before I could stop myself I blurted out the rumor running through school: “Max is having sex with multiple partners!”

Oh.
Crap.

Mother looked at Max, her eyes glowing.

“Heart-rate-is-elevated,” blared again.

Max went a shade paler. No. Three shades. “Mother, I—” He flopped onto the floor bel y up, covering his eyes with his arm. He groaned.

“Maximilian?”

“Mother, I—am—
not
.” He sighed. He shot me a look. “Not since Paris,” he qualified softly.

“What?” Pietr, Cat, Alexi, and I asked in unison.

Max focused on me. “The things you presume,” he chuckled. “I have a reputation,” he confirmed. “A healthy one.”

His mother rumbled.

“But I only flirt!” he protested.

“Continual y,” I groaned.

“And you kiss,” Cat reminded.

He shrugged.

“And grope,” Pietr added.

Max sat up, glaring at him. “So what? You’re continual y trying to bash your brains out because you can’

t—”

Cat silenced him with a look, eyes sliding to me.

“What are
you
doing, Pietr?” Mother asked, eyes narrow.

“I am struggling,” he muttered. “This”—for a moment his eyes were on me before they darted away—“is not easy. It is not easy knowing I am dying already and that trying to live endangers others.”

Cat rose, tugging Max to his feet. She caught the guard’s attention. “Switch,” she said. “Jessie, you, too.” She hugged her mother, as did Max, and then, in a few tense moments as the guards looked on, rifles at the ready, the siren blared, the lights flashed, and we exchanged places, Cat and Max glaring at the guards, Pietr, Alexi, and myself staring at Mother.

Pietr’s mother grabbed him and hugged him, only pul ing back to search his face. “You are not sleeping,” she surmised. A glance at Alexi and me and she repeated herself. “Why is no one here sleeping?”

“We’ve been searching for you,” Pietr whispered.

“Al of you?” She glanced at me.

“Not anymore,” Alexi answered on my behalf. “We simple humans are out of action.”

She nodded. “They like you enough to keep you around. I searched for you as wel ,” she recal ed.

“There was a brief time I was free. I fol owed your scents as far as I could, stumbling through horse farms and parks.… But the river made things difficult.” She sighed. “I found your school just before they recaptured me.”

“It was you in the high school that night,” I realized.

I dropped to the floor and sat Indian-style. I thought back. “But in the rain that other night? That wasn’t you.”

“Why must you bring
that
up?” Max asked. “I was scouting. And I ran back from that little encounter with a limp.”

My lips curled in over my teeth, realizing.

“When is the logical response to a wolf attack ever to nail the animal in the groin with a big stick?” he asked me.

Pietr, Cat, and Alexi fought back smiles.

“Sorry?” I tried.

He snorted.

Mother was the one to refocus us. “If you opened the
matryoshka
, where is the pendant?” she whispered, looking at my neckline. “Is that…?”

“No,” I admitted. “It’s my mother’s netsuke.”

“Did you not give her the pendant?” Mother asked Alexi.

“
Da
, Pietr did.” He looked at him, confused.

Pietr had not told him he’d been given it back.

“Pietr?”

“I have it.”

“Give it to me.” Mother thrust her hand out.

Pietr retrieved it from his pocket and handed it over.

“This is yours,” she confirmed, dropping to her knees before me. “You opened the
matryoshka
. You are important to us.”

“How?” I whispered. “I don’t know how I’m important to your family. I’l help however I can—you have to believe me—but…” I shook my head.

Her hands were warm on my face. “Shhhh, Jessie,” she soothed. “Sometimes we do not know what role we play until it is thrust upon us and we can only then do our best to carry it off.” She reached around, fastening the chain behind my neck.

I glanced at Pietr. The chain was new. Heavier. Stronger.

Mother looked at us both. “You had al better go—time—”

The siren blared, “Thirty-minutes-thirty-minutes.”

“Time is up.”

A few quick hugs, another tear or two, and we were out of the cubicle and headed (with our armed escort) to find Wanda and Kent.

We pushed into the lab, where Wanda was having a very animated discussion with Henry. “And what am I supposed to do about this? Hope there are no bodily fluids exchanged? Play keep-away with—”

am I supposed to do about this? Hope there are no bodily fluids exchanged? Play keep-away with—”

Henry’s pointed look stopped her midsentence.

“Dammit,” Wanda muttered. “I’l take care of it,” she assured him. “Sooo,” she said, facing us, her smile thin. “Was Mommy happy to see you?”

Max’s face soured at her use of the endearment.

“We were al glad for a chance to meet,” I said, stroking Max’s arm. He calmed beneath my touch, though I was certain I’d get an earful later about ratting him out to his mother.

“Wonderful,” Wanda chirped. “Let’s close this little get-together up, then, shal we? We’l want a marrow and fur sample before your next invite. I’l let you decide when. After that? We may need to do a little renegotiating.”