Wish (7 page)

“
I’m fine.”

Tristan turns to my bodyguards. “Why don’t you
guys do a perimeter sweep. I’ll stay with Katerina.”

The two turn and walk in separate
directions.

“
Want to sit down?” Tristan asks
me, motioning towards a bench.

Without a word, I take a seat. I can breathe a
little better now that two of my bodyguards are gone. I just want
some privacy. Unfortunately, privacy isn’t a luxury I can afford.
Having people follow me around 24/7 is much better than being
locked in a basement.

“
How are you doing with all this?”
he asks.

“
I don’t know,” I
answer.

I went from having a completely
normal life in Russia to have an
insane
life in America. I’m not
handling it very well.

Plus, I don’t know how to handle the feelings
I have for Tristan. I’ve seen the girls Alik and Dimitri have
broken up with. I always said I would never be that girl. But here
I am, heart broken over a guy who was never my boyfriend. He kissed
me one time. Once. And he even warned me that he’s never had a
girlfriend. Why would I think I’d be the exception?

“
I’m sorry,” he says.

“
Sorry about what?” I ask, not
looking at him. I really don’t need him to break up with me. I get
it. I do. He only thought he was in love with me. Now that he
realizes he’s not, he wants to make a clean break. It’s been that
it’s happening now than a few months down the road.

He doesn’t answer my question. “Do you want to
hear about my family?”

I turn to him, feeling shocked.
He
never
talks
about his family. It’s one of those taboo subjects. I desperately
want to hear about them. What made Tristan the person he is today?
So closed off an obsessed with his job.

“
My mom and dad had the same job
as I do,” he says. “Growing up, I thought it was the coolest thing
ever. I only got to know little details about their job, but I knew
it was all top secret. My siblings and I used to always pretend we
were spies and would solve a fake crime together.”

I try to imagine a younger Tristan running
around playing with his siblings, but I can’t. He sounds like he
was happy back then. Now, there isn’t much that makes him happy. I
used to think I made him happy, but not anymore.

“
When I was a freshman, I got
accepted into a boarding school in Switzerland. All my older
siblings went there, so I was excited,” he says. “Basically, the
school trains kids. It’s top secret, but we learn different
languages, we learn how to fight, how to hack computers and
anything else they deem useful.”

“
A spy school for kids?” I ask.
“That’s so cool.”

“
I thought so,” he says. “They
don’t just train spies though. People that graduate from there
always go on to do awesome things. Some join the military, some the
CIA, some become assassins. There is a lot you can do with the
training.”

Assassins? That’s scary.

Spy school doesn’t sound so awesome
anymore.

“
My mom and dad had been working
on a case for a few years. They were taking down a Russian
terrorist group,” he says. “The group your dad formed. And they
were close. Really, really close. While I was away at school, the
group found my parents and two of my siblings. They were
murdered.”

I want to say something, but I’m
not sure
what
to
say. My dad is basically the reason his parents are dead. And I
know he changed. He’s working for the good guys now. But he’s
working to clean up a mess that
he
made.

“
My other siblings all got as far
away from this as possible. But I wanted to finish what they
started,” he says. “They told me as long as I have this job, they
don’t want anything to do with me. I can’t blame them. Some of them
have kids of their own. And we’ve lost so much already. They don’t
want to lose more.”

“
So you lost all of your family,”
I say.

He nods.

“
I’m sorry, Tristan.”

“
My parents knew the risk,” he
says. “And so do I. I have given up everything to take down this
organization.”

“
Which means that you definitely
aren’t going to let some random sixteen year old girl get in the
way,” I say. “Especially not considering it’s my dad’s fault your
parents and siblings are dead.”

“
It’s not your fault,” Tristan
says. “It’s not even your dad’s fault. If it wouldn’t have been
this group, it would’ve been another. My parents knew the risk to
them and to their kids. They took the risk, because their job was
important. The world is a safer place because of what they
did.”

Still…

“
And you’re not just a random
sixteen year old girl. Not to me. Not anymore,” he says.

I want to ask him what he means by that, but
I’m scared that it won’t mean what I want it to. I can’t get my
hopes up when it comes to him. This is the one guy on the planet
that could shatter my heart.

“
I know that I should keep my
distance from you and that we should definitely wait until your
seventeenth birthday to make this official, but I don’t want to
wait,” he says. “Because I hate not talking to you. And even though
you’ve been right there the past couple days, I miss you. I can
tell you miss me too.”

I do miss him.

More than anything.

“
You’re a distraction. I can’t
stop thinking about you,” he says, now looking me directly in the
eye. I feel like he’s gazing into my soul and seeing the inner most
parts of me. The good and the bad. But it doesn’t matter, because
he likes everything he sees. “And I thought keeping my distance
would be better. That I could keep you safer. But it doesn’t matter
how far away you are. I’m always thinking about you. Always. And I
don’t know how to handle this. I’ve never felt like this
before.”

Me either.

But I don’t say it out loud,
because I don’t want to ruin this moment. I want him to keep
talking. No, I
need
him to keep talking. This is the most honest he’s ever been
with me. I have to know how he feels.

“
My job—taking down this group—it
has always been the most important thing in my life. Until you,” he
says. “Now, I would give it all up for you. But the thing is,
you’re in danger. I have to finish this. It’s no longer about
getting revenge for my family. It’s about protecting
you.”

My heart beats hard. Because I realize now
that Tristan feels the same way about me as I do about him. It’s
not one sided. He hasn’t changed his mind. If anything, he has fell
more in love with me. Which equally excites and frightens
me.

“
I want to finish this assignment
for you. And then I want to be with you. Not as Tristan Thomas. But
as the real me. Tristan Copeland. I want to do this properly. I
want to meet your family and I want you to meet mine. I want to
take you out on dates and do all the other romantic stuff that I’ll
have to Google, because I don’t know the first thing about
romance.”

I giggle.

It’s so girly, but I don’t care. This moment
is making me feel girly. I’ve never had somebody say what he’s
saying to me. It’s what I’ve been waiting a long time to
hear.

“
I want you to be my girlfriend,
Katerina,” he says.

“
I want that as well,” I
say.

He smiles. “So does that mean you’re my
girlfriend?”

“
I suppose it does.”

Going through all of this—terrorist chasing
me, having bodyguards follow my every move, getting kidnapped—it is
all worth it. Because without it, I wouldn’t have met
Tristan.

If anybody is worth getting kidnapped for,
it’s Tristan.

FIVE

Halloween.

It’s Halloween.

In Russia, Halloween isn’t really acknowledged
by many. But in America, I guess everybody dresses up in costumes
for the occasion. It’s weird, but Savannah tells me that they pass
out candy during school.

American candy is growing on me, but I still
think it’s way too sweet.

“
What are you supposed to be?” I
ask Savannah.

“
Lily,” she says.

I look at her.

“
From Tekken,” she
says.

What?

“
It’s a game,” she
explains.

I shrug.

Savannah kind of looks like a character from
one of those Japanese anime cartoons.

“
You’re hopeless,” she says. “Who
are you supposed to be?”

I look down at the normal clothes I always
wear. “Katerina Vasin.”

“
Lame. You’re supposed to dress
up. It’s Halloween!”

“
Americans like to dress up a lot
in costumes,” I say. “First spirit week and now
Halloween.”

“
It’s fun,” she says. “We get to
pretend to be somebody else for a day.”

There is a knock on the door. I open it and
see Tristan standing on the other side.

“
Wow. You actually knocked,” I
say, opening the door wider. He also isn’t wearing a costume. I
didn’t expect him to.

“
You guys are lame,” Savannah
says, when she sees him. “And you’re kind of perfect for each
other. You can be lame together.”

“
Why do you look like a Japanese
anime character?” Tristan asks Savannah.

“
I’m a character from a game!
Geez, you guys need to get out more.” She pauses. “I wonder how
many times I’m going to be asked that question today,” she says,
walking past us out the door.

I’d say she is probably going to get asked
that question a lot.

“
Where is your costume?” Tristan
asks.

“
I don’t do Halloween,” I answer.
“What about you?”

“
Me either,” he says. “Though,
when I was a kid, my parents couldn’t get me to wear anything
besides a Spiderman costume. Apparently I used to go around
pretending to shoot a web out of my hand all the time. I thought I
was a superhero.”

I laugh, wondering what Tristan was like as a
kid. I try to imagine him running around in a Spiderman
costume.

“
I bet you were an awesome
Spiderman,” I say.

“
Absolutely,” he says,
grinning.

“
I always just did whatever my
brothers wanted to do when I was little,” I tell him.

“
I highly doubt that,” Tristan
says. “Alik told me you were spoiled. He said you were cute and
could get your brothers to do whatever you wanted. You’d just pout
or cry and they’d give in to you.”

“
That only worked when I was
little,” I say.

“
I’m pretty sure you could still
convince Alik to do anything you want,” he says. “So, what is the
deal with your cousin and Salvador? I saw the two of them hanging
out yesterday in the student lounge.”

“
I introduced them,” I say. “I
think she has a crush on him.”

“
Huh,” he says.

The door to my dorm room swings open and Alik
walks inside.

“
He never knocks,” I tell
Tristan.

“
Like you have privacy anyway,”
Alik says.

“
You’ve never knocked,” I say,
then look at Tristan. “It sucked being the only girl with three
older brothers. They always picked on me. Locking my door didn’t
work, because they would just pick the lock.”

“
Eduard wouldn’t let us pick on
you that much,” Alik says.

“
That’s why Eduard was my
favorite.”

When the words leave my mouth, I realize, for
the first time since he died, it doesn’t hurt to talk about him. I
miss him, but talking about him helps.

“
That hurts, Kat,” Alik says,
pretending to be offended. “I thought I was your
favorite.”

I laugh.

“
Do you have any siblings?” Alik
asks Tristan.

“
Um… yeah. Two sisters and three
brothers,” Tristan answers. “My youngest sister and oldest brother
are dead, though. So now I just have three siblings. And the last I
heard, my older sister has three kids and my older brother has one
kid. And my younger brother is in college, I think.”

“
You don’t talk to
them?”

“
Not anymore.”

“
That is sad,” Alik says. “I can’t
imagine not talking to Kat or Dimitri. I had a rough time accepting
the fact that my parents were sending Kat to America for school. I
mean, I knew it was for the best, but I wanted her close. I’m glad
I’m in America with her so I can take care of her.”

“
Why does everybody think I need
taken care of?” I ask.

“
Maybe because you’re so short,”
Tristan says.

“
Or maybe because you were
kidnapped,” Alik says.

“
Whatever,” I say. “I need
caffeine. Let’s go get breakfast.”