With a defensive folding of his arms, he studied the shelves with a scrutiny more suited to emotionally moving art or really good porn than the feminine-hygiene products that were actually there. “What are we looking for anyway?” he asked with the avoidance of a pro.
We walked on, leaving the aisle of no-man’s-land until we reached hair care products. “Anything your tree- hating little heart desires.” I picked up two boxes at random and shook them in his direction. “And dye. Red or blond?”
He caught the implication instantly. “You must be joking.”
“Blond it is.” I put the red back with the rueful realization of why I’d picked the other color. It was more familiar to me than the brown Michael had now. Swiftly checking one way, then the other, I stuffed the small box into the wad of jacket I’d carried in over my arm for just that purpose. Belatedly, I glanced at the smaller figure beside me. “By the way, stealing is bad, okay? Don’t steal.” Considering, I added, “Or smoke. And don’t drink and drive.” Wait, he was seventeen. “Scratch that last one. Don’t drink at all.” It wasn’t the entire summary of knowledge required for teens, but it was the best I could do at the moment.
“You’re . . .” He shook his head. Apparently there were no words for what I was, and he let it go to pursue another subject. “Why are you stealing it? You have money.”
“If anyone trails us here, I don’t want them to know we’ve changed our looks.” How I was going to change my appearance was more problematic. I had thought of cutting my hair, but that would only make my scar more noticeable. In the cosmetic department I found the answer: makeup specially constructed to cover scars. That, combined with a haircut, should change me enough to escape anything but a good, hard stare.
“Snack cake aisle is just down there, Misha.” I pointed with one hand while tucking away the glass jar with the other. “That we’ll pay for. Short of pretending one of us is pregnant, there’s no way we can smuggle what you can eat out of here.”
He gave me a look, one far too haughty for a seventeen-year-old, but he went. He always had been smart as hell, far too much so to bite off his nose to spite his face. I watched as he loaded up with box after box of empty calories. “I’ve created a monster,” I groaned under my breath, deciding to pick up some vitamins before we hit the cash register. Kids took vitamins, didn’t they? I remembered our housekeeper’s buying them for Lukas and me after our mom died. I hadn’t taken them, but I vaguely remembered a bottle of colorful characters on the bathroom counter.
We waited in line for nearly ten minutes. Sandwiched between a harassed lady with three sociopathic children and a teenage couple working desperately on making one of their own, I noticed Michael moving his weight from foot to foot. It was a minute motion, barely detectable, but it allowed me to pick up his discomfort. In the past two days with me he’d been exposed to more of the outside world than in two years at the Institute. He and the other kids may have studied it until their eyes watered; it wasn’t the same. This was direct, unrelenting contact with a basically alien existence. It was enough to shake up even the coolest customer.
I dumped the items that I actually intended to pay for onto the counter. “Hang in there,
The pink deepened. “Maybe,” he replied, noncommittally.
I grinned at him, then transferred the flash of teeth at the cashier in the hopes of hurrying her along. She stopped tapping keys long enough to give me a smile back. It’d been a long time since I’d flirted, even superficially, with a woman. Long dark brown hair as straight as a fall of water, bittersweet chocolate eyes, and a tiny diamond piercing her nose, she was a good place to start, but she had to be eighteen at the most. She was too young, and this wasn’t exactly the best time. I slapped down hormones that had been in hibernation for what seemed like years and passed over the cash.
I’d always known that saving Lukas would be saving myself, but to feel the internal thaw . . . to feel ice cracking over black water to let in the first ray of light in ten years . . . It was unexpected in its ferocity. I hadn’t imagined it would be like this. I couldn’t have imagined.
In college my scar and questionable family background hadn’t held me back on the dating scene. At that time I’d used the occasional relationship and anything-but-occasional sex to forget my guilt over my brother’s disappearance. After college I had only one relationship, Natalie. And after she left, I gave up on relationships altogether. I wasn’t especially good at them, so who needed them? And sex was easy enough to find at Koschecka if I was in the mood.
I rarely was. When you’re filled with guilt and rage it doesn’t leave much room for the more healthy emotions . . . ones that were beginning to swell in me again. I gave the girl another smile, wistful and wicked, as she gave me my change and receipt, then prodded Michael into motion. “Let’s go, kiddo. We have more shopping to do.”
The shopping I had in mind took place in the parking lot. As with most places, the employees had a spot at the far end designated for their cars so the customers wouldn’t be crowded out. Chances were a car stolen here would go the longest before being missed. I’d already gathered everything out of our old car and given it a quick wipe down. Now I stood casually on the back curb of the lot and made my choice—an old gray Toyota; it didn’t get more nondescript than that, or easier to steal. I’d pulled a jimmy, a thin piece of flexible metal—an old tool for an old ride—out of my duffel bag as I automatically tested the door handle. It was unlocked, unbelievable as that was in this cynical day and age. Motioning Michael around to the passenger side, I started, “Remember what I said. Stealing—”
“Is wrong. Yes, I know.” He put the drugstore bag in the back and then climbed in. His language was always so precise. I didn’t expect it would last. He had picked up swearing from me; sloppy speech couldn’t be far behind.
Within seconds we were on the road with no sign anyone had noticed anything out of the ordinary. The hours passed and I filled them telling stories of our younger days. Mostly Michael ignored them, staring out the window or leaning his head back and pretending to nap. But there were a few times I caught the gleam of interest sparking from the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to believe because he was afraid to believe. I understood that implicitly. I’d become afraid to believe too in the past years. I refused to give up. Hell, I was incapable of giving up. Doing that would mean I’d as good as killed Lukas when I’d led him to the beach. I couldn’t give up, no, but neither had I believed . . . not really. Not with any true faith.
Yet, here he was.
I looked over at him to see pale brown lashes resting on his cheeks, but there was an alert air to him that indicated he was still awake. I felt a rush of warmth that damn near embarrassed me. Excepting Natalie and maybe Saul, I couldn’t remember the last time I gave a damn about anyone—and to this extent, never. This was my brother. This was family, true family; it wasn’t that crap people like Konstantin tried to pass off. As for Anatoly . . .
“You talk about your mother all the time.” With unfortunate timing considering my thoughts, his voice broke in quietly to be barely heard over the radio. “What about your father?”
Once again with the training . . . I could all but feel the seat beneath me turn into a psychiatrist’s couch as the kid spoke. I tried to ignore his still saying “my mother” as opposed to “our.” Small steps; it was all about small steps. Instead I concentrated on another discomfort. Good old Dad. What in God’s name could I say about him? I’d always known that the old Lukas, softhearted and innocent, would have been devastated when he eventually found out the truth. This Lukas wouldn’t be. This Lukas very probably wouldn’t give a shit. And he was far from innocent. None of that changed my reluctance to tell him the truth.
Finally, I settled on something that, while true, had nothing to do with Anatoly’s career of choice. “He loved you. Called you his little Cossack. If he had a favorite, it was you.” That had been the case with nearly everyone. Lukas had a quality then that I couldn’t explain. It was like an inner light, the kind you see in people who devote their lives to something beyond them, those who have a calling. He would’ve been someone amazing, my brother, if he hadn’t been stolen away. Now? Fuck amazing. That he was alive was more than good enough for me.
“He loved your brother more than you?” I don’t think he could help the barb he inserted in the question. He was indoctrinated to home in on weakness and vulnerabilities. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“I didn’t say that, Freud,” I said patiently. “You were special to him, but that doesn’t mean he loved me any less.” The fact that I had the love of a man who ordered men killed without a glimmer of remorse was something I’d never truly gotten a handle on. How do you feel about something like that? “You’ll see that yourself when you meet him.” And how exactly that would go I couldn’t begin to guess. As certain as Anatoly was that Lukas was
