“Wendy’s the first of her kind.” Weariness peeled his face like an apple, leaving pale vulnerability in plain sight. “She’s the only one of us who doesn’t need to touch. For her they keep tranquilizer darts, and even that might not work. But Wendy likes it there, and she likes what she’s being groomed to do. She doesn’t kill because they make her. She kills because she wants to.”
It was a grim end to an even grimmer conversation. I had more questions, but they could wait. Michael had had enough for the night whether he realized it or not. “Yeah? Well, I like what I can do too. And that’s boss your scrawny butt around.” Standing, I picked up the pair of sweatpants he liked to sleep in. He had laid them out with anal-retentive neatness on the bed in preparation for bed. I wadded them in hand and tossed them in his direction. “Bedtime.”
He caught them as he wavered between dignity and indignation. “I’m not a child.”
But he was, and one so wounded that I was amazed he managed to be the bright, inquisitive, and fundamentally good person he was.
“Would my hanging you by your ankles until you begged for mercy prove any different?” I grinned wickedly.
“You wouldn’t dare.” He meant it too. He still harbored the suspicion that at some level I feared what he could do to me if he chose. As if he would do to me what he refused to do to those who tried to attack him. In so many ways he was damned brilliant, but in other ways he had serious catching up to do. Trusting me and trusting himself—he’d get there. I’d make sure of it.
I didn’t actually have to follow through on the threat. Once I was close enough to swipe at his ankles, he gave in and went to get ready for bed. His heavy step was enough to let me know the push had been necessary. He wouldn’t admit it, but talking about his friend—perhaps the only friend he had ever known—had taken a lot out of him. It had drained me, and I’d only been doing the listening. One childhood mistake had led to years of pain that couldn’t be forgotten or erased.
It was my mistake and Michael’s pain.
The sound of brushing teeth brought me out of my self-pitying funk. “Be sure to floss,” I called out as I moved to set up the first aid kit on the table by the window.
Leaning through the door, he said indistinctly around a mouthful of foam, “Once again, I’ve got to ask. You were in the Russian mob? Really?”
“Believe it.” I unscrewed the top of the antibiotic cream. “I threw guys down and committed vicious dental hygiene on them against their will. They called me the Flosser. Don’t make me do the same to you.”
“Mmm hmm. Frightening.” With complete unconcern, he disappeared back into the bathroom.
If he hadn’t been exhausted, the remark would’ve been much more biting, I knew. He was coming along. He truly was. I changed my bandage with now-practiced hands. The wound, too, was coming along. Not with the speed Michael would’ve shown, but for your average person who got shot in the side, it was doing well enough. As for my head, it still ached, but not as fiercely. I’d put away the pain pills that morning. A little pain was worth enduring to keep your edge. The dizziness and nausea had mostly faded as well. They only popped up once or twice a day at the most, usually in the face of Michael’s enormous and not particularly selective appetite. That kid would eat anything, and I did mean anything—the more grease the better.
By the time I finished cleaning up, Michael was in bed with the ferret paws up on the pillow beside him. Walking over, I switched off the lamp. “ ’ Night, Misha.”
He was already gone, one hand tucked under the pillow. Except for the rat, it was a warm and homey scene straight from the past. We hadn’t shared a room when we were younger; the age difference was enough that I wanted my own. But there were times I’d walk in and find Lukas asleep in my bed with one of my comics clutched in his hand. Kid brothers . . . What could you do?
Pulling the covers up over his shoulders, I sat on the edge of the opposite bed and watched him sleep. It probably wasn’t a first for him. He’d as much as said the Institute either watched or listened to him, John, and the other children at night while they slept. I was still thinking about the lost John and wondering. He had the Never Never Land name, but it was also Jericho’s. And then there was the resemblance Michael had mentioned. Could it be that Jericho had done his malicious work on his own flesh and blood, his own namesake? That might explain the abolishment of the John designation. That was a definitive sign of personal interest, personal offense.
Personal rage.
That was telling. He did have emotion. It was doubtful that any of them were the good kind, but they did exist and that could reveal weaknesses in him. Another thing it revealed was that if Jericho would kill his own family, the things he would do to us were worth avoiding—very much so. That wasn’t news to me, by any means, but it was an unpleasant reminder.
Didn’t life just love to hand those out?
Chapter 21
“No luck?”
I looked up from the cell phone in my hand to see Michael sitting balanced on the overlook wall. We were currently stopped at a national forest in Georgia, and I couldn’t have pried Michael away with a crowbar. He was in awe of the massively tumbling waterfall below. The breathtaking sight along with the rushing sound and rising rainbow mist enthralled him. It was something to see, I admitted, and the view Michael was getting was even more spectacular because he was seeing it for the first time. It wasn’t just the waterfall, but everything that went along with it: wild, green nature in general. Institute field trips had consisted of places where people—victims— congregated. This was something entirely new and pictures in books hadn’t done it justice. Leaning so far over the edge that I’d had to restrain the urge to grab a handful of his shirt, my brother had watched the violent storm of water for nearly a full hour. Hair gone damp and floating on the wind, he finally was able to tear himself away long enough to watch my last futile call.
“No. Reception here is for shit.” It was true, but there was a bigger truth behind it. I could have had a tower up my ass and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Anatoly wasn’t to be found. We hadn’t kept the closest contact since I’d graduated college, just the occasional call or holiday visit, but he had made it clear that if I needed him I’d be able to track him down. That I was finding it so difficult wasn’t a good sign. The feds must be hot on his heels for him to go under this deep.
“Who are you trying to call?” With face flushed from the chilled air, he was bundled in a jacket with the sky behind him in a brilliant blue backdrop. Except for an unusual inner stillness and eyes too old for his face, he looked like any other kid on vacation.
“Didn’t I tell you?” I asked, surprised. At the shake of his head I stretched out my legs and lay back on the picnic table. “Jesus, talk about your scrambled brains.” The sun was distant and its warmth nonexistent, but I closed my eyes anyway and pretended I was back in Miami soaking up the rays—or maybe in Key West. It would be in the seventies there, almost perfect. I might be the first generation out of the home country, but cold had never been a friend of mine.
“Did that happen before or after you hit your head on the car?”
“Punk-ass kid,” I said with sleepy equanimity as the light glowed red through my eyelids. “I’m trying to reach Anatoly. Our father,” I amended, opening my eyes to slide my gaze his way.
“Anatoly.” A sneakered foot sketched a triangle in the dirt, as precisely equilateral as if he’d used a ruler. “You don’t call him Dad? In the movies . . .” He stopped himself, having already learned the hard way that movies weren’t as accurate as they could be.
“When I was younger.” Much, much younger. I hadn’t exactly lived the
“He’s used to being in charge. I guess it’s rather like having a father who’s a general in the army. He’s a boss
