Too much rage floods my veins. I can’t keep this all inside. Don’t be an empath, Yulia. Don’t bottle it up. I have to get these feelings out of me, can’t let them swell like Anastasia’s did. I have to find a way to get them out.
My palms vibrate against the tabletop like the hangover of a dramatic chord after Valentin’s hammered it on the piano. I’m pulled into the wood, an undertow slamming me against it, and just as quickly, my emotions fizzle out. I can’t remember what made me so angry, so frightened, though I remember feeling that way.
Major Kruzenko leaps up from the table like she’s been scalded. Her eyes are ringed in white. Can she feel what I felt? For a second, I can see my anger’s shadow on her face. “Yes! Yes, you have done everything we’ve asked.” She backs away from me. Her fingers tap against her thighs like an SOS. “Your dedication is not the problem. But there are certain difficulties—”
“I will see my brother.” The absence of emotion is like the sky opening wide. I can be as cold, as determined as I need to be. “This week.”
Kruzenko snaps her heels together and nods, jowls wobbling. “Of course. I will do my best. Your hard work and dedication will only add to the glory of the Soviet Union.” That Russian shrug as she backs away, fear burning hot in the whites of her eyes. She leaves in a hurry, a thick slime-trail of gypsy music in her wake.
CHAPTER 25
MISHA, MASHA, SERGEI, and I are riding in the back of a truck. It sounds like the start of a tasteless joke. Two sociopaths, a ladykiller, and a paranoiac walk into a KGB van. No one walks out. Sergei’s too close to me. He’s finally caught on that I’m giving him the silent treatment, but I don’t like his shoulder so close to mine, skittering with anxious noise cloaked in Tchaikovsky. When I look at him, I taste sticky champagne.
But today I am less concerned with Sergei’s misguided affection and more with the feeling that I’m a tool selected for a specialized task. Colonel Rostov. He brought us into the truck, though the details are hazy. I don’t entirely remember it happening. No matter, we’re here now. The truck slows, and the tires squeal against cement, echoing as if indoors.
Rostov throws open the hatch for us. “Come.” We’re in a circular tunnel, streaked with water stains. Only one guard, the truck driver, marches behind us with his rifle at the ready. The tunnel is dimly lit from overhead, but to either end of the tunnel I can only see darkness. I don’t think it’s near the secret Metro line; no cool rush of air, no rumble in my chest of an approaching train. We are so deep within the earth that there aren’t even rats.
“Calm down. You’re too worked up,” Sergei whispers to me—I feel it more than hear it—as he brushes past. I sink into Shostakovich’s music and Yevtushenko’s words like a fresh drift of snow. How little we can see and smell … We are denied the leaves, we are denied the sky.
Rostov ducks into an alcove, his shiny boots scraping across the concrete, and unlocks a metal door. Stark yellow and black triangles on its interior mark the tunnel we just left as a nuclear fallout shelter. I try to imagine living there for twenty, thirty years while Russia rots and festers above. I think I’d rather take my chances in the blinding white forever at the moment of impact.
We climb. We climb like clawing from the earth, up a narrow ladder that flakes with rust under our palms. Twice my snow-soaked boots slip on the rungs; stale air weighs down on our shoulders, daring us to fall. Masha huffs and puffs ahead of me, too frail for this work, while Sergei nudges impatiently at my heels.
Finally we reach the top of the ladder and move through double doors into a metal room that makes me think of the hull of a giant ship. “Mikhail, come with me,” Rostov says. Misha sidles up to him. “You will maintain a link to Maria. Maria and Sergei, you will open a viewing where Mikhail and I go. Please be aware of anything in our surroundings that we do not notice.”
Masha’s hand flies into the air. Rostov’s face stretches even longer as he nods to her. “Comrade Colonel. Permission to manipulate the environment?” she asks.
“What, your attempts at telekinesis?” Rostov asks. “Please, Maria, this is a delicate operation. We must minimize our chances of detection. Observe only, please—no interacting.
“Oh. And Yulia.” Rostov whirls on me. His eyes are shadowed wells beneath the brim of his KGB officers’ hat. “You will observe through Maria and Sergei, and then Mikhail and I will indicate what I want you to read. I believe you are strong enough now that you can use your powers through theirs.”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel.” I drop my gaze to the floor. I’ve only linked powers once before, in training. I’m not sure I’m ready to perform under pressure.