KRUZENKO AND ROSTOV DISAPPEAR into her office after the doctor leaves. We can’t hear them argue, but the whole space around the door is electric, like if we reach for the doorknob we’d get shocked by the furious, heated thoughts buzzing around inside.
No one will say what happened when they tried to track the scrubber from the hotel room they’d found. Misha sequesters himself in the boys’ room; I try to catch Valya’s eye, but he retreats to the ballroom to tinker away at a tumultuous jazz melody. I sprawl on the ballroom floor, feeling worse than useless. He stitches new melodies, fragments of songs from his records, and other threads I don’t know into the fabric of the first tune, making an endless bolt that spools out as we wait for news. The cracked plaster ceiling overhead anchors me as the sea of notes beneath me rolls and shifts.
This is what it must feel like to wait for the atom bomb to fall. When the American cowboys tire of our angry leaders and our slipshod satellites, when they push a button and our klaxons wail a too-late warning that our molecules are about to pull apart like taffy, time must freeze with anticipation like this.
A guard storms over to the piano and rests his hand on the keyboard cover. Valentin yanks his hands back and the guard slams it down. “Dinnertime.” The guard jabs his AK-47 in the direction of the dining room.
Ivan is gone. The stretcher is gone. The table is set with one of the more lavish meals we’ve had here—smoked salmon, boiled pierogi smothered in sour cream, caviar spread on huge chunks of bread. Bottles of Sovetskoye Shampanskoye wait at each place setting. I sit between Sergei and Valentin; Misha and Masha are opposite us, with matching glum stares. Neither Larissa nor Ivan appear.
Major Kruzenko doles out pierogi for herself and starts shoveling them into her mouth. No one speaks. I plop slices of salmon onto my plate, but the nervous, fearful energy rumbling through the room keeps me from taking a bite. Even Sergei doesn’t do much more than push around his food.
Finally, Kruzenko drains the last of her Shampanskoye and scoots her chair back with an authoritative scrape. Beside her Rostov rubs his thumb idly against his Major General’s stars on his collar. I try to read his emotions, but it’s too painful to look at him straight. It makes my head throb. Bang-bang.
“Children.” Kruzenko reaches to Rostov’s free hand and slips her fingers into the gaps between his. I expect him to tear free of her, strike her for such a display. I need him to, just to show that everything is normal. But his fingers tighten upon hers. Bozhe moi, Ivan might have been right. Once upon a dismal time, these two monsters looked to each other for comfort, strength.
“Children,” Kruzenko tries again, pitching her napkin on her plate. “Today’s incident is no one’s fault but the American coward who harmed our Ivan. Please do not blame yourselves. Sometimes these things cannot be avoided.”
“But what happened?” Sergei asks. “Why isn’t anyone explaining?”
Valentin stares down his nibbled bread roll as he speaks. “He’d checked out of the room two days ago. We thought we could glean clues off the hotel workers, but then he was there—he led Ivan away from us, and—”
“Valentin Borisovich, that is enough.” Kruzenko stands. “It is not important how this came to be. Now all we can do is hope for the best for Ivan and hunt this beast down.”
“You can’t keep throwing us at him. We’re clearly not prepared,” I say. “Why not send the more advanced operatives? Like—like your parents.” I gesture to Misha and Masha. “All the rest.”
Misha and Masha look at each other; I don’t need psychic powers to tell they’re communicating in a language all their own. “They are … indisposed,” Misha says. “Important business.”
“The others have more important matters to attend to,” Rostov snarls. “It’s time you learned to take care of yourselves.” Behind his jagged expression, though, white rings his eyes. Is he himself afraid of the scrubber’s power? “Comrade Major.” He nods at Kruzenko. “I must return to headquarters.”
Kruzenko salutes him, and he turns away. His boot heels click away down the hall.
I reach out for the strands of Valentin’s thoughts—they’re there, tangled up in his jazz music, in our Tchaikovsky song, in the Beatles. What’s happened to the other psychics? I ask, trying to bundle the thought in the same knot of notes.
Not now. A new song slams around him, locking me out.
But fire is crackling in my mind as the possibilities stoke it on. The idea that I am not a wildling, that my parents have known what I am has smoldered in me for a while. But I fear it’s only the smoke of a much bigger fire. A memory, or perhaps just a dream, flashes through my mind, but it is gone in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“Misha.” Kruzenko sits back down. “Will you please report on what you did manage to find at the hotel?”