“I made pancakes.” He puts a plate in front of me when I sit down at the table. “Eighteen. One for each year.”
“Is that what those brownish ovals are?” I give him a questioning look. “And isn’t it supposed to be a candle for each year, not pancakes?”
“Aha!” He winks and brings his hands out from behind his back. He’s holding a cupcake with a lit candle. The strawberry vanilla cupcake from the local Italian bakery that I like. It’s a miracle he didn’t burn his clothes standing like that.
“Thank you.” I take the pastry and place it on the table. “And thanks for wearing a clean lab coat on this special occasion.”
“You’re welcome.” He’s acting like he didn’t hear my ribbing about the lab coat. “Make a wish.”
A wish. All of a sudden, I feel an ache in my chest. None of my wishes are happy. None are normal. A normal girl would wish to meet a nice guy, someone who’s fun and good-looking. But not me. I wish I could find my parents’ killers and the person who sent them, and then find the will and fortitude to kill them.
“Is something the matter?” Eugene asks.
“No,” I lie, smoothing out my frown. “It’s silly.”
“You wish they were here to say happy birthday?” he says softly, switching to Russian.
I nod. It seems pointless to put it into words. As pointless as wishing.
We share a silence during which I stab the first of my eighteen pancakes with my fork and take a bite.
A bite that I have to stop myself from spitting out.
“Eugene . . .” I try to swallow the soggy, half-cooked lump in my mouth. “These are awful.”
Oh crap. As soon as I see the hurt look on his face, I realize I could’ve been more tactful. But seriously, these are the worst-tasting pancakes I’ve ever had.
“Sorry.” He demonstratively puts a pancake into his own mouth and chews it. “I did what the algorithm said.” His expression doesn’t change; if he can taste the problem, he’s not showing it.
“They’re called recipes, not algorithms.” I move the plate toward him. “And I’m sure it called for butter and salt, things that make food yummy—stuff that’s clearly missing from these pancake-esque thingies.”
“Potato, potahto . . . Recipes are algorithms.” He spears another pancake onto his fork. “And salt and butter are bad for you anyway.”
“A lot of good stuff is bad for you.” I reach for the cupcake he bought for me and place it on my plate. “And it’s funny you brought up potatoes. Did you put that in these pancakes? Because there’s this aftertaste—”
“I’m not an idiot, Mira,” he says. “If I made potato pancakes, I would call them draniki. Do you remember how—”
He doesn’t have to finish that question. Of course I remember Mom’s draniki. A cross between pancakes and hash browns, they were the most delicious things ever—and a part of my childhood I’ll never have again.
I interrupt him by demonstratively blowing out the candle and taking a bite of my cupcake, making that yumminess-signifying, “Mmmmmmm,” as I do so.
Eugene smiles at first, but then his face goes dark, an expression so intense and unnatural for him that it frightens me. And considering he’s looking over my shoulder, I’m really hoping it’s not a huge-ass spider.
“What’s that?” He points in that same direction.
“What’s what?” Oh shit. Maybe it’s one of those giant cockroaches that thrive in this building’s garbage disposal system. Or their competitors, the rats.
“That.” He stands up and peers at me. “The black-and-blue claw mark on your arm.”
I look at my left bicep. Fuck. It seems that Shkillet left a bruise when he grabbed me yesterday.
“It’s nothing.” I tug my sleeve down—not that it does much good. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s not nothing.” An even darker look crosses his face. “How stupid do you think I am?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?” I take a bite of my cupcake and regret it immediately. I know where this is going, and the delicious cupcake begins to taste like cardboard.
“I heard you come in late last night.” He sits back down slowly. “You were doing that again. You were consorting with those monsters.”
“Calm down.” I brush the cupcake crumbs from my fingers.
“How the hell am I supposed to calm down?” He plants his palms on the table, about to shove himself upright again—until I grab his arm. I can feel the tension in him as he yells, “You’re coming home with fucking bruises, and you’re telling me not to worry about it? It’s my job to protect you, and you’re on your way to getting yourself killed!”
“Lower your voice, please,” I say through clenched teeth. “It’s not your fucking job to protect me.”
“How can you be so dumb—”
I’ve had enough. Grabbing the plate from the table, I hurl it toward the stove.
Eugene watches it shatter with utter shock, even though this isn’t the first tantrum he’s seen me throw in his lifetime. More like the hundredth in the past two years alone.
“Mira, I—” he begins.
“Shut up.” I rise to my feet.
“Wait, Mirochka. Seriously, I’m sorry—”
I don’t hear the rest because I storm into my bedroom and slam the door shut behind me. Then I crank up some music and begin throwing clothes into a bag: something casual, a gym outfit, and, on a whim, a nice dress I bought months ago after a spree of poker wins. I also throw in some shoes. I want to make sure I have what I need so I won’t have to come back here today—because if I do, I’ll have to deal with Eugene’s sulking.
“I’m not mad,” I say when I open the door again. “I just need to get out of the apartment.”
“Don’t go, Mirochka—”
“Thank you for the birthday wishes.” I sling the bag over my shoulder. “I mean it. It was nice.”
“You’re welcome.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Eugene knows me well enough to know there’s no salvaging this situation right now.
Still, I feel like the biggest asshole as I leave the house.
*
Yoga class helps a little. A pretty boy checking out my yoga-pants-clad butt helps a little more. After the gym, I head to my favorite sushi place. That and hot sake make me feel almost like a normal person.
Almost like my birthday is worth celebrating.
Determined to enjoy feeling normal for as long as possible, I take a lengthy walk on the Brighton Beach boardwalk. I try to stay focused on the nice weather, but my thoughts eventually turn to my investigation, as they always do these days.
They said my parents’ death was a mob-on-mob hit. Eugene Read the detectives investigating the case, and learned that the police had cut short the investigation as soon as they learned of the Russian mob’s involvement. But my dad was never in the Russian mob. He was a scientist, like Eugene. It didn’t make any sense until Eugene told me something else that he saw in the mind of the detectives: signs of Pushing.
Pushers are the other side of the coin among people who can enter the Mind Dimension. They’re like us—except they control people’s minds, instead of reading them. And they hate us just as much as we hate them. It’s not a huge surprise those evil fuckers are involved in this somehow, especially given Dad’s research into our abilities.