“Yes, I do. And I would do anything to get him back.”
Polly’s smiling at me when the charging icon changes to the lock screen. We both suck in a breath at the same time. I snatch up the tablet and type in my code with trembling fingers. It takes me only a few seconds to get into the device sharing app to check on the location of my laptop.
“They have it,” I say confidently. “About… forty minutes from here. Toward Pasadena.”
Polly looks at the screen. “I think that’s where we’ll find Lev.” We exchange a glance. “I… I need to tell my brothers. They can head there immediately.”
“Go ahead.”
She pulls out her phone and calls Uri first. No answer. She tries Nikolai next. No answer there, either.
“Fuck!” she yells, dropping her arm. “They’re not picking up.”
“Polly, I don’t want to repeat past mistakes—but this is different. If you let me out, I can grab my car and go after Lev myself.”
She nods. “I’m with you. Let’s go.”
“Whoa,” I grab her hand before she can fly out the basement door. “No, no, no. I can’t take you with me.”
“You’re not going without me.”
“I’m not about to put you in danger. I’ve already fucked things up with Lev. If you’re hurt, too, Uri will never forgive me.”
“Why do you care if he forgives you or not?” My mouth opens but nothing comes out. Polly waves a hand in my face. “Yeah, I know. ‘It’s complicated.’ I don’t care about your weird, dysfunctional relationship with my brother right now. All I care about is getting my brother back. You can’t do this on your own.”
“Yes, I can. Polly please—”
She plants herself in front of the basement door, arms folded across her chest. “Either I come with you or I lock you in and do this on my own. Your choice.”
I stare at her, wide-eyed. “You wouldn’t.”
“Watch me.”
“Polly—”
“Ten, nine, eight, seven… Hurry, the offer will expire in six, five, four, three, two—”
“Okay, okay, okay!” I shout. She grins mischievously as I concede. “You little terrorist. You’re a Bugrov, alright.”
She smiles as we head up the stairs. “My brothers took a bunch of men with them, so there’s limited security on the estate. Makes it easier for the both of us to get out.”
“We can try getting out through the south side again. The fence leads right to my place.”
Polly nods. “But first, we need provisions.”
She ducks into a room that I’ve never been in and I’m forced to follow her inside so that I’m not seen lurking in the corridor by one of the maids. “Polly, what provisions are you talking—Polly, wait!”
I stop short when I take in the room. Guns. There are guns everywhere. Mounted on the walls, displayed behind glass shelves, organized behind oak cabinets. There’s a separate section for the rifles, another nook for ammunition. It’s like Rambo’s wet dream in here.
“My God,” I breathe, standing there in shock.
Polly turns from one cabinet to reveal she’s holding a gun in each hand. “Here,” she says, passing me one.
I back away quickly, not wanting to be anywhere near that kind of thing. “What are you doing?”
“Alyssa, these are dangerous men we’re dealing with. We can’t just walk in unarmed.”
“Polly, I’m not even sure how to use one of these.”
“That’s okay. I do. It’s pretty simple. You load it, cock it, take aim, pull the trigger. Make sure the business end is pointing at the bad guy. Oh, and don’t miss.” She forces the gun into my hand. “Don’t worry—the safety’s on.”
I squirm in my skin. Since the moment I climbed that fence, it’s been like Alice down the rabbit hole. In my world, laundry day is on Sunday and I spend a lot of time thinking about if the sparrows will come to the bird feeder outside my window in the morning. In Polina’s world, there are rooms full of guns and bad men in white vans coming to kidnap her brother.
Things are different here.
“Come on,” Polly says urgently, tugging me forward. “The coast is clear.”
We have a shockingly easy time getting through the house. The south lawn is clear in every direction, save for when one harried guard hustles through on a lightspeed lap of the perimeter. But he’s alone and when he disappears towards the north gardens, Polly and I are able to scale the fence without a problem. No loose nails to ruin my life this time around.
Once we clear the fence, Polly and I rush around the house to my tiny garage. I locate the spare key and pray that my gas tank has some juice left in it.
“Please work, please work, please work…”
It’s not until the engine sputters to life that I let myself take a breath. Polly jumps in the passenger seat quickly and I get the feeling she’s worried I’ll leave her behind. I might have seriously considered it if I didn’t think she was totally capable of shooting my wheels and siccing her brothers on me.
I take a deep breath. “Are you ready?”
Polly nods. “I’m ready.”
And so it begins.
Kind of anticlimactically, though. It’s forty-two minutes of the most silent, boring drive ever. It feels like we’re commuting to war, which is a hilarious contradiction of mind-numbing and heart-attack-inducing.
But forty-two minutes pass one way or another. By the time we arrive, my hands are sweaty enough to slide right off the wheel.
When the houses start thinning out, I park the car on a lonely corner of the street and Polly and I head up the hill towards the location the tablet pointed out.
We see the house once we crest the hilltop. It looks nonthreatening, totally normal—but that’s probably the exact reason Lev was brought here. No one who didn’t know better would turn an eye.
Anxiety prickles at my skin as I turn to Polly. “This is the plan: we poke around, try to figure out where they’re keeping Lev. Once we’ve found him, we try to get him out as fast as possible. If anyone comes at you, shoot. Until then, stay behind me.”
“I’m the one who knows how to shoot. Shouldn’t you be behind me?”
I narrow my eyes at her. “There’s no negotiation on this one. I’m the adult here and you’re gonna listen to me.”
Polly sighs. “Fine. I’ll cover you.”
“Come on. There’s no one on this side of the house. We can sneak up to the windows and try to see if we can see inside.”
So far, I haven’t seen a single person on the property. I’m hoping that Lev’s abductors are so confident in their anonymity that they’re taking it easy. If we can take them by surprise, we might have a chance of rescuing Lev.
I glance down at the foreign weapon in my hand. I really don’t want to have to use the gun. But I know that if it comes down to protecting Lev or Polly…
I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.