Read Online Sekret by Lindsay Smith - Free Book Online Page B

Spartak’s playing Dinamo tonight,” he says.
    I hesitate. Ivan and Larissa are already slinking off, and I know better than to follow. Misha and Masha are latched on to Major Kruzenko like thistles on a sock. If Rostov leaves, it might be my perfect opportunity to break into Kruzenko’s office, if I can ditch my spider entourage. Or I could approach Valentin, who’s watching me from the doorway—this morning he hinted at knowing something and information is the most valuable currency.
    But then Colonel Rostov approaches us. “Come, boys. We must work on our special task, yes?” He laughs, but Sergei and Valentin both abruptly hang their heads, as if he’s just scolded them, and—even I am not paranoid enough to imagine this, I swear it’s true—both their gazes dart toward mine for one guilty, piercing second before they follow Rostov into Kruzenko’s office.
    In this moment, I decide to trust no one. I can’t count on Larissa and Masha, who won’t tell me the truth of who, what I am. Not on Ivan and Misha, too absorbed in their own success to consider breaking free. Not on Sergei who gives up his life for a morning on the ice. And especially not Valentin, with his heavy, lovely, intrusive eyes.
    I will have to find freedom for myself, though I fear it will take longer than I’d first hoped. I can bide my time until I find out where Mama and Zhenya are being held—I can smile and mimic Masha’s enthusiasm until I have everything I need to make my escape. But as Rostov’s psychic noise echoes through my skull, I’m not certain I can even trust myself.

 
    CHAPTER 9
    IT TAKES ME SOME TIME to fall asleep. I listen to the silky sighs of Masha and Larissa, but fear Rostov’s steel wool scrubbing my shield raw. When exhaustion finally claims me, I find myself in a strange dream: I am sitting around the table in our summer dacha with Mama and Papa. Mama with her hair still long like when I was little, and Papa—almost unrecognizable in his old glasses and ill-fated attempt at a beard. Zhenya sits with them, so tiny and frail—he doesn’t look more than five or six. He is whistling three notes to himself over and over like a sniper calling his comrades out of hiding. His lips are glossy with spittle but he doesn’t quit. Mama keeps pinching the bridge of her nose—she is getting a headache from the whistling—and Papa pours himself a glass of vodka—he refuses to look Zhenya in the eye.
    “No,” Papa says after too many minutes staring into his drink. “I don’t care what Anton offers. We can’t go back to that, Antonina. We can’t.”
    “They’ll find out one way or another. At least then, we’d be close—we could keep an eye on her…”
    Wee-oo-toot. Zhenya giggles to himself. My heart aches just watching my little brother. His high cheekbones, dusted with a fine powder of freckles just like Mama and me; same straight black hair and wispy frame we inherited from Papa. His face is one of pure bliss. He finds perfection in those three notes.
    Papa looks at him, skin too tight around his eyes. “He needs us more, Nina. All the children like him at the clinic do.”
    “It’s glorified brainwashing.” Mama’s lip curls. “They’ll never be cured of their illnesses.”
    “Then let me try it my way,” Papa says, and reaches straight for me.
    I scream, but my voice is a shadow, and the darkness is filling in like a fresh grave.
    Wee-oo-toot.
    I wake up tangled in thin bed sheets, the harsh floodlights in the courtyard spraying blue across the dark room. I reach for Mama and Zhenya, expecting to find them by my side, but there’s emptiness, just too many unclaimed cots. Floorboards creak in the distance as a guard makes his rounds.
    The dream has the fuzzy shape of a memory, although I can’t remember it actually occurring. What were my parents afraid of and what were they doing to me? And where did this strange vision come from? Cold sweat presses like a hand on my forehead.
    I burrow back