Free Kursed by Lindsay Smith Page A

passenger-side window, but I can’t see inside. Are we dealing with one man? Five? Andrei has the best German of all of us, but he gave us no guidance; my nails dig into the bark of the birch tree and I scan the ground for a heavy stick.
    Then static crinkles in my ear and the hairs on my arm lift up, like an impending lightning strike. I glance toward the sky—overcast still, but no thunder, no spring rain. The noise swells and swells, more felt than heard, lacing shut my throat and pounding in my head and—
    â€œNina? Olya? Friedrich?” Andrei shouts.
    I lurch forward, gasping for air. But whatever sickness had overtaken me has passed; the air is cool and ripe with the promise of springtime, and nothing more. I step out of the tree line, head lowered as I search for any signs the Germans have seen through Andrei’s ruse, but Andrei’s lounging against the hood of the car’s engine casing, laughing with another SS officer who’s all sharp angles and rodent teeth.
    â€œCome on, Nina, come, don’t be afraid! This is Rudolph. Can I call you Rudy? Yes, I think I shall. Rudy here—he’s supposed to be headed to Berlin for some big meeting, hush-hush, we’re about to lose the war, you know how it goes. But, mein Gott, who wants to drive for hours just to get yelled at? And I hear that Adolf, he tends to spray it more than say it, right?”
    Rudy howls with laughter and slaps his palm against the car’s hood. “Yes! Yes, that’s exactly it! Like standing in front of a fountain when he yells at you!”
    Andrei grins, the slippery-wet cat grin of a true believer. It pierces me as quick as a bullet. “So I told Rudy about our little cabin in the woods, and he thinks he’d rather hang out there until all this nonsense passes. Get his story straight, sweet-talk the English whenever they inevitably bulldozer their way over the Buchenwald. And let’s be honest, Rudy. They are coming, in weeks if not days.”
    Rudy plucks his black hat and dabs a handkerchief to his brow. “Mein Gott. We really have gotten ourselves into a mess, haven’t we? I’m glad you’ve got a plan out of it.”
    I’m watching them banter back and forth like a flawlessly timed comedy routine, and it feels like I’ve swallowed broken glass. This Nazi—this high-ranking SS officer —can’t possibly give up so easily, just because some man in a dirty uniform wants to be his best chum. And Andrei—I barely recognize him, he’s morphed so fully into the sleazy Nazi deserter that if it weren’t for those wire-rim glasses and those twinkling eyes of mischief, I wouldn’t ever know it was him.
    It makes me sick.
    â€œâ€”so we’ll just take the keys, get this car back to Berlin—that’ll help your story, not having your car with you, don’t you know—and wish you the best of luck, Deutschland über alles, Rudolph, auf Wiedersehn!”
    Rudy plops the keys into Andrei’s outstretched palm, wraps him in a one-armed embrace, then stoically makes his way toward the forest, passing a slack-jawed Olga and Stokowski.
    I kick off my heels as soon as we’re inside the car and curl up into a tight ball, leaning as far away from Andrei as I can as he steers us back onto the road. For a few minutes, nothing but dire German news broadcasts on the radio fill the black leather interior, twisting the scowls on Olga’s and my faces until my jaw aches.
    â€œWhat?” Andrei asks finally. He glances at me in short bursts, not wanting to take his eyes from the road too long. “Nina, what’s the matter?”
    I squash myself into the far corner of the front passenger seat. Far away from him. “Who are you, really? What are you?”
    â€œI’m a psychic! Same as you. Same as Olga here—”
    â€œBut you’re not a remote viewer. You’re not just a remote viewer.”
    Andrei puffs