Free Kursed by Lindsay Smith Page B

his cheeks, then lets his breath out in a slow whistle.
    â€œYou—you manipulate people. Like Rostov does. I believed you, at first, when you said you just gave the guard a little push—I assumed that you were only just tapping into that ability for the first time. But no! No, you’ve known you can do this.”
    Andrei’s Adam’s apple quavers as he swallows; his jaw is wound up tight like a spindle. “I am nothing like Anton Rostov,” he says, voice thin and low. It sounds like black ice.
    â€œYou did it to me when we met with Stalin, too, didn’t you?” I bash the heel of my palm against my forehead. “Bozhe moi, but I’m an idiot. I thought I was having another vision—a strange, vivid one. But you—you tried to erase a moment of time from everyone, so you could answer Stalin correctly. Because you knew he was out of patience with you, that he wouldn’t wait for you to do another test.”
    I’m fuming, churning like an overworked furnace, my anger hot and dry and stifling inside of me. Why have I let this man get under my skin so? The way he looked at me last night felt so honest, felt like finding a piece of myself I hadn’t known was missing. But how can I trust my own feelings, my own judgment? I’m too used to being lied to, manipulated, used. It’s part and parcel of working with the Party.
    I just thought, perhaps, I’d found one soul who wouldn’t treat me that way. I wanted him to be merely gifted—not also cursed.
    I wanted what I feel for him to be genuine.
    Andrei tugs at the collar of his jacket as if it’s suddenly too tight, though he’s still wearing it open. “All right, all right, so I have perhaps noticed a slight … addition to my powers, lately, that hadn’t been there before.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by ‘lately’?” Olga asks, eyeing him from the backseat.
    â€œLess than a year. It makes sense, doesn’t it? That our powers aren’t stagnant, that they evolve and grow alongside us. In any case, it’s not like I have an instruction manual or Comintern edict to work from when dealing with my power. It’s all trial and error. I’d never even met anyone like me until we did that research project together, I swear!”
    I seize a fistful of wool skirt. “You knew what I was even then?”
    â€œI—I’d catch glimpses. Like I told you—I wasn’t trying to read your mind, but there were times when I saw past the Firebird surrounding you, not even meaning to, and that’s when I saw … those visions. Those images from the future. Nothing definite, just fragmentary. Washed out. Yes, I suspected, but couldn’t think of how to bring it up.” Andrei’s skin turns from a pleasant shade of olive to a deep, bruised, beet red. Where is his camouflage now? “You understand, don’t you, how crazy it sounds? Asking someone out of the blue if they’re psychic. I didn’t want you thinking I—I mean, I didn’t want you…” He swallows, loud, and glances down. “To think less of me. That I was a bad scientist.”
    I catch myself starting to grin, and force a deep scowl back into my expression. “Be that as it may. You are capable of doing what Rostov does.”
    â€œTo a much lesser extent, yes. Though today and yesterday, I have felt more … in control of it. Capable.” Andrei lifts one hand from the steering wheel and clenches and unclenches a fist. “I used to press and press against someone’s mind, and if I was lucky they might be ever so slightly swayed in the direction I pressed. Believe me, I’ve tried cultivating it. But with Stalin yesterday … that guard … and the officer whose car we’re borrowing…”
    I wince at the reminder. Andrei had seemed so calm, then, so comfortable with the vile thing he was doing. “You