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“Do you know who Koshchey the Deathless is?”
“No,” I say, thinking of the strange mural on the ceiling of the restaurant.
“In Russian folklore Koshchey is a sorcerer who can become a whirlwind and destroy his enemies.” Zacharov touches the glittering pin on his chest. “He can’t be killed. Don’t cross me, Cassel. I am not a safe man to make your enemy.”
“I understand,” I say, and open the door. What I understand is that Lila and I are on our own and we don’t even have a plan.
“And, Cassel?”
I turn.
“Thank you for bringing my daughter back.”
I walk out the door. As I wait for the elevator to come, my phone rings. I am so tired that it seems a huge effort to take it out of my pocket.
“Hello?” I say.
“Cassel?” says Dean Wharton. He doesn’t sound happy. “I’m sorry to be calling so late, but we just got the final call from one of our board members on the West Coast. Welcome back to Wallingford. We got the report from your doctor and spoke to our lawyers. We’d like you to remain a day student on a probationary basis, but so long as you don’t have any more episodes, we may consider letting you return to the dorms for your senior year.”
I smother the ironic laughter that threatens to crawl up my throat. My con worked. I can go back to school. But I can’t go back to being the person I thought I was. “Thank you, sir,” I manage to say.
“We’ll expect to see you tomorrow morning, Mr. Sharpe. Since you’ve paid through the end of the year, please feel free to eat breakfast and dinner in the cafeteria.”
“Monday morning?” I echo.
“Yes, tomorrow, in the morning. Unless you have other plans,” he says dryly.
“No,” I say. “Of course not. See you tomorrow, Dean. Thank you, Dean.”
One of Zacharov’s guys drives me home. His name turns out to be Stanley. He’s from Iowa and doesn’t know practically any Russian. He’s not good with languages, he says.
He tells me all that when he lets me out in front of my house. Even though he made me sit in the back of the town car with the tinted privacy divider up, I guess he could see more than I thought. I guess he watched me unbutton my shirt and brush my fingers over the bruises purpling the skin over my ribs, testing each bone for give. I’m not guessing that just because he was so friendly when we got to the house—he also gave me his entire bottle of aspirin.
16
MY GRANDFATHER’S NOT at home when I get there, but there’s a note scratched in pen on the back of a receipt and stuck to the fridge with an I CHIHUAHUAS magnet.
Gone to Carney for a few days.
Call me when you get in.
I stare at the note, trying to decipher what it means, but I can’t quite think beyond the fact that there won’t be a car for me to borrow tomorrow. I stumble upstairs, set the alarm on my phone, push a chair up against the door, and chew up another handful of aspirin. I don’t even bother kicking off my shoes or getting under the covers; I just smother my face in the pillow and drop down into sleep like a dead man finally returning to his grave.
* * *
For a moment after my alarm goes off and I’m jolted awake, I don’t know where I am. I look around the bedroom that I slept in when I was a kid and it seems that it must have belonged to someone else.
I lean over and switch off my phone, blink a few times.
My head feels clearer than it has in days.
The pain has abated some—maybe because I finally got some sleep—but the reality of what’s happened and what’s about to happen seems to finally be sinking in. I don’t have a lot of time—three days—to plan.
And I need to stay away from my brothers long enough to do it. Wallingford will be good for that. They don’t know I’ve been let back in, and even if they figure it out, at least being at school isn’t obviously hiding. At least I can continue to act like I’m a killer robot waiting for them to utter a command word.
I fumble in my closet for my scratchy shirt and uniform pants. I didn’t bring my jacket or shoes with me when I packed up the stuff in my dorm, but I have a bigger problem than that. I don’t have a ride to school.
I put on sneakers and call Sam.
