Sekret by Lindsay Smith Page A

itself rubs me raw. “Surely Khruschev himself cannot ignore so blatant an American violation of our truce as this. And if he does…” Rostov looks back at me, oozing a cyanide-sweet smile. “Well done, Yulia Andreevna.”
    Major Kruzenko pats me on the shoulder. “You mustn’t hide things from us. This is how we maintain order and keep you safe from our enemies.” But she’s breathing too sharply; when she touches me, I sense her unease as well.
    Rostov’s spindly fingers pull something from his pocket—Mama’s necklace. My throat clamps shut as he hands it to me. “Funny that you should mention this,” he says, curving a serrated smile. “I thought you might like to have it.”
    My fist clenches around the medallion. Of course it’s been wiped clean. It feels less like a reward, coming from him, and more like a warning.

 
    CHAPTER 13
    I MAKE MY WAY OUT of that room somehow—I don’t remember what combination lock of pleasantries get me away from them. Yevtushenko and Shostakovich rage in my head, my own shield scolding me for my failure. I am but one soundless scream above the thousand thousand buried here.
    I charge for the staircase, nearly plowing headfirst into Sergei. “Watch it!” he cries, catching me by the shoulders in his solid grasp. “What’s the matter with you?”
    “I want to be alone,” I growl.
    Actually, what I want is to grab the supplies from my stash and scale the walls of this prison. But then I think of the American scrubber coming for us and remember those walls keep him out as surely as they keep us in.
    “Come on, Yul, you’ll feel better if you talk about it. Right now your head sounds like an angry … storm cloud. Of anger.”
    Distant piano music fills the silence between us as we stare at each other. Finally, I crack a grin.
    “Okay,” Sergei says, “so I’m no Pushkin.”
    “I’m sure Vitaly Davidov isn’t much of a poet, either.”
    “Good, maybe I’ll join him in the Hockey Hall of Fame someday. Really, though—what’s wrong?” He takes his hands off my shoulders, but their warmth lingers.
    “Nothing.” I crumple into the banister, which groans back at me. “Everything. I don’t know.”
    Sergei starts back up the stairs. “I know just the place to cheer you up. Somewhere not on the official tour.”
    That piques my interest. Do the guards know about it? I am Yulia the ration rat, after all. I’ll stash away every crumb of knowledge that I can.
    He leads me deep into the house’s bones: an inner hallway somewhere within the second floor. He opens the door to a narrow linen closet, reeking of mothballs and dust. “The nobles who lived here in tsarist times built this passage,” he says, fiddling with the sidewall of the closet. “Supposedly, they hid here when the first wave of the communist forces swept through the city.” There’s a soft click and the wall pops back. A hidden panel. Sergei squeezes through—no mean feat, given his bulk—and I follow through with more ease.
    “That’s a better history lesson than I’d expect from a hockey hooligan,” I say with a smirk.
    He rolls his eyes before slipping deeper into the darkened passage. “I’m not all muscle, you know. Not that anyone believes it. Even my parents…” He trails off, tension rising in him like steam, and Tchaikovsky’s War of 1812 overture marches through the air. I feel a pang of embarrassment for my selfishness. I’m not the only one kept from my loved ones.
    We fall into an uneasy silence as we feel our way down the dark corridor. I tug my sweater sleeves down around my hands to muffle the memories on the narrow walls; I’m not ready just yet to see the nobles’ fate at the hands of Lenin and his Bolshevik army. “Who else knows about this passage?” There’s a hope beating its wings inside me, but I don’t dare open its cage just yet.
    He scowls. “Enough people. So don’t get any ideas.”
    “The guards don’t follow us in here?”
    “Nah, they