Sekret by Lindsay Smith Page B

know it’s a dead end. Here we are.” He stops abruptly in front of me, and in the dim light I crash into him, our arms tangling together as I try to push off. “Careful there.” He brushes a lock of dark hair from my face, my skin radiating heat where he touches me. I swallow hard and turn away.
    “Great,” I say. “So it’s dark and smells like mold.” I can make out vague shapes lurking around us, but little else.
    “So impatient!” With a sharp click, dull amber light floods the room.
    Dozens of ornate frames lean against the far wall of the expansive chamber. Fringes of canvas dangle from their interiors where paintings have been cut out, and the wood frames are scarred where looters—or Lenin’s thugs—stripped away gold leaf, but even ungilded, the frames are beautiful. I stride across the room and run my hands along one carved with interlocking seashells. A vibrant painting springs into my mind of tsarist-era Moscow, the hills ablaze with autumn leaves. Beyond the frames, bits of furniture are shrouded like cartoon ghosts. Sergei peels back the cloth on a sofa like he’s unwrapping a mummy; green and gold brocade shimmers in the light.
    “The old owners’ leftovers,” he says, before plopping onto the sofa, issuing tufts of dust into the air. He pats the spot beside him.
    I saunter over and perch on the far end of the sofa. “I’m surprised there’s anything left.”
    He shakes his head. “Just stuffy bourgeois junk. Hey,” he says, face lighting up with a grin. “I wonder if you can read this stuff. You know.” He runs his hand along the fabric. “Their memories.”
    The blond woman flickers through my mind, chased around by her desperate thoughts. If it weren’t for my powers, Rostov wouldn’t be plotting right now to use her as bait. “I … Some other time.”
    Sergei leans toward me, though he’s far from touching me. I’m grateful for that. I’ve met too many Russian boys who, like all us ration rats, long to take what’s not been given. I learned early how to fend them off with sharp words and flattened fists, but it didn’t keep the shame at bay when a black market trader offered a barter I wasn’t willing to make.
    “I know you’re only going along with this for your family,” he says. “But it’s what’s best for you, too. You have to be safer here than you were on the run.”
    He’s right, and that’s without knowing about the American scrubber out there. I’m safe from starvation, strange men, and the hungering cold. But like most tough trades, the cost is far too steep. “I worry about my brother,” I say. “He didn’t get all the care he needed when we were fugitives, but he had my mother and me. His mental difficulties…” Gooseflesh rises on my arms. I can’t bear the thought of Rostov dealing with him, ripping out his thoughts like he just did mine.
    “What’s he like?” Sergei asks, still half grinning. It thaws away some of my fear.
    “Zhenya’s brilliant. I’ve seen him write down the score for an entire symphony after listening to it once. It’s only that he’s … he’s not quite engaged with the world around him. He lives in his own world inside his head, and it’s very tough to pull him back into ours.” I shake my head. “My parents were working with him at their old lab, researching his disorder or whatever it may be. He was better then,” I admit.
    “You must be good at coaxing him out, though. You can hear his thoughts, see his world…”
    “I didn’t have enough control over it at the time, and everything about his thoughts was so foreign, you know? Like another language.”
    Sergei pulls his knees up on the couch. “Sure, but foreign languages can be learned. I speak a little German … Eine kleine Englisch , too—I’m learning it for our work.” His German is like chewing stale bread. “Listening to the Beatles helped me.”
    I stare at him blankly. “Beetles?”
    “You’re joking, right? Everyone knows who the