Page 138 of Emerald Malice

“If I were to set you free, where would you go?”

Misha’s jaw trembles for a moment before he composes himself with the resolve of someone who had to grow up far too young. “I don’t know.”

“Where would you go if you could go anywhere you wanted to?”

“I… I don’t know,” he repeats. His hands are fisted so tightly his knuckles are white.

The circus, he could’ve said. Disney World. The fucking moon.

He didn’t even have enough of a childhood to dream.

“And what if I said you didn’t have to go?” I look in his eyes, trying to drum up some of the magic Natalia has. The quality that draws people in and holds them close. “What if I told you that you could stay here if you wanted?”

He doesn’t even hesitate. “I would stay.”

It’s the first clear answer I’ve gotten out of him since he was captured. I can’t explain the surge of satisfaction that it sends coursing through me. “Natalia thinks that this is the best place for you.”

There’s a ghostly smile fighting its way to Misha’s lips. “So I get to stay here? With Natalia?”

“She seems to think that you’ll be a great help with the baby.”

He finally lets the smile crack through the surface. “I’m good with babies. I used to look after the smaller kids in the compound.”

My gut twists. “There were others?”

“Not many. I was always the oldest. I think that’s why they kept me around. They needed someone to babysit.”

His voice cracks as he speaks. Reflected in his eyes are the ghosts of all those little ones who came into his care with little explanation and left with even less. A graveyard of unfinished stories, unanswered questions. I shudder at the sight.

Did he love them? Did he help them? Did he know they were marked for death from the beginning?

“That’s all in the past now, Misha. You don’t have to babysit anyone if you don’t want to.”

He stuffs his hands into his pants pockets and turns to the side so that only his profile is visible to me. He’s fighting emotion and I’m impressed with how well he masters it.

The boy has potential. A lot of potential.

“But living here comes with conditions.”

He doesn’t so much as flinch. Apparently, this is something he does understand—nothing in life is free. “Okay.”

“You have to go to school, for one.”

“No. I can’t do school.” For the first time, he looks genuinely panicked. “I’m stupid.”

I clasp a hand on his shoulder and he freezes at the unexpected contact. “I’ve seen stupid in my life. You’re not it.”

“I can’t go to school. I’ll never fit in there. I’m not… I’m not like other kids.” He looks down, wringing his hands together into worried knots. “I’d rather just stay here. I’ll stay here and work—be useful to you and Natalia.”

My chest is alive with a million nameless emotions now. But one thing rises above the fray, one certainty.

Natalia is right. He deserves more.

49

NATALIA

“No, Natalia. Out! Out now!” Yelena literally shoves me out of the laundry room, her face twisted into a no-nonsense scowl.

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