Page 57 of My Wild Horse King

“I’m so sorry.” Her voice is small. Her face looks utterly sincere.

“You, missy, aren’t flying anywhere,” I say. “Because now that this is going down, you’re the only one I even partially trust.”

Her face falls, and she shakes her head back and forth. “You should not trust me. I’m a bad person.”

But her face says otherwise. Unlike the runner I just saw, it’s clear, it’s clean, and in fact, there are tiny golden sparkles I can see out of the corner of my eye when I shift the way I’m looking at her. “I don’t mean to call you a liar, but my new superpower—and Leonid was right. This is kind of lame—says you’re not.”

She blinks. “You can—” She pivots. “Look at that guy.” She points through the bushes at a man on his phone, yelling.

“Yeah, I see him for a split second, and then.” A strange sort of film comes over his face, and suddenly, it’s like he’s been splattered with mud. I blink, but it’s still there. “Not a great guy. I would not encourage you to go out with him on a blind date, for instance. Probably has a vial of date-rape-drug in his pocket.”

Katerina looks ill. “This is terrible.”

I realize what she means. Her big, bad evil ex-friend said he’d leave me alone. . .unless I did what Ijustdid.

“So, Iceland’s off, right? At least I’ve earned that much, right? This did happen to me while I was trying to save you.”

She sighs and slings the strap for her bag over her shoulder. “I have even more reason to go now.”

“But you’re a good person. I can see it, so you’re going to stay and help me. Right?”

She looks directly into my face. “I went to Leonid to trade your whereabouts to him for Alexei’s powers.”

“Ouch,” I say. “But see? You’re telling me that so you’ll have a clear conscience, and you didn’t even know me then.”

“I know you now, and I’m not that impressed.” She folds her arms. “I should get as far away from all this as I possibly can.”

“You don’t think the fate of the world rests in my hands?”

She shrugs. “It may, but I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“Which is exactly why I need your help. It’s the heroes who don’t want to be heroes who make the best ones.”

“Isn’t that advice more suited to you?” She smirks. “Super Gustav?”

I cringe. “That’s the worst superhero name I’ve ever heard in my life. And if you’re from the nineteen hundreds, why do you know about superheroes?”

“I’mfromthe nineteen hundreds, but I’ve spent a lot of time in the present sitting in locked rooms, and what better way to kill the time than watching Marvel movies?”

“Better than the DC ones, I guess.” I can’t help chuckling. “I think we’ll be able to come up with some better things for you to do now, though.”

“Like training you to be a superhero?”

I groan. “Anything but that.”

16

KATERINA

The man I betrayed is asking me to stay. If it wasanyoneelse, I’d say no. But he’s the one person I owe. He’s the one person I can’t turn down. Still, maybe I can convince him to let me go.

“I’m not going back there,” I say. “No one wants me there, either.”

“I do,” Gustav says. “And it’s my apartment. That should count for something.”

“You barely know me,” I say. “You’ll change your mind. Trust me.”

“I barely know my sister, and I don’t know any of them at all.” Gustav leans down and snatches my bag out of my hands. “And so far, you’re by far the least annoying.”

---