Wish Read Free Page B

“What about
me?”
    “ The Russian government will find
us eventually. Not just Russia. The United States too,” I say. “If
you’re here, won’t you get in trouble for helping?”
    “ Maybe,” he says.
    “ So why are you helping
them?”
    “ Rafael is my father,” he
says.
    Huh. I wasn’t expecting that. But now that he
says it, I can see he has his father’s eyes. That is where the
similarities end. Salvador is nothing like his dad. He seems nice.
I feel bad that he’s caught up in this all.
    “ Have you always known what he
does?” I ask.
    He nods.
    “ My father never told me,” I say.
“I found out when I moved to America.”
    “ How did the two of you become
friends?” Salvador asks, looking between Damon and me.
    “ She’s beautiful,” Damon says,
making my face grow warm. “I wanted to be more than friends. She
didn’t. So we became friends, because being friends with her is
better than nothing. End of story.”
    “ Huh,” Salvador says, looking at
me. “Why did you not want to date him? You have another
boyfriend?”
    “ No,” I say. It’s the truth.
Tristan won’t date me until I turn seventeen, which might not ever
happen now. “I just don’t feel the same way about him that he does
about me. I mean, I like him, but not that way.”
    “ You don’t like American boys?”
Salvador asks, a smile on his face.
    I force myself to smile at him. Maybe if I
flirt with him, he will help us find a way out of here. Problem is,
I’m not exactly sure how to flirt.
    “ Americans boys are a lot
different than Russian boys,” I say.
    “That’s true,” Salvador says, then
switches to Russian. “ That boy is a
wimp. ”
    Damon doesn’t look happy.
“ I can understand you, you
know .”
    “ I forgot,” he says, switching
back to English. “But it’s true.”
    “ Americans aren’t so bad,” I say,
sticking up for Damon, and the rest of my American friends. “I’ve
made a lot of friends at my school.”
    “ What’s it like? Going to school
in America,” Salvador asks.
    “ It’s a lot different than going
here,” I answer. “It’s… easy. Teenagers there don’t care as much
about their grades. Sports are a big deal there too. They like to
sneak out after curfew.”
    He laughs. “You’ve never snuck out after
curfew?”
    “ Not until I moved there,” I
admit.
    “ Wow. You’re a good girl,” he
says.
    Damon laughs. “She is.”
    I roll my eyes. “Can we not talk about me like
I’m not standing here?”
    “ Salvador!” I hear Rafael yell
from upstairs.
    “ Duty calls,” he says, then runs
up the stairs.
    Once he’s up there, I hear yelling. And even
though Salvador is helping the bad guys, I can’t help but feel
sorry for him.
    “ Maybe you’re right about him,”
Damon says. “He seems pretty normal for the most part.”
    “ Let’s make friends with him,” I
say quietly to Damon. “He might just be our ticket out of
here.”
    “ I don’t know. He seems pretty
loyal,” he says.
    Maybe he’s right.
    But still, maybe he’s wrong.
    I will find a way for us to get out of
here.
     
    No matter what.
     
    Tristan.
    This is the second day that Katerina and Damon
have been missing.
    Two days too long.
    If only I wouldn’t have needed space from her.
I shouldn’t have left her with Alik. But I had to. She’s in my
head. Always. And sometimes I need to distance myself from her,
because she is distracting me from my mission.
    I like her. Too much. I might even love
her.
    My head tells me that she is too young for me.
But really, she’s not that much younger than I am. Four and a half
years. Mentally, she’s just as old. She doesn’t act like the kids
in her class do. No wonder she doesn’t have many
friends.
    I can see why her and Damon became friends.
Damon has had a very different life. A lot of people are probably
envious of him, but being the president’s son has got to be hard.
He can’t even go out on a date without being photographed. Though,
I