Basilisk (The Korsak Brothers #2)(27)
She called me Dr. Theoretical for as often as I used the word. She said it was my superpower, but I was being accurate. There was nothing wrong with accuracy. More letters appeared before I could reply. Bone marrow transplant would work much better. I highly doubted I’d be able to pull off a bone marrow transplant on thirty genetic assassins. Any cure would have to be almost instantaneous. Her typing continued. But it’s your paper. Hey, why no webcam this time, cutie? Get a bad haircut? Or did you finally break down and get that tattoo I’ve been trying to talk you into? She kept telling me to get a Cheshire cat tattoo from Alice in Wonderland as I was so theoretical I was practically nothing but a floating smile in midair.
Living life on the run was exactly what I was doing, and I thought best not to advertise it. No, I typed back. I dyed my hair pink to be half the genius you are.
“Tell her that her hair is the color of a rose,” came the suggestion from beside me.
“It’s not,” I said absently. “It’s more the color of cotton candy.”
“A chick probably isn’t going to find that romantic. Go with rose.”
“Why would I want to be romant—Hey!” I glared at Stefan as I slammed the computer closed. “How about eyes on the road and your own business? And I thought you weren’t speaking to me.”
“Revenge is worth it.” His grin was far more wolfish than any I’d managed so far—mirrors and practice don’t lie. “And get ready to play a nineteen-year-old drug lord, jefe, because we’re almost at the reservation. Maybe if you tried some dark sunglasses and stroked your stinky carpet shark like a James Bond villain, they would go for it.”
“You don’t think I can pull off pretending to be a drug dealer?” I knew I was hampered by my face. The Institute made or chose their assassins with faces that were attractive to both sexes but also not so much that we stood out to every eye. We were made to appeal but also to blend in. But we were also taught by them to pull on any mask and play any part or suffer the consequences. “Learn a little faith, Stefan.” I did grab his spare set of sunglasses in the floorboards when we arrived and put them on before climbing out of the car. Stefan brought it to a stop by the first and one of the few buildings on the reservation—a store/tourist spot. The rest of the area was dotted with small wooden houses and the occasional trailer. “I’ll be back.”
“Right, Arnold. I’m sure you will,” he drawled, sliding down in the seat as I slammed my door behind me. Inside the store, I went straight to the cash register, automatically reached for a Milky Way, and said, “I’m looking for Jacob and Johanna Cloud-horse.”
The girl there looked me over before flashing her teeth in a white, happy smile. “Which makes you a troublemaker. Deep shit and all that. I should call the law on you, but since Jacob is my baby’s daddy, I guess I won’t.” I had many names. Sebastian was the drug dealer one. Sebastian had money out the ass, a plane to go with it, and he was here to get it.
I hardened my face and tried for that killer twist of Stefan’s lips I’d seen a time or two, and by killer, I meant the authentic definition. “I know you won’t. Now get them over here. Tell them Sebastian’s here, and I don’t like waiting.”
She looked me up and down more thoroughly this time, her black ponytail swishing over her shoulder. Then with eyes turned to impenetrable onyx, she went for the phone, turning her back so I couldn’t hear her speak. “Look at you. You scared a teen mom, probably all of sixteen. Good for you. Are you proud, ‘Sebastian’?”
I snatched a quick glance over my shoulder to see Stefan standing behind me with arms folded and without any dark glasses because, face it, he didn’t need any. It was practice versus the real thing again. Stefan didn’t have to pretend or put on a mask to scare people—Stefan had to put one on not to scare people. That was what “Harry” had been all about. The real Stefan had only to show his true self, what he’d done, and what he’d still do if necessary; it was all in his face if he let it be. Reality was always more convincing than a mask.
I wasn’t the one who’d pushed the girl into making that call. It was one glimpse of what stood behind me. “You don’t want to be like me, Misha,” he whispered low enough that only I could hear. “I don’t want to be like me either, but that’s my bad luck there. If the means justify the end, let me be the means. It’s nothing new for me. You be yourself, got it?”
That the “myself” he was talking about was an assassin taught and trained was something he never remembered or never believed—the same as I tried not to believe. He moved up beside me and laid a casual arm over my shoulder, making sure his gun showed as his jacket gaped open. “Brother, cousin, or bodyguard?” he murmured.
Oh, damn, the story. What had I told the Cloud-horses . . . ? “Bodyguard,” I replied.
“We’ll go with cousin bodyguard. Gives me more reason to look out for your skinny ass.” I barely heard the words before he said aloud to the girl on the phone, “We don’t have all f*cking day. Are they hauling their shit or not? We have a lot of money invested in their asses, and if they don’t give as they have received, like the Good Book says, we’ll take that money out of their asses and anyone else’s we can find, including you. Hell, conveniently located as you are, we’ll start with you, little bitch.”