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myself, as I’ve been doing. We’ll keep running; we’ll watch Moscow shrink to a speck over our shoulders. Always running, forever—
    Sergei’s hand touches my shoulder. It burns with conflicting emotions: Sadness? Anger? “Yulia, you have to stop thinking about escape. It’s too dangerous.”
    “What do you care?” A barge sounds its horn; I peer over the balcony ledge. If it were straight down, I could survive it, but the embankment slopes just enough …
    “Maybe I don’t. You wouldn’t be the first to try.” He shrugs. “But believe me, if there’s one thing I’ve learned here … There are worse things than a bullet in the back, a broken neck. What they can do to your brain, or your family’s…”
    Sergei flinches; his gaze roves anxiously, unsettled. I step away from him, not liking the sudden darkness I sense on his skin.
    “Death would be a mercy,” he says. “For you and your family both.”

 
    CHAPTER 6
    MAJOR KRUZENKO TEARS open the balcony door, and as she squeezes between Sergei and me, her arm touching mine, I glimpse what Sergei’s talking about. Her head is full of bees. She buzzes with panic—with the sound of a shadow peering over her shoulder.
    And then, just as abruptly, the panic dissolves into a soft melody.
    “I said a quick tour, Seryozha.” She waggles her finger at Sergei, who rolls his eyes. “I just spoke with Comrade Rostov. They are ready for you to resume your training exercise.” That buzzing sound around her again when she leans in close—and then it’s gone.
    “Then I’d better not disappoint.” Sergei sets his mouth in a grim line and slips out the door.
    I start to follow him, but Kruzenko catches my shoulder. “A minute, Yulia, if I may.”
    I squeeze my escape plans to the back of my mind, with no clue whether it will do me any good. Pay attention, Yulia. You must first learn the rules.
    “Masha tells me you are planning to escape,” Kruzenko says.
    Adrenaline burns through me. I need a quick excuse. “She has it out for me. She thinks I—”
    Kruzenko holds up one finger. “No, no, it is all right. I know this is all new to you; it is very difficult to accept. So I will make you an offer.” Her voice is softer than in the interrogation room, maternal even. It’s too easy to trust her when she’s unintimidating this way. “Follow your studies diligently and work hard for a few months, and I will let you see your family.”
    My effort to focus my thoughts is lost in a deluge of rage. Who is she, to act so damned generous when offering me what I should already have? I want to reach out and slap her. She flinches, either because she read it in my thoughts, or in the way my shoulders draw tight and my fists cock. I step back. My skin is boiling in the crisp winter air. I take a deep breath, but nothing fills the ache in my lungs.
    “I’m only doing this for them as it is. Don’t turn my family into a reward. A treat for obedience.”
    “I am permitted to do whatever the State authorizes me to do, if it means your cooperation. Don’t forget this.” She matches the chill in my voice, but she’s perfectly motionless, eyes as unflinching as a photograph. No rage prickles through her like it does in me. I’m sure it’s standard KGB training. I’ll have to sever emotions if I’m going to outsmart her.
    “Now, then. I am not angry at you for having such thoughts, though I am sure I don’t have to tell you how foolish an escape attempt would be, for you and your family both.”
    I say nothing and watch the treetops below us ripple in the wind. She won’t make the same offer to see my family again; it will be chiseled away and forgotten like the imperial sigil over the front door.
    “But your classmates cannot be blamed for believing you might try. So let me teach you a little technique. It’s how we shield our thoughts from intruders.”
    I stand up straighter. “Intruders like you?” I ask.
    “Don’t flatter yourself. You aren’t