32. Katerina
Not five minutes after Leonid passes out, it starts to rain.
Alexei, Aleks, and Grigoriy race around, desperate to try and get the hole in the side of Abigail’s house closed up. They’re in the process of stapling a tarp up to cover the gaping hole when Gabe shows up on his bike.
“What are you doing here?” I look around to see whether his parents are anywhere close.
“I knew it.” He pumps his fist in the air. “I knew you would beat him.” He nods. “I’ll go tell my parents.”
Before I can stop him, he spins around and heads back down the road, pedaling furiously in the pounding rain.
No one seems to care about poor Leonid, who’s now lying entirely unconscious on the ground in a puddle. Not even Boris and Mikhail, who are sullenly sitting on the ground, their hands ziptied behind their backs, have expressed any concern about what’s to be done for their fearless leader.
“What should we do about Leonid?” No one answers.
“Hey.” I grab Gustav’s arm. “Leonid’s lying in water, and if it keeps raining, I’m not sure he’ll even be able to breathe.”
“That would solve a few problems,” Gustav says. “We can’t stab him, but maybe we can drown him.”
“We should add that to the list of options,” Alexei says.
I’m happy they seem to be getting along, but this isn’t exactly how I hoped it would happen. “Surely you can’t mean to just leave him there.” I can’t help glancing back at where he’s lying on the ground. He looks, for all the world, like he’s dead.
“Not at all.” Gustav’s smile is warm when he turns around to face Leonid.
Finally, someone’s going to at least move him someplace dry.
Gustav’s brow furrows, and he lifts Leonid, making good use of what he learned about air, and starts floating him.
“So the strands of wind do work on him.” Grigoriy drop his staple-arm from the side of the house to stare. “That’s something you should add to the list.”
“What list?” I ask. “What are you guys talking about?”
“We have a week, give or take,” Alexei says, “to figure out how to kill him. Or barring that, to work out a way to contain him long-term.”
I’m floored. They’re supposed to be the good guys. “You can’t really mean to kill him. I mean, I get why you tried in the heat of the moment, but now that it’s passed, and he’s incapacitated, there must be a better way.”
Aleksandr sighs. “We aren’t the imaginary ‘Federation of Planets’ or even a gutless organization like the United Nations. We have limited resources and an unknown amount of time before he’s back up and running. Baba Yaga herself told us to contain him.”
“But she didn’t tell us how,” Grigoriy says. “If she wanted us to keep him alive, she should’ve given us more information.” He shrugs. “I mean to try every single way to kill that sucker that I can think of.”
“Is this about getting your powers back?” I frown. “Because I understand the urge, but I went weeks without?—”
“Spare me, princess,” Grigoriy says.
I open my mouth to tell him where he can stick his terms of endearment, but Gustav’s shoulders are slumped, and I decide to let this one go. My sweet and exhausted boyfriend dumps Leonid—or, you know, horse Leonid—in an empty pasture that at least appears to be relatively high and dry. He also sets him in the center of a small covered enclosure in the corner of the pasture.
It’s not exactly a hotel room, but Leonid is a horse, and he did try to kill Gustav fifteen minutes ago. This is probably about as good as it’s going to get.
The others are almost done securing the side of the house when Gustav gets a strange look on his face. A second later, the tarp they took such pains to secure is ripped away.
“Whoa,” Grigoriy shouts. “What was that? Was that you, moron?”
But Gustav’s smiling. And then, slowly, right in front of all of us, the chunks of splintered wood, the clumps of broken tile, the shards of shattered drywall, all float up into the air, and then they begin to slowly knit themselves back together.
Gustav’s at it for nearly forty minutes, the last twenty of them with Steve, Abigail, and their entire brood standing behind him and watching, but when he’s done, you can’t even tell their house was hit in the first place.
“That was amazing,” Gabe says.
“You saved us,” Steve says. “Thanks.”
“We put you at risk in the first place,” Gustav says. “And to be honest, we aren’t out of the woods yet.”
We explain what happened with Leonid, and Gustav tells him where he put his unconscious form.
“The stallion paddock is the perfect place for him,” Steve says. “And we know what to do with horses who don’t behave around here. We’ll help you any way we can.”
“I don’t want to kill him,” Gustav says, “but it may be our best play.”
“And if you decide against that, we’ll help you come up with a way to keep him contained,” Steve says.
Then they all go inside the recently repaired house to shower and clean up. Just like that, it’s all settled.
I can’t help walking across the big field to the side of their house and peering over the expanse of mostly-dead grass at Leonid’s immobile form. He did want Gustav dead. He wanted Kris dead, too. He’s definitely misguided.
A villain.
But I can’t help feeling sorry for him.
Maybe it’s that, if our roles were reversed, I’m not sure I wouldn’t do the same things he’s done. I can hate what he’s done and who he’s become and still lament that it’s happened, can’t I? Or does it make me a monster, too?
I’m not sure how long I’m standing there, but I’m soaked to the bone and shivering when a large, warm arm drops around my shoulders. “Kat.” Gustav’s large, warm mouth presses against the side of my face. “Come inside.”
“I—yes. I should.” I lean against his chest. “I know I should.”
“Are you angry?”
I shake my head. “I’m proud of you. I’m delighted your plan worked. I’m sad it came to this, and I’m relieved that the largest danger is past. But. . .”
“You feel bad for him.”
I shrug. “I’m sorry if that bothers you.”
He drags me closer, and I turn so my face is pressed against his strong, wide chest. “Don’t be. It’s that compassion I first felt drawn to.”
“Really?” I look up at him.
He drops a kiss on the end of my nose. “I’ve never said this to anyone before, but I love you, Katerina. Truly. I love you for your compassion. I love you for your forgiving heart. I love you for caring about people, even broken people like me.” His arms encircle my waist and draw me in underneath his chin, even though I’m soaked. Even though I’m cold. Even though I’m broken.
“I just want you guys to focus on ways to contain him, if you can.”
“You must understand why they’re afraid,” Gustav says. “If he wakes up and we can’t contain him. . .”
“None of them have powers,” I say. “I know. We already have our hands full, just keeping Boris and Mikhail under control.”
“Well, I’m less worried now that they have no powers, but they are high-level Russian diplomats we’re technically wrongfully detaining.”
“Not that anyone would rat us out, but the world does know they’re here.”
“The Birch Creek people—” Gustav sighs. “I’m glad they’re okay, but putting them at risk stresses me out.”
We barely know them, but I already care about them all a great deal. “I know what you mean.”
“We should get out of here as quickly as we can. We shouldn’t let anything else bad happen to them because of us.”
“Amanda’s heart was repaired thanks to us being here, and you fixed their house,” I say. “So it’s not all been bad for them.”
“I guess,” Gustav says. “But still.”
“Where will we go?” I turn and look up at him. “New York?”
“We?” His eyebrows rise.
“Where you go, I go,” I whisper. “Unless you don’t want me.”
“Then I guess we have some things to talk about,” he says. But he’s smiling. “What do you want to do?”
“Once we deal with Leonid, I’ll go anywhere you want. New York. Latvia. Russia. Costa Rica. Iceland, though it sounds disturbingly cold, to be totally honest. You tell me, and I’ll pack for it.” Even thinking about a world where I’m not dealing with people arguing over what magic they have and what the world should look like, well. It sounds. . .unbelievably amazing. “But maybe whatever we decide, we start with a trip to Costa Rica. Or Hawaii. Or, ooh. I’ve always wanted to see Paris. I could eat chocolate croissants until I fall into a sugar coma and die.”
“You know, I’ve never done much traveling. I always thought it was because I was too busy with school and work, but now I’m thinking maybe it was because I didn’t have anyone to travel with.”
“Oh?”
“Now that you mention those places, I can’t think of much I’d rather do than go see them with you.”
When he kisses me this time, I no longer feel cold at all. We may both be drenched and standing in the mud, but I’ve never been happier. The world may yet hold a lot of uncertainty and danger, but I’m finally facing it with someone I trust to have my back.
And it does make all the difference.