Page 47 of Winterveil

“I was just passing by,” he said. “I swear, I didn’t know. . . .”

Did she really suspect his involvement? No, Klaudia was too smart. She would have seen through him. But now her gray eyes looked lit up from the inside with a kind of animal terror.

Not animal. Carter’s attack hadn’t made her weak; it was worse than that. It had made her human.

“I’m sorry,” Julian blurted. “Carter is disgusting and pathetic. . . .”

But he trailed off again. He hoped beyond hope that Klaudia hadn’t seen the fabric of his pants straining.

Klaudia’s eyes narrowed. Her shoulders went stiff and straight. She drew in a breath through her nose and it came out in a cold exhale.

“Get out of my way,” she said.

Before he could move, she stepped briskly past, leaving enough distance between them that he scarcely felt the air shift.

When the door shut behind her, Julian sank into one of the armchairs. He was trembling with unspent adrenaline and a shaky sort of rage. He put his fist against his forehead and bent over, squeezing his eyes shut.

But flashes of the scene kept returning to him. Carter’s leering smile. Klaudia’s wheeling gaze. Klaudia’s breasts heaving beneath her bra, Klaudia on her knees, Klaudia’s hair and lips—

Something crystallized in his mind, clear and bright, piercing the murk. It was a realization—stronger than that. It was a resolution.

He never wanted to see Klaudia on her knees again. But if he wanted to win, if he wanted his name at the top of the list, wouldn’t he have to be the one to knock her down? There was no soft landing for someone like Klaudia. Her position was more precarious than even Julian had understood. The fact that she had made it this far was a testament to her brilliance.

And Julian knew, without really knowing her at all, that Klaudia Shimonova had been quite sure of the stakes all along.

Seventeen

Spring 2037

Rural Virginia

The dream lingered, long after Nadiya woke. It chased her through the next day, pulling her attention away from everything else. She drifted in her classes. She picked at her food in the dining hall. During shooting practice, she kept missing the target.

Matteo, understandably, thought she was losing her mind.

“I’m getting scared,” he said as they walked from the armory. “If Nadiya Karam can’t make her shots, the world must be coming to an end.”

“If the end of the world was coming, you’d know. You’d see the mushroom cloud.”

They ate lunch out on the lawn, enjoying the late April sunshine. Nadiya tuned out Matteo’s chatter and looked around for Giselle. Was she still with Professor Blanchard? What was he doing with her? They’d exchanged that single message this morning, and then Nadiya’s tablet had gone silent.

Matteo was saying something about a new game that one of the hackers had designed. He had the app open on his tablet to show her, but Nadiya’s eyes glazed over it. Interrupting him, she blurted out, “Have you ever seen anything strange while wearing the nodes?”

Frowning, Matteo asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean . . .” Nadiya’s gaze swept the lawn again. “Have you ever slept with them on?”

“No. Why would I?” Matteo’s frown deepened. “Have you?”

They were skirting dangerous territory. One wrong move, one misspoken word, and all her secrets would flood out like water from a burst dam. Nadiya swallowed. Dr. Iver would warn her to change the subject.

But instead, slowly, she nodded.

“Shit. Why?”

Nadiya hesitated. She wasn’t even sure she could articulate it. Another moment passed, and then she said, “Dr. Iver has always made me. They’re supposed to help me sleep, to keep the nightmares away. But recently . . .”

She trailed off, and Matteo watched her with an uncharacteristically gentle expression. Somehow that made her feel even worse. The thought that he might pity her.