AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mikhail tugs a small girl with him. She looks younger than me with light tufts of hair poking out from her bright pink hat.
She pulls against him when she spies me.
“You should say ‘Hi’.” Mikhail encourages her. “I have to take care of something. Do you want to stay here and play while I do?”
Her pink lower lip rolls between her teeth as she looks at me with big blue eyes.
Nikolai squats down in front of me, and reaches his palm towards my head.
He pauses when I try to jerk away. “Be still,” he grunts. “I’m not going to hurt you. Is your father at home?”
I don’t move, but let him twist my face left and right. “Yes. The blue house at the end of the street.” My arm raises to point, showing off the holes in my coat.
He squints and his mouth thins.
That usually means irritation.
“He did a number this time,” Nikolai calls to Mikhail.
Mikhail sighs and pulls the girl closer.
“Alexei? This is Lara. She’s very important to me. I have one job for you in exchange for helping you with your father. You need to keep an eye on her and keep her safe while we’re gone. Can you do that?” He places his hand on her back and leads her closer. “When I get back, you come home with us, okay?”
I nod solemnly.
Putting my hand across my heart, I look into Nikolai’s face with as much seriousness as I can muster. “I swear to you I’ll do whatever you want for, um.” I can feel my nose wrinkle. It hurts the right side of my face. “What’s the word for forever? The fancy one?”
Mikhail gives me a lopsided smile. “Do you mean ‘eternity’?”
Bobbing my chin makes my neck hurt. It’s still hard to turn after Papa kicked me when I fell.
“Yea, I swear I’ll do whatever you want me to do for eternity.” One side of my mouth grins.
The other side tries to split and start bleeding again.
“What happened to you?” The girl asks. Her voice is sweet and musical. With wide eyes sits in the swing next to me.
Do I tell her how I accidently broke a glass, and that made Papa so mad he beat me to the ground and kicked me?
“A giant grizzly bear broke into my house. He broke some stuff, but I chased him away.” That sounds better.
Nikolai’s brows raise.
My arms move as I shrug. “What? That’s better than the real thing.”
Lara giggles. “I know it isn’t true. But you’re funny. Can you tell me another?”
Nikolai pats my leg and stands. “We’ll be back. Keep her company.”
“I promise. For eternity.”
CHAPTER 1
LARA
TWENTY YEARS LATER
No one understandshow hard this is.
