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It wasn’t herself she worried about. She couldn’t let him sleep in the hall. Not another night. Taking care of her didn’t mean he had to sacrifice his health. Guilt pushed her to her feet, and she yanked opened the door before common sense reined her in.

Vadeem stared at her, his face muscles tight, as if he’d been watching her through the wooden door with Super-Vadeem-man x-ray vision. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “I can’t let you sleep out here.”

He smiled, his blue eyes lighting up and sending fire through her veins. “Well, I can’t sleep in there, and I’m not going to put any more distance between us.” He pushed to his feet. “Kat, I’m fine. I’ve gone days without sleeping before.” He smiled, and she saw a hint of his classified past on his handsome face. “Trust me. I’m okay out here.”

She wasn’t buying. She saw weariness bagging under his eyes. The guy had traveled a thousand miles with news that could change her life. She wasn’t going to let him sit in the hall like a bug. “I have an idea.”

———

What was she up to now? Worry flickered through Vadeem’s mind, the briefest suspicion that she was about to make a run for it.

But, if that was the case, she would have gone through the window, not be trying to convince him she cared about his stiff neck muscles and lack of sleep. He stretched as he followed her down the hall to the desk clerk, then beyond to the tiny second floor lobby.

Tall windows framed the night and sent shadows like a blanket across the two fraying armchairs and the brown velour sofa. Kat sat on one end and patted the place next to her.

With that, his heart began drilling through his chest. He sank down next to her, every muscle taut. What was this sudden shower of warmth? The last thing he needed was for her to encourage the emotions he was having a hard time ignoring. He leaned forward, clasped his hands, elbows on his knees, suddenly more awake than he had been in the past twenty-four hours. “Uh, Kat, I think you should…”

“I read some place that soldiers can take naps, a full REM cycle in about twenty minutes. Can you do that?”

Where did that come from? “Well, yeah, but if I’m asleep, how can I watch over you?”

She put her hand on his back. It sent ripples down his spine. He jerked, then hated himself for it. He couldn’t sleep if he wanted to.

“Maybe I’ll watch over you.” Her hand moved up to the nape of his neck. “Lay down on the sofa. Stretch out and take your twenty minutes. Take an hour. I’ll sit here and keep watch.”

He turned, blinked at her, any words locked in his chest. Oh, she was so beautiful with her tousled hair, her eyes searching his, warm and candy sweet. She took her hand away. His gaze trailed to it, remembering how she’d dug that hand into his jacket only twenty-four hours earlier. “I’m supposed to protect you, remember?” He was having a hard time remembering that himself at the moment.

“So, I’ll wake you if any terrorists show up.” Tease played at the corner of her mouth.

The idea rubbed against his better judgment. No, he shouldn’t lie down, bring his legs off the floor, curl up next to her. No, he definitely shouldn’t lay his head in her lap and get lost inside her tender expression.

He was never any good at following better judgment.

Only, it would be a miracle if he got one minute of sleep.

She must have seen the turmoil in his eyes, for she patted his chest. “Tell me about your childhood, before the orphanage, Vadeem.”

He winced. Why did she have to sour this incredibly sweet moment with that question? A jaunt down memory lane, however, was probably a whole lot safer than the memories he wanted to create.

“I had a big brother. My father was an electrician, my mother a nurse. We had a small home, lived a normal life.” His mind drifted back, warmth cascading over him.

“What did you do for fun? Did you have any hobbies? Did you play sports? Were you on any teams?”

He hesitated, feeling the answer as a burning flame in his chest.

“I was a member of the Pioneers.”

It was the worst day of his miserable short life. Vadick sat in the back row of the auditorium on the third floor of his school, kicking the legs of the straight-back chair.

Everybody knew. His best friend Sergei Ishkov’s eyes bore a hole through Vadick as Sergei stood in line with the rest of Vadeem’s classmates, waiting for his pin. Sergei looked so smart in his red handkerchief, his eight-year-old face glowing with pride.

Vadick ached to have a red scarf. Tears burned the back of his eyes as he looked away. He searched the audience for Ivana Ishkova. She was lost in a cluster of other parents filling the first three rows of the auditorium seats. Vadick hung his head, not able to watch as names were called, and his classmates filed forward, one by one, and received their Pioneer pin.

He would run away. That’s what he’d do. He’d run, as soon as the snow melted and the river broke, he’d take his father’s lodka and let the current take him south, to Nevyansk or perhaps even to Ekaterinaburg. That would scare them. Not far enough that they wouldn’t find him, but enough for fear to do its duty. His mother would clasp him to her chest and beg forgiveness for keeping him from being a Keeper of the Motherland, a Pioneer member, dedicated to preserving their strong and pure State.

Vadick’s chin bobbed as tears burned his throat. He heard Sergei’s name called, and quickly swiped at his shame, wanting to watch.

The Pioneer leader, Comrade Korillovich, a wide, ruddy man with power in his arms and fire in his brown eyes, bent over, shook Sergei’s hand, and handed him the pin.

The pin with Father Lenin’s face engraved in the front. The pin they would all wear to school on the days of Pioneer meetings. A pin Vadick would never own. He pounded his hand against his knee.

That’s when his legs moved forward. So his mother hadn’t signed the permission slip? It was a formality. Hadn’t Comrade Korillovich said just that when he asked Vadick why he wasn’t joining?

Vadick ran furiously to the front, up the center aisle, dragging with him a hundred piercing, curious stares. He skidded to a halt at the back of the line. His labored breathing drew the attention of his classmates, boys and girls who frowned at him.

He ignored their stares and fixed his gaze on Comrade Korillovich. His heart pounded in his throat. The sides of Korillovich’s mouth tilted just slightly, and a hot wave rushed through Vadick. Oh, yes, he’d be a Pioneer.

He still remembered the way the straight pin drew blood in his palm when Comrade Korillovich slapped it into his hand. “You did the right thing, Son. Welcome to the Pioneers.”

“Vadeem, are you sleeping?”

Vadeem blinked, and the world of his childhood vanished. Kat’s gaze kneaded his with concern.

“You stopped talking, but your eyes were open. I didn’t know.”

He was horrified to feel moisture filming his eye. He blinked and it squeezed out, dripping down his cheek like a marble.

She saw it; her face twitched. Then, gently, she drew her thumb across his check and wiped his tear. Silence drummed between them as he stared at her, feeling her questions in her worried expression. The answers rolled into a lave ball in his chest and it was all he could do not to let them erupt, spewing horror and pain across their fragile relationship.