Kingmakers, Graduation

11. Sabrina

11

SAbrINA

I ’ve got a serious problem.

I’m only supposed to stay in Oregon for a week—then I’m headed back to Kingmakers, catching the ship in Dubrovnik on September first, trapped on Isla Dvorca until the fifteenth of May. No laptops, no cell phones, and no visitors.

I came to Cannon Beach to get one last hit of Adrik Petrov before an eight-month detox.

Now I’m realizing I’m a full-blown addict.

Each day that passes, it only gets worse.

With him in Rafe’s room and me in Nix’s, and neither of us admitting that we’re actually dating, we have to sneak away to get our fix.

We’ve fucked down on the beach, in Rafe’s car, in the shower, in the basement gym, and even in the kitchen at two o’clock in the morning .

It’s never enough.

Each time I tell myself it’s the last time. Then I fuck him even sooner. The spaces when we’re apart grow shorter and shorter, and I need more and more of him to satisfy me. The second we’re done fucking, before I’ve even put back on all my clothes, I already want him again.

This is classic addict behavior. I’m sneaking around, lying to Nix, and god knows I’d cheat, borrow, and steal to get more of him.

When I can’t get it, I’m fidgety and irritable. I don’t want food or entertainment. I only want Adrik.

No one has ever had this kind of power over me. It scares me. I almost hate it.

How I feel is irrelevant, because I’m not in control. I make promises to myself, then break them the next minute. Resistance is pain and giving in is the deepest of pleasures.

There’s never been a drug on the planet that felt as good as this. The more I cross my own lines, the better it feels.

I suck his cock like I need his cum to live.

I let him spank me till my ass is red and choke me until all I can do is mouth the word “more.”

The rougher the sex, the more I like it. I’ve never let a man leave a mark on me before, and now I’m wearing hoodies in the summer to cover the hickies on my neck and the bruises on my wrists.

I’ve never been with someone wilder than me, or more aggressive. It’s an escalating arms race with no end in sight. Even Adrik seems shocked at himself when I slap him across the face and he slaps me right back. We stare at each other, wide-eyed and panting, before I leap o n him again. He flips me over and shoves me face-down in the sand, fucking me until my whole chest is scraped raw, my bikini top washed away by the tide.

I sneak back to the house as the sun rises, red and sore, covered all over in wet sand. I rinse off at the outdoor shower, already regretting that I promised Nix we’d go shopping in town.

I want to spend time with her—of course I do—but I’d prefer an activity that Rafe and Adrik might join, or at least something at the house where I might catch a glimpse of Adrik reading a book in the hammock, or smell his cologne as I pass by Rafe’s room.

I only have two more days before I’m supposed to fly to Dubrovnik. I’m a kid desperately trying to ride every last ride before Disneyland closes.

It’s madness. I’m strung-out, pathetic, a goddamn embarrassment. What would my father say if he could see me?

He knew something was up, with all my texting and how secretive I became with my phone. He’s a goddamn detective. I knew if he spied so much as Adrik’s name on the screen, he’d never stop hounding me about it.

He didn’t believe my bullshit story about why I was three days late coming home from Dubrovnik. To my cousins’ credit, they kept their mouths shut, under what I’m sure was intense interrogation—even Cara, who’s allergic to lying, to the point where she will literally break out in hives.

I told my brother the truth. Damian always has my back. All he said was, “You know how Dad feels about Russians.”

Luckily the Petrovs don’t seem to share the same prejudice against Americans .

Adrik’s mother has been nothing but warm to me. She has the thickest accent of any of the Petrovs, and unlike Sloane, she doesn’t seem to take part in the family business. She has Adrik’s coloring—olive skin, blue-black hair—but her features are softer, her voice gentler, her movements slow and almost dream-like.

She goes for long walks down on the beach in the mornings, carrying a little sketchbook with a nub of a pencil tucked in the spine. The pages are already filling up with drawings of the view off the cliffs, the black and white Oystercatchers that pick their way down the beach, and the seals that roll out of the waves to sun themselves on the rocks.

She’s immensely affectionate to her boys, rarely passing Kade or Adrik without ruffling a hand through their hair, dropping down on her husband’s lap on the sofa instead of sitting beside him, curled up against him in a little ball as if she were still a kid herself.

She reminds me of my own mom—steady and calm.

Dominik Petrov is nothing like my dad. He strikes me as someone who never would have chosen this life at all if he hadn’t been born a Petrov.

His respect for Ivan is obvious—I suppose loyalty to his brother has been his motivation all this time. The jagged scar down his cheek is one of the many evidences of the cost of this service. The lines of exhaustion on his face in moments of repose make me think he would rather rest than rule. But maybe the people best suited to lead are always the most reluctant.

Neither of them has Adrik’s ferocity. There’s an extremism in Adrik that draws me—we share the same abhorrence for rules and restrictions, or even reasonable restraints. I want to find the edge, even i f I risk flying over it. I’ll never trust what can and can’t be done, until I try for myself.

I head upstairs for a proper shower, then dress in shorts and an old Cubbies’ jersey that only partly covers the scrapes on my chest and arms. Nix eyes the marks when she comes in from her own shower, but doesn’t say anything, roughly drying her flaming hair with one of the faded beach towels from the linen closet.

She steps into a pair of ragged cut-offs, the long muscles of her thighs flexing. Nix is built like an Olympian. I’m jealous of her athleticism—physical disadvantage is the one aspect of femininity I loathe. Nix is the only woman I know as strong as most men.

Well, maybe Ilsa, too. She certainly held her own amongst the Enforcers at Kingmakers. I don’t know how she stood living in the Guardhouse with all those overgrown frat boys. I would have perished from the smell alone.

“You’ll like the shopping on Hemlock Street,” Nix says. “They’ve got some cool little boutiques. Lots of coastal shit—knit bikinis and straw visors and jewelry made out of shark’s teeth.”

“Sounds great,” I say.

Catching the lack of enthusiasm, Nix glances up from the floor where she sat down to pull on her sneakers. “What’s wrong? I thought you liked shopping?”

“I do.”

“Well god knows I’m not doing it for me. If you’d rather go somewhere else, none of that bougie shit’s gonna fit me anyway.”

I shrug. “I just wanna hang out with you. Doesn’t matter to me what we do. ”

“Yeah?” Nix looks up at me from under the cloud of her already frizzing hair. Nix’s hair is the texture of cable yarn, with each strand curling in a different direction. This close to the ocean, she gets Diana Ross volume in a shade somewhere between Fanta and a fresh tangerine. “You don’t wanna ask the guys if they want to come with us?”

I keep my face expressionless and my voice casual. “I dunno. I guess we could if you want.”

“ Only if you want,” Nix imitates my blasé attitude. “ Makes no difference to me whether I get to scam on Adrik all afternoon …”

I laugh. “Invite them, then. Is that what you want to hear?”

“No,” Nix says, grinning at me mischievously. “I want to hear what kind of heat Adrik is packing to have you waking up before seven a.m. to sneak out of our room?—”

“Who said we’re fucking?”

“Unless you took up roller skating, it’s pretty obvious,” Nix says, shooting a pointed glance at my skinned knees. “That and your guilty fucking face.”

“What’s guilt?” I say airily. “Never heard of it.”

“I’ll write out some definitions for you,” Nix says. “A few words you should learn: ‘moderation,’ ‘safety standards,’ and ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

“Sounds like pure Chinese.”

“ ‘Chinese’ isn’t a language.”

“And ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t a word, it’s a phrase,” I say sweetly.

“Just when I thought I missed you …” Nix hauls herself to her feet, a long way from the ground to her full height .

“Don’t miss me. Come back to school with me. It’s miserable without you.”

“I’m happy here,” Nix says simply.

I can see that for myself. She seems perfectly at home with Rafe’s family, and happy in America, though it’s six thousand miles from what she knew before.

The Petrov ring glints on her left hand. Ivan gave it to her, a placeholder until Rafe could buy her an engagement ring. But Nix doesn’t want a diamond. She likes the family ring. She wants to be accepted as a Petrov, as one of them.

She isn’t afraid to uproot her life and change her plans at a moment’s notice.

Is she braver than me? Or only more certain of what she wants?

“You want to go down to Seaside?” Nix asks me. “There’s an arcade by the pier.”

“Sure.” I shrug. “I like games.”

“Me too.” Nix grins, already alight with competitive fire. “I wanna play you at Skee-Ball.”

Rafe jumps at the chance to take Nix to the arcade. Adrik agrees with the same level of nonchalance I was attempting, but he shoots me a look with so much heat that morning sunshine feels weak and watery by comparison.

As we climb in the backseat of Rafe’s Mustang, I spy a pair of my underwear crumpled up on the floorboards, from when Adrik and I borrow ed the car to “go for ice cream” the night before. I kick the black lace thong under Nix’s seat, hearing Adrik’s soft hiss of amusement as he catches me hiding the evidence.

“Remember when we used to play Super Smash Bros ?” Rafe says to Adrik, resting his arm across the back of Nix’s seat so he can turn and reverse down the long, winding driveway through the thickets of spruce shielding the Petrov mansion from view of the road.

“I still play with Andrei and Hakim,” Adrik says. “It’s an easy way to remind them who’s boss.”

Andrei and Hakim are two of Adrik’s Wolfpack—he’s got five in all living in his rented house in Moscow. The only one I know is Jasper Webb, and only by reputation.

“You should try playing Halo against Zima,” Rafe says, naming the youngest of Ivan’s men, a skinny guy who speaks his own pidgin of English slang and rapid Russian, who never wakes up before noon, then works late into the night on the Petrovs’ security systems.

“I love Halo ,” I pipe up.

Adrik looks at me, interested. “We should play at the arcade.”

“Sure.” I shrug.

I’ve been playing video games with Leo and Miles since I was old enough to hold a controller. You have to bring your A-game to match Leo’s reflexes or Miles’ strategy. I guess that’s the one advantage of being younger—I’ve been sprinting to catch up all my life.

Adrik’s hand rests on the bench seat, his fingers inches from my bare thigh. The sun beats down on us in the open backseat of the convertible, the fresh salt air whipping against our faces as Rafe pulls onto the main road leading down to Seaside .

Adrik’s black hair ruffles in the wind, long and shaggy, so thick that when I sink my hands in it, all my fingers disappear.

I want to touch him now. Sitting this close is like lurking around the kitchen when you’re starving. Every time I catch his scent it makes my mouth water.

The edge of his pinky brushes against my thigh.

The sun is hot and his hand is hotter.

I let my thighs fall open so my leg rests on the back of his hand. Each jolt of the car sparks our skin together, rock against flint.

The Mustang flies down the open road, Rafe steering easily with one hand on top of the wheel. His other palm rests on Nix’s leg, his thumb softly kneading her thigh.

They don’t have to hide anything. Not anymore.

Why should Adrik and I hide? Who are we trying to fool?

I look at his profile: the sharp Roman nose, the stern jaw, the narrow, slanting eyes with that look of wildness lurking in them. No matter how disciplined Adrik pretends to be, he can’t fool me. Like calls to like. He has a demon inside, just as wicked as mine.

Adrik feels me looking. He turns to face me, the wind swirling our hair around our faces like we’re caught in a tiny typhoon, closed off from anything around us, even our friends in the front seat.

Time seems to stretch between us, the song on the radio playing at quarter-speed, the car’s engine humming up and down my spine.

Adrik mouths, “ I want you …”

I whisper back, “ Then take me … ”

Adrik’s parents know why he’s really here. Nix knows, too. Who am I lying to?

Only myself.

I know exactly what I want. I just can’t admit it.

It’s crazy. I know it’s crazy.

But why shouldn’t I want crazy things? Why shouldn’t I take a chance?

I’ve never cared for security, or even happiness …

I want what I want, even if it’s all wrong for me.