CATALINA DIDN’T HUG her big sister the moment they were reunited. She slapped her.
“You are a stupid cow,” she said, flailing against Irina’s upturned arms. “A stupid, gullible, selfish cow.”
The FBI agent held her arms. Pulled her away. “You nearly got us killed,” Catalina told her sister. “Mother and father, too. And for what? So you could be famous in this stupid country?”
Irina lowered her arms. Said nothing, just looked at her sister, skinny and anxious and exhausted, and Catalina instantly felt guilty. Ashamed. She relaxed her body, felt the FBI agent release his grip on her. “I’m sorry,” she said.
It had been two long days since the FBI agents had pulled her away from Volovoi’s body. Catalina had spent them in an FBI building somewhere in New York City, though she hadn’t gone willingly.
She’d argued with the police for hours and hours. Forced the translator, Dr. Fidatov, to harass the cops for her, until he was sick and tired and refused to relay one more demand. So she kicked him out, demanded a new translator. Fidatov had stuck around, though. He moaned and cursed and muttered under his breath, but he didn’t leave her.
And why would he? He knew the situation was dire. Thirty girls abandoned in the Dragon’s warehouse, and the FBI wanted to feed her milk and cookies and talk about her feelings? Madness. She’d refused them. Hadn’t talked. Had shaken off all but one of their cookies, until a tired-looking FBI agent came into the room and told her the girls were alive.
“All of them,” Fidatov translated. “The FBI found the warehouse in the East Village.”
“And they’re alive,” Catalina said. “Dorina is alive?”
“They’re all alive. Every one of them. The FBI tracked them all down, thanks to you. So now you can cooperate, yes?”
Catalina felt like a chunk of concrete had been lifted from her chest. The girls were safe. Dorina was safe. Her parents, the FBI assured her, were safe. Even Irina was fine.
Fidatov watched her. The FBI agent stood at the door, an eyebrow raised. They wanted her cooperation. But Catalina wasn’t ready to give it.
“No,” she told the translator. “I want my sister.”
> > >
IT TOOK ANOTHER DAY for the FBI to fly Irina to New York. By this point, Catalina had given up her hunger strike, but she had no time, still, for the army of analysts who paraded through her room, asking how she felt and how afraid she’d been, whether she’d had any dreams.
“My sister,” she told them all. “I want to see my sister.”
She’d waited, impatient. She dreamed of Irina, not of the bearded devil. He was dead, and so was his flat-faced friend. She knew it. She’d seen it. They couldn’t hurt her anymore.
So, no, she wasn’t afraid. She just missed her sister.
And then, the next day, the door to her little interview room opened, and the FBI agent ushered Irina in. She was pretty as ever, far prettier than Catalina, and she appeared far less pale, far less hungry than Catalina felt.
And suddenly, Catalina felt mad.
It was Irina who had done this, who had wanted so badly to be famous in America. It was concern for Irina and her stupid dreams that had brought Catalina to this country in the first place, to the box, to the brink of death. And now she was here, well-fed and tanned, and Catalina wanted to slap her.
So she did.
She slapped her sister until she felt stupid. Then she slunk back and caught her breath, aware of the FBI agent’s eyes on her. She looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Then she said it again, because Irina was crying. And she’d wriggled free of the FBI agent, and then she really was hugging her sister, and feeling awful for being such a cow.
Irina hugged her back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Catya.”
And Catalina felt her defenses crumble, and then she was crying, too. Like a useless emotional little girl.
Shut up. You can cry now. After all of this, you’re allowed to cry.
So they cried. They cried until they were out of tears, and then they pulled themselves apart and dried their eyes, and Catalina told Irina about Bogdan and Nikolai, Andrei Volovoi and the Dragon, and Irina told Catalina about Mathers and Nancy Stevens and Maria. And when Irina was finished, she regarded the small interview room and made a face.
“I don’t know why I believed them,” she said. “The men in Bucharest. This is not paradise.”
“This?” Catalina said, gesturing to the room. “No, it certainly is not.”
“Not just here,” Irina said. “America. What’s so special? I miss Mother and Father. I want to go home.”
Catalina hugged her again. “I want to go with you.”