A twig cracked under her foot.
Phoebe ducked down into the bushes just as Mikhail's head swiveled around, searching for the source of the noise. Cursing herself for being so careless, she watched Mikhail through the thick tangle of the bush, her body tense. She could only see his feet from where she was crouched- set far apart, ready for any potential attack that might come his way- but she imagined that his eyes were carefully scanning every corner of the surrounding foliage.
A second passed then two more. And then he began moving, his steps slow and cautious, right towards the bush she was hiding under. She bit her lip and willed her invisibility to work again, but it was no use; she'd exhausted it just following him out into this deep part of the forest. Not that it would have helped much if it had worked. He could still hear her, and perhaps even sense her psychic signature, if he was sensitive enough to do so.
He stood there in front of the bush for one nerve-racking minute. Phoebe kept her head down, not trusting herself to look up (the movement of her head might jostle the branches), her gaze on his boots. They were dark brown and well-worn, with a layer of dirt clinging to the bottom.
Those boots began retreating a moment later, and Phoebe exhaled a breath that she hadn't known she'd been holding. She stayed where she was, waiting for Mikhail to be a safe distance away before sitting up and peering over the bushes. Her heart was still beating fast, likely from how close he had been to catching her.
If he had caught her, he probably would have thought that she was spying on him. She was not. She was observing him, and yes there was a difference between the two. One was an important part of the scientific process; the other was weird, and more than a little creepy in this context. Not that she would have been able to explain that to him in any sort of logical manner. Phoebe frowned as she observed Mikhail, who was investigating a skinny birch, his fingers tracing the lines of some scratches left behind by an unknown creature.
It wasn't like she was doing this for her own amusement! She certainly had better things to do than spy on- observe- Mikhail Bulgakov. She could have been back at the main lodge with Quentin, practicing the new song they had written last week, or counseling Clem Foote, her newest project, instead of hiding in this bush getting sticks and leaves tangled in her hair. But right now she was having an Issue, and she knew that it was important for her to resolve this as soon as she could, lest it fester and become a Problem.
She had become aware of the Issue three days ago, late one mild Sunday morning. She'd been making her way to the campfire area to meet Quentin when she spotted the Coach's jeep levitating in the air, seemingly of its own accord. That had been enough to give her pause, and she had stopped, puzzled, until she saw Mikhail standing a few feet away to the vehicle's left. One of his arms had been bent at the elbow, touching two fingers to his forehead, the other held stiffly out, ramrod straight. He had held the jeep up for three seconds before gently setting it back down in its parking space, his arm following the jeep's descent. A moment later it was back in the air, hovering maybe two feet above the asphalt.
Phoebe had watched him for a moment, her arms crossed over her chest. As impressive as that feat of strength was, it was one that would land Mikhail in a world of trouble should one of the counselors discover him (especially the Coach). Was that what they did in his home country? Did Russian psychics just spend their days using cars and trucks as the psychic equivalent of a weight set? That sort of thing might have been fine in Russia, but here at Whispering Rock it wasn't. Perhaps nobody had explained that to him. Phoebe had figured then that somebody ought to, and who better than herself? Explaining things to others was one of her many talents and she had just recently read a book on cultural sensitivity, and was eager for the opportunity to test those skills out.
With that thought in mind, she had strode over to him confidently, the anticipation of opening up an important cross-cultural dialogue driving her forward. He had been too absorbed in his strenuous task to notice her approach, his teeth gritted in exertion. She had opened her mouth and then closed it, realizing that startling him when he was levitating a two and half ton jeep in the air probably wasn't the smartest idea. So she had waited there as he held the jeep in his psychic grasp, watching as a bead of sweat trailed down the side of his face and along the edge of his jaw.
She had been wondering why she had noticed something like that at all when his gaze had slid toward her from the corner of his eye. He set the jeep down just as gently as before and turned to face her, his face blank but not unfriendly. "Firestarter," he had said, his accented voice deeper and more mature than any of the other boys at camp.
She had been caught off-guard when he had called her 'Firestarter', unsure if he was referring to the band (which would have been good because it meant that her band name idea was catching on and not Quentin's,) or to her pyromania (which would have been totally insensitive of him). The confusion had caused the words that she had been about to say to crawl back down into her throat, and she had only been able to stare up at him dumbly in response to his greeting.
Mikhail had stared back, head tilted downwards (and wow, Phoebe hadn't noticed just how tall he was until she was standing right in front of him), one eyebrow disappearing into his hat as he raised it. "You want something?"he had asked, puzzled by her actions but not impatient.
The question had snapped her out of her silence but not out of whatever stupor she had fallen into. She had come over here with the intention of educating Mikhail on what was and was not an appropriate item to practice telekinesis on in America, but all she'd been able to do was stammer out "The Coach's jeep" while gesturing vaguely in the direction of the vehicle.
"Ah."He nodded in understanding, the corners of his mouth going upward in a confident smile. Coincidently, her heart rate had gone up at the same time, and a faint heat had crept up her neck. It must be heatstroke, Phoebe had thought, though the mildness of the day had cast some doubt on that conclusion.
Mikhail had turned back towards the jeep, resuming his previous stance. "Is good workout for brain," he explained as his telekinetic hand hoisted the jeep back up into the air, slowly but surely. "Improvement can only come when abilities tested."
Phoebe had swallowed dryly, more focused on Mikhail's outstretched arm than on what he had been saying. From a distance, his arms had appeared thin, but up close she could see how leanly muscled they were. They were the kind of arms that could easily pick her up and throw her…or hold her really, really tightly.
It must have been heatstroke that had caused her cheeks to flare up the way they did. "You'll get-" she cut herself off, paused, and then tried again. "If you get caught, you'll get in trouble!" she blurted out, mentally chastising herself immediately after. This was not how she had planned to address this at all! Where the heck had her usual professionalism gone?
"Is fine," Mikhail had replied, concentrating too hard on the floating jeep to notice how flustered Phoebe was. "Skinny Scientist said Mikhail could do high-intensity training in parking lot, so long as red car not touched." His arm inched upward, the jeep moving in time with it. "Just so. War jeep much heavier." Again, he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Much better test of strength."
Her heart, still beating rapidly (because of the heat), had skipped a beat when he looked at her, and she had switched her gaze to the jeep now hovering three feet in air. "Well," she had said, an odd fluttery feeling in her stomach, "I guess if Agent Nein says its okay…" She had trailed off, her mind going completely blank on what to say next, and too awed by Mikhail's telekinetic talent to reflect on how strange it felt to be struck speechless.
The jeep levitated higher and higher, but her eyes had been more drawn to the psychic responsible for the spectacle than the spectacle itself. Mikhail hadn't seemed bothered by her presence; if anything having an audience bolstered his strength, as he raised the jeep up higher than he had the previous two times she had witnessed him doing this. At its highest, the jeep had been about four feet off the ground. Mikhail had held it there for a few seconds, his eyes squinting in concentration (he had the darkest eyes she had ever seen, a shade near black). When it began to teeter forward, he hadn't tried to keep it up in the air, instead acknowledging that he'd lifted it as far as he safely could and setting it back down. "New record," he said proudly as he turned back toward her, grinning.
Her heart had stopped when he had looked at her before, but when he smiled at her triumphantly her brain had simply lost all function. She had smiled back, if only because her lips had been the only part of her that she could reliably control. "Yeah that's…nice." So were his teeth. They weren't perfect, the canines a little more pointed than normal, but for reasons she couldn't understand that just made them even more appealing.
"Nice," Mikhail had repeated, raising his eyebrow again. That one quirk of an eyebrow had caused her cheeks to blaze, and her face had felt hotter than it did when she was angry. "Little Firestarter difficult to impress." His smile had not faltered, and he sounded more than willing to step up to the task of impressing her. He examined the parking lot, tapping his chin contemplatively. His eyes locked onto the camp bus. "Mikhail lift bus and jeep at same time," he said, placing his index and middle finger back on his forehead. "Firestarter will witness accomplishment and think it much better than nice."
It must have been the teasing way he had spoken that had set her off. She hadn't been angry (on the contrary, she'd felt giddy that he had wanted to impress her at all) but for some reason smoke began billowing out from the inside of Mikhail's shirt.
He had looked down, alarmed by the sudden heat, and jumped back to get out of the range of her pyrokinesis (a somewhat unnecessary action- she had stopped herself just short of actually lighting him up once she realized what was happening). "Ah, sorry," he had said, not the least bit distressed despite having nearly been set on fire. "Mikhail misinterpret. Firestarter want match, not performance." He went into a wrestler's stance, arms out wide. "Challenge accepted."
"W-wait!" she had shouted, holding her hands out defensively as he advanced. Her face was still burning up, and if he tackled her they would both end up in engulfed in flames. "I didn't-"
"What in the Sam Hill are you punks doing in the parking lot?" The Coach's shouts had stopped Mikhail in his tracks. "Bulgakov!" he had barked, his face redder than Phoebe's as he hurried down to them, faster than one would have thought him capable on his stubby legs. "You better not have been messing with the War Machine again!"Phoebe had taken the opening that the Coach had given her to escape, rushing off to the campfire area before she could hear Mikhail's response.
The incident had been at the forefront of her mind during the three days that passed. It wasn't that she had slipped up and almost burned somebody that had bothered her (though she certainly hadn't been proud of it) so much as the fact that she couldn't figure out why she had done it all. She had made mistakes in the past- nobody was perfect- but usually she was able to pinpoint the exact thing that had triggered it, whether it be somebody testing her temper or an object that looked like it would burn in a particularly entertaining manner. Mikhail had not been either of those things.
To make matters worse, it quickly became clear that whatever weird effect Mikhail was having on her hadn't been limited to that incident in the parking lot. Anytime she was within close proximity to him her face would get all hot, and she'd suddenly feel as though burning something was the only outlet she had for this inexplicable feeling. The day before yesterday Mikhail had walked into the main lodge with Maloof while she and Quentin had been practicing, and she'd been forced to abruptly leave the stage before she set her drumsticks on fire. And just this morning she had had to cut a counseling session with Elka short, simply because the Russian had been visible in the window of the girl's cabin.
She had no idea why Mikhail's presence was affecting her the way that it was. It wasn't just the heat in her face, it was the flipping of her stomach, the way her heart beat a little faster, and the way that all of the thoughts in her brain just died whenever he happened to glance her way, even if it was just for a second.
There were only two things that she was sure of right now: that this issue was interfering with both her hobbies and her training, and that Mikhail Bulgakov was at the center of it.
And that was how she found herself trailing him at what she hoped was a safe distance, going further into the forest than she ever had before. There was still a dirt path here but it wasn't well-tended, a slender line nearly overgrown with patches of green grass. They both risked a stern talking-to from Ranger Cruller if he caught them in this off-limits section of the woods, but it was a risk that she was willing to take. Besides, being this far out from camp took away all of the potential distractions that may have kept her from concentrating fully on finding out what the source of her Issue was with Mikhail. It also meant that she could be alone with him, an idea that sent an odd thrill through her (but why? It was yet another mystery to add to the pile).
Mikhail abandoned the scratched-up tree and headed further down the path. Phoebe waited a bit before following, her eyes on his back. He had such a strong gait, she noted, his back straight and his arms swinging at his sides as he walked, not too fast and not too slow. Where he was going, she had no idea, and he probably didn't know either, given that he was tracking the creature that had left those scratches. That lack of knowledge of where he would wind up and what he would face when he got there only seemed to spur him onward to a challenge that he was excited to face. It was something that Phoebe understood –hunting and wrestling those bears must give him the same feeling that she got whenever she made a breakthrough with a patient or mastered a new psychic ability. It dawned on her that they had something in common, and that realization made her want to jump out of her hiding spot and catch up to him. Maybe they could talk about less aggressive ways to test his abilities...
She remained hidden, knowing that she wasn't ready to talk him yet. She settled for sneakily scuttling out of her bush and into another one that was much closer to him.
He had stopped again, kneeling down on the ground to examine some tracks. Phoebe didn't know what had left them, but from the way that he was frowning they might not have been bear tracks. The bush that she was hiding in offered an excellent view of his profile. He was just so sharp- his nose, his chin, the high slash of his cheekbones. There was not a shred of baby-fat on him, yet another feature that set him apart from the other campers (except for Bobby Zilch, but puberty hadn't been nearly as kind to him as it had been to Mikhail).
He rose to his feet suddenly and turned away, his back to her. It looked as though his head was tilted upwards, but it was hard for her to tell, because his hat was in the way. Her eyes became locked on to the hat and she wondered what it was called- she only knew it as a distinctly Russian garment. She decided that she would ask him once she resolved this Issue.
That was what she should have been focusing her attention on, but she was unable to draw her mind away from that hat. She'd never seen him without it and it was likely that only those he bunked with had. Unless he slept with it on? Would it even fit in the bed? Probably not, she guessed. The beds weren't very long, and he was already tall to begin with, having at least a foot on her. She'd barely reach his shoulders even if she stood on her tip-toes. She would have to levitate if she wanted to be eye-to-eye with him. Or he could just lift her up the rest of the way with those strong arms of his…
By the time she noticed that the temperature had risen ten degrees two small embers had flickered onto his hat, and were spreading fast towards each other. Before she could even shout out a warning he flung the hat off of his head, where it rolled off to the side. His arm shot out in her direction and all of a sudden she was in the air and upside down, and quickly being pulled to where he was standing. This had not been how she envisioned him picking her up, with one leg in his telekinetic grip and the other dangling free. But if I had, she thought as she scrambled to grab the hem of her shirt before it could ride up, I probably wouldn't have gotten caught.
He stopped her right in front of him, that same triumphant expression that he had had while successfully lifting the Coach's jeep on his face. Amazingly enough, the look was just as attractive when seen upside down as it was when she was right-side up. "Little Firestarter," he said, not at all surprised to have found her hiding in that bush. "Ambush plot very clever, but doomed from the start." He grinned at her, and her head felt very light-from the blood rushing to it of course.
The hold that he had on her leg was not painful, just tight enough to keep her where he wanted her. "I wasn't- No!" she said as she struggled in mid-air, twisting this way and that. "Put me down!"
"Mikhail know Firestarter wanted match," he continued, ignoring her demand. "You do poor job of hiding it. So I lead you out to off-limits section of woods with plan of counterattack. It work, and now Firestarter must admit defeat."
"I wasn't trying to ambush you!" she insisted. She stopped moving, knowing that continuing would only exhaust her. "This is all just a misunderstanding."
Mikhail did that eyebrow raise of his, and oh wow, she could actually see his eyebrows now. And his hair, for that matter. It was a brown so dark that it was near black, like his eyes, his bangs flat against his forehead. Even though he had put her in such an undignified position, she had to admit that it complimented is features well. "Why follow Mikhail if not planning sneak attack?" he asked, skeptical of her protests. "Why make first move?"
Would telling the truth make her situation more or less embarrassing? She took a deep breath to buy herself sometime to think. "I'll explain everything," she said, keeping her tone as level and logical as she could, "if you put me down."
"Hmm." He scratched his chin, appearing to consider her request, but the glint in his eyes had her thinking that he wasn't taking her seriously at all. "Firestarter will be set down," he said lightly, the barest hint of teasing in the words. "Right after she concede match and acknowledge victory."
"Stop calling me that! My name's Phoebe!" she said, completely exasperated. "And no, I'm not going to say that you won anything, because I wasn't trying to fight you!" Heat was rising up within her again, but this time she knew that the source was her growing anger.
"So be it." He shrugged and pulled her body closer to his. "Mikhail will just have to dunk you in river." He inclined his head back, in the direction where the river supposedly was.
"What!" Her voice came out in an offended shriek, mimicking the sound she would probably make once he put her in the cold water. "You better not!" she yelled, renewing her attempts to wrest free of his psychic grip. "Don't you dare!"
"Is necessary," he said, nodding solemnly. "As precaution against further pyrokinetic assault."
There was no way that anyone was dunking Phoebe Love into a body of water, no matter how tall, dark and handsome they were. She swung her free leg out as hard as she could. Her foot slammed into his face, the impact eliciting a nasty crunch, and then she was on the ground, free at last. She managed to land on her hands rather than her head, and apart from being a little dizzy, was relatively okay.
Mikhail hadn't fared so well. He was covering his nose with his hand, but she could spot drops of blood staining the yellow of his Whispering Rock T-shirt, his eyes wide with surprise. Oh God, was his nose broken? This whole endeavor had gone about as disastrously as it possibly could have, short of her accidently killing him. Even now she could feel her cheeks getting hot. The best thing for her to do now would be to flee back to camp and hide in the girl's cabin until she figured out a way to apologize to him without making an even bigger fool of herself.
She launched herself to her feet and sped off down the trail, yelling out a quick "Sorry!" that she wasn't even sure that he could hear.
Mikhail watched the Firestarter's retreating back as he clutched his bloody nose, the echoes of her apology reverberating throughout the forest. He pulled his hand away from his face, impressed that her small foot had done so much damage. He untied the bandanna from around his shoulders and wiped his hand clean before pressing the cloth to his nose.
The pain was sharp and it would hurt for the next few hours, but he didn't think it was broken. If it was, that was fine- it wasn't anything he hadn't been through before. He telekinetically retrieved his hat from the ground, placing it in his other hand. Patches of fur had been burned away in two spots, leaving behind black scorch marks in their place. Seeing those patches made him smile. It really had been a smart move, one that would have been a great distraction had he not already been prepared for it.
He set the hat back on his head and began his trek back to camp. As he walked, he reflected on the match, going over his mistakes. Obviously he'd been too cocky- he let himself tease her about dunking her in the river (something he hadn't really been planning to do, even if the river hadn't been on the other side of the forest) and she had wisely taken advantage of it, a move he respected. He wouldn't make that mistake again, should there ever be a rematch.
Although…the Firestarter- no Phoebe, she said her name was Phoebe- had insisted so hard that they hadn't been in a match at all. Could that have just been more distractions on her end? Perhaps, but that didn't explain why she had fled so hastily, or why she had apologized for taking the opening he had given her. Mikhail furrowed his brows, only just now realizing how strange her behavior had been. Then he shrugged. He could ask her about it later, when he formally conceded the match in her favor. Whether she had meant to or not, she had definitely won this round.
The prospect of talking to her again sped his steps up, and he hurried back to camp, his mood light in spite of the pain in his nose.