Anastasia opened her eyes to find that she was sitting in the back seat of Gregory's car, and that her hands and feet were bound. Alexei sat beside her, his hands and feet also bound. In the front seat sat Gregory, smiling calmly at them both. It was the middle of the night, and the car was parked to the side of a mist-covered bridge, the same bridge Anastasia had seen in her dream.

Anastasia's cell phone was in her back pocket, and she knew that if she leaned on it a certain way the telephone in George's apartment would ring with nobody being able to tell.

"Well, did you two have a nice little nap?" Gregory asked casually.

"You drugged us!"

Gregory smirked. "You should be grateful it wasn't cyanide. That's what they gave me."

Icy fingers gripped Anastasia's heart as she finally realized who he really was.

"How'd you come back as a high school student when you're really much older?"

"I can come back as whoever the hell I damn well please." He laughed cruelly. "I have special powers, remember? How many times would your precious little brother here have bled to death internally if not for me?"

"You never really cared about him! You just liked all the attention you got and how dependent on you our mother was!"

"Your mother." He chuckled softly. "Yes, the rumors were true, my dear little Grand Duchess. I did fuck your mother. She was a great little fuck, too. I should know. I've had some great fucks in my time."

"That's a lie! She would never have betrayed my father, not even with you!"

"People aren't always as they seem, are they?" Gregory asked softly. No, they sure aren't...

"What are you going to do to us?"

"I have a prophecy to finish fulfilling. One made by yours truly almost a hundred years ago. I warned you of what would happen if I were to be killed by aristocrats, your people. Nobody believed me and so it happened. I was one tough son of a bitch to kill, too. The poison didn't work. The bullets didn't work. In the end they had to fucking drown me." He sneered and pushed his face right into Anastasia's and she noticed for the first time how very cold his blue eyes were, colder even than those of the man who had read her family's death sentence in the basement of the Ipatiev House. I don't think he has a soul...

"I thought that the Bolsheviks had finished you all off back in nineteen eighteen, but as it turned out, I was wrong." He sneered at Alexei. "Not that there would have been any need to have wasted bullets and bayonets on you, when we both know that a swift kick to the abdomen is all it would have taken to have finished you off. But I guess they didn't know that, did they?"

Anastasia was so angry she could barely speak. "Rot in hell, you...you..."

"Can't think of a bad enough word, huh?" Gregory laughed. "I knew that that would get a rise out of you."

Frustrated that her hands were bound so she couldn't strike him, Anastasia had to settle for glaring at him as hatefully as she could.

"Now it's time to get down to business, which is that one of you is about to become fish food. It really should be both of you, but since I happen to be in a good mood today, I have decided to let one of you live. I'll let..." His pointed finger vacillated between Anastasia and Alexei, finally landing on Anastasia. "you decide which one of you is going for a swim."

"Take me," Anastasia said calmly.

"No, please, Nastya." Big tears welled in Alexei's eyes. "He can take me. It's all right. I've always known that I wasn't meant to live very long anyway."

"You know that isn't true anymore, Alexei. You have the clotting factor injections now."

"Even so, I can't let you die in my place. I love you too much. I was supposed to be the next Tsar, so what I say should go." He struggled to make his trembling voice sound firm. Gregory looked from one of them to the other.

"You would give your life for him, and he would give his for you. I don't understand."

"It's called love, Gregory. And the reason you don't understand is that it has nothing to do with magic or trickery or fooling people."

Gregory looked as if he were considering what Anastasia had just said, then shook his head and grinned.

"Well, as I was saying, it's time to get this show on the road. I gave you the choice and you made it." He leered at Anastasia. "Which I think is rather a pity, as I'll bet you're probably a pretty good little fuck yourself. I'll never know now, will I?"

He opened the car's back door and began to lift Anastasia.

"No...please..." Great sobs wracked Alexei's body.

"What are you whining about? You get a front row seat to watch your sister take her last swim. Her own choice, remember."

"You never told me about your brother who died, Gregory." Anastasia wondered how long it had been since the phone had rang in George's apartment. She longed to check her wristwatch but knew she didn't dare.

"His name was Dimitri. He fell into the river, and not long after that, he got sick with pneumonia. I begged God to save his life, but He wouldn't listen. I couldn't stop Dimitri from dying because I didn't yet have the power, the power to halt physiological processes that would lead to death if left unchecked. Oh, how I wanted that power. I knew that if I had it I could someday use it to save someone else, someone much more important than a simple peasant boy like my brother."

They both looked at Alexei, who stared at the ground.

"I knew that there was a price to pay, but I was willing to pay it. It would be worth it for the power I would get in exchange. I could have the most powerful family in Russia literally eating out of the palm of my hand. And I did." He laughed crazily.

Anastasia saw the look of deep shame on her brother's face and longed to comfort him, to tell him that he wasn't to blame, that he certainly hadn't asked to be born with hemophilia.

"Now, no more small talk. I have work to do." Gregory once more began to lift Anastasia.

"There's something else, Gregory. Remember those jewels that were sewn into my gown back at the Ipatiev House? When I crossed over, I brought them with me."

"You're bluffing. We both know the Bolsheviks took them."

"But what if they didn't, Gregory? What if I'm right? Can you imagine how much those jewels would be worth today? If you kill me or my brother, you'll never know where they are now. Do you really want to take that chance?"

Gregory paused, looking hesitant. Suddenly two more cars pulled up behind his on the bridge. One was George's Toyota and the other was a police cruiser. Thank God!

"I'll be right back." Gregory sailed over the bridge's rail in one fluid movement. Anastasia heard the distant splash from far below, but she didn't see the bubbles rising to the top of the water.