All Fall Down (7 page)

I
can’t feel the pavement anymore. Alexi is gripping my arm so tightly that my fingers have started to tingle. He doesn’t speak again, though. He just half drags, half carries me down Embassy Row. My mind is still back at that swimming pool. When I start to shake, I blame my wet clothes, the cold wind. I don’t dare say a word of protest. I let Alexei drag me along.

“Grace!” someone yells.

I stop, but Alexei tugs me harder. “I am taking you home,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Grace!” Noah’s footsteps are heavy and loud on the street behind us. When he finally catches up, he cuts us off and then leans over at the waist, panting. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

“She won’t be when I’m finished with her,” Alexei snarls.

I see Lila then, and Megan. They ease out of the shadows in front of the German embassy. Rosie must already be inside.

Lila isn’t looking at me, though. “Hi, Alexei,” she purrs as she eases closer.

“Hi.” Alexei’s voice is gruff. He never loosens his hold on my arm. “I’m taking Grace back to her embassy. I’d suggest you all go home as well.”

“How did you find me?” My voice cracks and I can’t stop shaking even with the heat of Alexei’s hand on my arm.

“Megan called me. She was worried.”

And now I know the answer to my question: Megan is definitely not my friend.

“It was that or call my mom,” she says, defiant.

But Noah just keeps looking at me.

“I can’t believe you’re okay,” he says. A nervous laugh escapes his lips, but it’s too loud on the quiet street, so he pulls his hands down to cover his mouth. It doesn’t hide the look in his eyes, though. Relief. “You’re okay,” he says again. “When you jumped I thought —”

“Say good night, Grace,” Alexei tells me with a tug on my arm.

It takes all my strength to hold my ground and push the now torn and ragged piece of silk in Lila’s direction.

“Here’s your scarf,” I force out.

“Thanks,” Lila says, but she keeps looking at me as if whatever’s wrong with me might be contagious.

Then I tug myself free of Alexei’s grasp and push ahead of him. Overhead, the streetlights flicker and fade. I’m shrouded in shadow as the street curves and I pause, press myself against the fence that surrounds the US embassy. I’m almost home. Or, the building that will pass for home for the foreseeable future. I’m almost safe.

And maybe that’s why I stop. I lean against the stone and the cold comes. My clothes are still wet. My hair has started to dry, and it clings to my face and to my neck. I want a hot shower, to feel the ocean and the sand washing off of me, pouring down my back.

“What were you thinking?” Alexei asks when he comes around the corner and finds me. But before I can answer, my brother’s best friend studies me anew. Alexei places a hand on my arm and I know that I am rocking slightly, back and forth. The others round the corner, and I see the looks on the faces that stare back at me, and I know what they are thinking.

I know because I’ve seen them before. The worried looks and cryptic glances. I can almost hear the whispers that will follow in my wake.

When Alexei speaks, he sounds like Jamie. “What is wrong with you?”

But this time I know better. This time, I lie.

“I’m fine. Just cold. Tired.”

“Grace —”

“Leave me alone, Alexei.” I try to push past him. Adrenaline is coming back in a heady, overwhelming rush. My voice is ice. “I am not your problem.”

“You’re Jamie’s problem. And since Jamie isn’t here …” He lets the words draw out, smiles at me — a look that is part dare, part charm, and I hate him for it. For how easy life must be for him. I wish I were bigger, stronger. Male. I wish I could make people stop worrying about me and my so-called frailness. And if they can’t forget to worry about me, then I wish they would just forget about me completely.

“You don’t get to boss me around just because I’m a girl, you know.”

“No.” He eases closer. Part of me is happy for the warmth, but the rest of me wants to cut that part out, toss it in the sea. “I get to be the boss of you because you’re Jamie’s kid sister and Jamie isn’t here.”

“Well, that’s his problem.”

“No. It’s my problem.” Alexei leans closer. I shake harder. “Do you have any idea where you were? What would have happened if someone — anyone — had seen you in there?”

I do know. I know exactly, but I can’t give him the satisfaction of hearing me say the words. Besides, the lecture is coming no matter what I say. If there’s one thing my life has taught me it’s that the lecture is
always
coming. That’s why I don’t tell him about the men; I don’t dare mention the scar. It will be like it never happened.

With any luck, even
I
will eventually forget that it happened. Even if I know it did.

“I paid the neighbors a visit. Sue me.”

“I’m going to do far worse than that,” Alexei snaps. Then he softens. “You are the daughter of a major in the United States Army. You are the granddaughter of the United States’ foremost ambassador to Europe. You cannot break into embassies of hostile governments, Grace. I didn’t realize someone had to spell that out to you, but I’m spelling it out now.”

“Leave me alone, Alexei,” I say, my voice cracking. I hate how badly I’m shaking. I want to pull my treacherous tongue right out of my throat.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Alexei says. He could always do that — see through me. I used to think it was Jamie, letting him in on all of my tells. But Alexei has grown up on this curvy street. He knows all the languages. Even mine.

“What is it, Grace? What is it you aren’t telling me?”

I think about the men in the basement, the voices, the ominous drip, drip, dripping of the water. And, again, I shiver. I do not say the things that I have sworn to never say again.

Instead I say good night.

Alexei doesn’t stop me when I pull away and start toward the gate, but I can hear his footsteps behind me, echoing my own.

“You’re following me,” I say.

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s really annoying.”

“I’m sure it probably feels that way, yes.”

I stop. “I can take care of myself.” Overhead, the gas in the streetlamp surges. It grows brighter, harsher. There are no shadows anywhere as he looks at me.

“That’s exactly what worries me.”

He doesn’t say another word as I step toward the gate and the marine who stands there, keeping guard.

No one questions my appearance or the hour — they’re tasked with keeping threats out, not teenage girls in.

I don’t pass a soul as I race up the stairs and into my mother’s room, closing the door firmly behind me.

The window is open. The cold wind blows inside and I rush toward it. I don’t ever want to feel that wind again. But as my hand lands on the frame, I see Rosie standing on the wall, looking at me. Slowly, she raises one hand in something that’s not quite a salute, not quite a wave.

I wave back and close the window, then silently draw the shades.

W
hen I wake, it takes a long time to remember where I am. Then I move my arms, trying to assure myself of where I’m
not
. The bed is soft and warm, so I know that last night I didn’t have an incident. But I also know that what happened wasn’t a dream. Oh how I wish it were a dream …

The Scarred Man was there
.

I lie perfectly still, trying to control my breathing, desperate to convince myself that I could have been seeing things. I could have been hearing things. After all, I was jet-lagged and exhausted, compromised by adrenaline and subpar lighting. I try to tell myself there was no Scarred Man last night — that I have absolutely nothing to fear. But that’s before I roll over and kick the woman sitting on the end of my bed.

“Good morning, Grace,” Ms. Chancellor says. She’s wearing a purple suit today, but it’s almost a carbon copy of the same one she wore yesterday. “It’s time to get up, dear.”

“And what time is that?”

“Almost seven.”

I huff and roll over. I was sneaking into a hostile country just five hours ago. But I can’t tell Ms. Chancellor that.

“I’m jet-lagged,” I say, pulling my pillow over my head to block out the light that streams through the window. She must have opened the shades.

Ms. Chancellor pulls my pillow away. “The best way to combat jet lag is to put yourself on your new time as quickly as possible. Now, come on. Up. Up. Up.”

She’s laughing as she says it, teasing. She really wants to be my friend, I realize, and suddenly I feel sorry for her. She doesn’t know what a terrible thing it is she’s asking for.

“Is
he
up?” I ask, pushing myself upright.

“Your grandfather has always been an early riser. Well, he has been for as long as I’ve known him. I’m afraid he can’t join us for breakfast, though. He had an early meeting at the palace.”

“Well, if he was needed at the
palace
…”

Ms. Chancellor forces a smile. “Why don’t you get dressed, Grace? Come downstairs. There is something you and I need to discuss over breakfast.”

When Ms. Chancellor leaves, I go into the bathroom. My mother kept snapshots tucked inside the mirror’s frame. There are probably a dozen, and I have no choice but to study them as I brush my teeth.

Mom and the grandmother I never knew. My mother and her best friend, smiling on the beach. Mom as a little girl, sitting at Grandpa’s desk. Part of me wants to yell and scream and throw every piece of my dead mother out the window. But I just put my toothbrush in the cup beside hers. I pull my hair onto the top of my head and go downstairs.

When I reach the doors to the dining room, Ms. Chancellor is standing behind a chair at the head of a table that probably seats at least forty. Maybe fifty. I don’t stop to count. I’m too busy staring at the silverware, and then wondering if you can still call it silverware if it’s actually made of gold.

“Come in, Grace,” Ms. Chancellor tells me.

“I usually eat in the kitchen.”

“Come in,” she says again. “And close the doors.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I’m careful to do exactly as she says as I walk around the edge of the room, as far away from the ornately set table as possible.

None of our plates at home even match, I realize. One of the many downsides of moving every six to eighteen months of your life. I learned from an early age to never own anything I didn’t want to end up in a million pieces at the bottom of a box.

“I thought you were getting dressed,” Ms. Chancellor says, and I look down at the T-shirt I slept in, my yoga pants with a bleach stain on the hem. I bring my hand up to touch the ponytail that sits lopsided on the top of my head and regret every decision I’ve ever made. Ever. Which makes this a perfectly average morning. Just with better silver (or gold) ware.

“Oh. Right. Sorry. You know, I think I left an iron on upstairs, and I —”

“Grace, if you have used an iron within the last six months, I will eat that fork,” Ms. Chancellor says.

“Which one?” I try to tease. “You’ve got a lot of forks to choose from.”

“
From which to choose
, Grace. Do not end your sentences in prepositions, dear.”

“Of course. I totally see what you’re getting at. I mean, at what you’re getting.”

I force a smile and move to the head of the table, take hold of the chair, but before I can pull it back, Ms. Chancellor singsongs,
“Not that chair.”

“Okay,” I say, moving to the chair beside it.

“And not yet,” Ms. Chancellor says, moving to the head of the table. “You may sit after the head of the table sits, Grace. Never before.”

“Okay,” I say as she sits down regally. When she nods, I take the chair beside her.

“Have you ever studied etiquette, dear?”

“Yeah. My dad and brother were super big on that. Right after they covered the proper cleaning and storage of military-grade side arms, of course.”

“Grace.” The word is a warning.

“What?” I ask.

“I’m serious.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” And the bizarre part is that I really am. I want to be good, to use the right fork and wear a pretty linen dress to breakfast. I want to be the girl in the pictures upstairs. But I can’t be. That girl is dead.

“Your arrival here is quite good timing. Did you know that?” Ms. Chancellor takes the napkin and places it gently in her lap.

I mimic the gesture as I tell her, “Uh … no. I didn’t know.”

It hadn’t seemed like good timing to me.

I don’t pick up my gold fork until Ms. Chancellor picks up hers. I mimic everything, right down to the small sliver of ham she slices and puts in her mouth.

“Oh, well, Adria is a place that takes its traditions very seriously. History matters here, in the best possible sense. And one of the traditions that matters most is about to be upon us.”

“Oh.” I prepare to take another bite. “What would that be?”

“Every year, the ambassadors who are stationed here must visit the palace and present their credentials to the king. It’s a very old, very important tradition.”

“Okay,” I say, then risk a sip of water.

“Always wipe your mouth before you take a drink, Grace.”

“Okay,” I say one more time, not fighting it. I’m just happy to, at last, be eating.

“As it happens, the presentation-of-the-credentials ceremony is tomorrow night at the palace.”

“That’s nice,” I say, still unclear what any of this could possibly have to do with me.

“Oh, it is
very
nice.” Ms. Chancellor chuckles a little. “In fact, technically, it’s
a ball
.” I wipe my mouth and reach for my juice as Ms. Chancellor finishes, “And you are going to be your grandfather’s date.”

That is when I spit juice all over Ms. Chancellor and her pretty purple suit.