by Ally Carter
I’m not hungry, but I force myself to eat—to keep my body fed, to be a good influence on Jamie, who is still far too thin and too weak.
Besides, the way Dominic is acting, we may not stop for lunch, for supper. We may never stop again, and so I take slow, steady bites of my pancakes. I eat my scrambled eggs. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I have absolutely no idea what any day might bring.
The diner is cold but far from empty. The only noise is the scrape of forks against plates, the distant, sizzling hum of frying bacon. And, beneath it all, there are whispers.
I can see the girls out of the corner of my eye. They’ve piled purses and backpacks into the corner of a booth, and the three of them lean across the Formica-topped table. They’ve pushed aside plates of barely eaten food and filled their cups with more sugar than coffee. But, most of all, they watch us.
No. That’s not true. They watch Alexei.
Eventually, Dominic gets up to pay the bill. The girls slide out of their booth and collect their things, shooting glances our way.
“You have admirers,” I say.
“Excuse me?” Alexei looks at me as if maybe I am speaking Japanese.
“You didn’t notice your fan club?” I jerk my head in the direction of the three girls. They’re all wearing cheerleading uniforms. It must be Friday, I realize. Game night. They’re probably getting ready to go to a pep rally, maybe take some tests. They are getting ready to be normal for one more day.
They’re the queens of their school; I can tell it by the way they sit and talk and toss their hair.
I’m a real-life princess, but I’ll never be as royal as the three of them.
“You notice everything,” I tell him. “Do you really expect me to believe that you didn’t see three girls in cheerleading uniforms checking you out?”
Alexei glances up, blue eyes through dark black lashes. “I do not notice girls,” he says. “I notice girl.”
And with those words, my brother coughs. “Well, I think that’s my cue to excuse myself.” He slides out of the booth and heads toward the bathroom, slowly. He actually holds on to one of the leather-covered barstools to steady himself as he goes.
The cheerleaders watch him. Just a few weeks ago they would have been eyeing both Alexei and Jamie, but my brother isn’t well, and it’s obvious even to them. Whatever swagger he used to have flowed out of him weeks ago. We left it puddled on the embassy’s dining room floor.
It’s coming back, I know it. Slowly. Surely. But it’s not coming fast enough.
“He’s not getting better, is he?” I ask, terrified of the answer, but needing to ask it anyway.
Alexei pushes his empty plate away and pulls mine in front of him, shoves a fork full of my pancakes into his mouth, then considers.
“He has the strongest heart of anyone I have ever known. He will recover.”
The frustration that’s been building inside of me for days is starting to boil now. It’s all I can do not to yell when I say, “Not if we keep dragging him all over creation. Not if we keep giving him fluids in the back of a car and not taking him to a doctor when his fever spikes, and … he won’t get better like this.”
“Yes.” Alexei pierces me with a stare. “He will. He has to.”
“He needs to rest,” I say like a petulant child, complaining about not getting her way. “He needs to stay in one place and rest.”
“We can’t stop running, Gracie.” Alexei pushes away my plate as well, his appetite suddenly gone. “You know that. We can never stop running.”
I want to yell and scream about how wrong he and Dominic are to doubt me—that I know Jamie better than anyone and I know what is best. I wish I could tell them that they’re wrong.
But they’re not.
And I hate that most of all.
“Jamie could stop running, you know …”
“Gracie, we—”
“He could.” I cut him off, make him look into my eyes. “He could stop if they had something—if they had someone—else to chase.”
In the silence that follows I can actually feel Alexei shifting, changing. He sits up straighter, leans closer. He does everything but grab me by the hands, force me to stay in this booth and within his grasp. I can actually feel Alexei’s fear.
“Gracie, if you think you can—”
“Hey!”
When I see a fuzzy blue figure out of the corner of my eye it takes me a moment to remember the cheerleaders. They stand at the end of our booth, pink backpacks over blue uniforms, all three of them looking down at Alexei, who doesn’t even seem to notice that they’re there, wearing uniforms that are the exact color of his eyes.
I look up at the middle girl, the one who spoke. “Hi,” I say, but the girl acts like I haven’t said a thing.
“So my friends and I were wondering … do we know you?” She runs her hands along her backpack straps, pushing her chest a little closer to Alexei.
“Sorry,” I say. “We’re not from around here.”
“It’s just that …” the girl says as if she’s still under the impression that she’s having this conversation with the cute boy and not the annoying girl he’s eating with for some unknown reason. “You look super familiar, and we thought we’d come say hi. So … hi.”
For a second, she’s content with the silence that follows, but Alexei’s gaze is still glued to me; the worry is still etched on his face.
“He says hi back,” I say, and for once the cheerleaders seem to acknowledge my existence.
“I’m Lura,” the girl says. “Lura McCraw.” She’s still studying Alexei. “You really do look familiar, you know.”
“He knows,” I say because the last thing we need is for these girls to hear Alexei’s Russian accent, for them to realize the cute boy in the diner is also the hot fugitive they’ve no doubt seen on TV.
Alexei didn’t murder the West Point cadet, but that’s one story no news station is going to carry. He’s still a fugitive—a wanted man. And I can’t let these girls realize it, especially since they want him for entirely different reasons.
“Lura!” her friend whines. “We’re going to be late.”
“Okay.” Lura turns back to Alexei. “Well, bye, then. I guess I’ll see you around. Nice talking to you.”
Whether or not Lura realizes that Alexei never said a word is something we’ll never know. As the girls head toward the door, Alexei doesn’t even glance in their direction. He doesn’t wonder what it feels like to spend an entire day sitting in classes, to live in a world where your biggest problems are pop quizzes or whether the person you like might like you back.
I’m a princess, but I’d trade places with the Luras of the world in a heartbeat. I’d trade places and never once look back.
“Ignore them,” Alexei says when the door dings and they’re finally gone. “They know nothing.”
It’s true. And, honestly, that’s the hard part. They don’t know what it feels like to watch your brother lie on a table, life flowing out of him like the blood that stains the floor. They don’t know what it means to walk down a dark alley, jumping at shadows, looking for ghosts. They aren’t hunted. They aren’t marked. They can gather their bags and their friends and rush out into the sunlight while I am cursed to live in the shadows. Not just for now, but for always. I’m thousands of miles away, but I’m still locked in the tunnels beneath Adria. I’m still trying to find a door.
“Grace Olivia.” Dominic’s voice brings me back. “We must leave.”
“Jamie needs to rest,” I try one more time, a broken record.
“He can rest in the car,” Dominic says, helping me from the booth.
“Jamie isn’t well,” I tell him, the words automatic now. My body is numb.
“He will be significantly less well if they find him.”
The door dings as Dominic pushes it open.
“Dominic …”
“Yes.”
“The Society—can they help?”
Dominic puts on his dark glasses, donning his mask, and I cannot read his gaze. He doesn’t want to hurt me further, so he doesn’t answer at all.
In total, I have four fake passports. I have almost a thousand US dollars in cash and almost as much in euros. There are two credit cards with fake names and a burner cell phone that has never been used.
Jamie has a packet that’s similar. Alexei does, too. Dominic handed nearly identical envelopes to each of us as soon as it was safe to remove Jamie from the army hospital in Germany. For weeks, mine have been in a pouch that I keep hidden, wrapped around my stomach. Always there, itching and rubbing against me, daring me to run.
So for weeks, I guess, a part of me has known this was coming.
It’s another night and another motel. But this one is two miles from a bus station, and that’s the only distinction that matters.
I’m quiet as I slip on my shoes and pick up my backpack. Jamie’s sleeping fitfully, and I ease toward the door. I can’t risk him waking as I slip outside.
I don’t say good-bye.
There’s nothing but darkness and an empty highway and the narrow beam of my favorite flashlight, which, it turns out, is all you really need to disappear.
I’ve never really liked crowds, but now I truly hate them. I don’t see people. I see threats. Who has a gun, a knife? How many people are standing between me and the nearest exit, blocking my very best chance at retreat?
I’m too exposed here, too open. But Washington, DC, has more surveillance cameras than any city in the world, with the exception of London. And as I sit with the Capitol to my right and the Washington Monument to my left, I know there are probably more cameras here than average. So I keep a ball cap pulled low over my eyes. My hair is loose around my shoulders. A few days ago I was cursing how long it was starting to get, but now I’m grateful for that extra layer between me and any facial recognition software that might be scanning the globe at this moment, trying to find the lost princess of Adria.
“Hello, Ms. Blakely.”
I might not have recognized the woman who stands before me, but by now I’d know her voice anywhere. Gone is her pristine white suit and fluffy fur stole. She’s in a black trench coat today. She wears a black-and-white scarf around her white hair and she holds a small bag of bread crumbs. Without asking for permission she sits beside me on the bench and starts tossing crumbs to pigeons.
No one seems to notice the men in dark suits who stand not far away. Her guards are almost as unobtrusive as she is. None of the joggers or school groups that pass can begin to guess that the old lady feeding pigeons spent her morning with the president. Alexandra Petrovic might be the Prime Minister of Adria, but she’s also a chameleon. It’s one more reason not to trust her.
But I have to trust someone, and right now she’s my only option.
“Some might say you’re foolish for coming here,” she says.
I have to laugh. “It won’t be the first time they’ve said it. Trust me.”
The birds swarm around us, scattering on the ground as she tosses a handful of crumbs onto the grass.
“I was very pleased to hear from you, Grace. Surprised, but pleased.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“I’m glad.”
“I want to stop running.”
“That’s good, Grace. Let us—”
I spin on her. “I want to end it.”
The PM studies me. We’re thousands of miles from Adria, but it feels like we’re right back where we started.
“If the royal family is after me, I want to prove it. I want to …” But I honestly don’t know how that sentence is supposed to end. “I want to end it,” I say again. “And the Society can help me. Or you can get out of my way.”
“I see,” the PM says. I know she knows I’m serious—that I’ll burn them down. All of them. I won’t stop until the wall of Adria is nothing but a pile of smoldering dust.
“Now you can stand with me or you can stand against me, but you should know I have three conditions.”
If PM Petrovic is angry with me, she doesn’t show it. She just gives a little laugh, as if she’d known this moment was coming all along. Her eyes actually twinkle.
“Of course you do.”
“First, you clear Alexei’s name. He didn’t kill anyone. It’s not right that John Spencer’s murder has been blamed on him just because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t care what kind of story you have to spin or how many lies you have to tell. After this, Alexei stops being a wanted man. Okay?”
When the PM looks into my eyes, I can’t read the expression that lives there.
“Can you do it?” I ask, and she looks as if I might be joking—like no one could possibly be this naïve.
She tosses another handful of crumbs to the pigeons and says, “Yes. We can do it.”
She means it, I can tell. And at last I breathe a little easier, at least for Alexei’s sake.
“Second,” I say, because it feels like I’m on a roll, “my brother stays out of this.”
This time the PM stops laughing.
“Your brother is the rightful king of Adria, Ms. Blakely. He is very much in this.”
“And that fact almost killed him,” I shoot back. “You have me. You have the spare, so you don’t need the heir. I am expendable, so you can have me. And if I’m not good enough, then I will get off this bench and disappear and no one will ever see me again. Understood?”
For once, the PM looks at me as if I might be more than a reckless teenager, a liability. A girl. She’s looking at me as if I might actually be worth a sliver of her respect. And, grudgingly, she gives it.
“I understand.” She nods and tosses the last of the crumbs to the birds before turning back to me. “And your final condition, Grace?”
She smiles like maybe Alexandra Petrovic and I are becoming friends. Or maybe we’re just starting to not be enemies.
“My third requirement is the hardest, I’m afraid.”
“And that is?”
“Stop lying to me.”
I expect her to laugh again, to look at me like I’m playing dress-up inside my mother’s world. But the PM simply rises. For a second, I think she’s going to say no, to turn her back on me and all my drama.
But instead she raises one eyebrow and says, “Very well, then.”
She extends a hand, and I rise and take it. I know we’re sealing our deal—that we’re partners. Allies. But mostly, she’s just the devil I know.
I tell myself it’s going to be okay, and maybe I even let myself believe it. But then the PM glances behind me, gives a nod. “Go ahead.”
Before I can react, there’s a hand on my shoulder, a pinch in my neck. I turn to see a guard behind me holding a syringe.
He’s tall and broad, like Dominic. Like Dad. So I don’t try to fight. I just spin on Prime Minister Petrovic, staring daggers, feeling betrayed. I want to shout, but my tongue is too thick and the words are too heavy.
“It’s not personal, Ms. Blakely. But I can’t deny it’s fitting.”
I want to hit—to run—but my head is starting to swirl. My legs turn to rubber and the men take me by the arms. Eventually, it’s too hard to keep my eyes open. I’m just looking for a soft place to fall as they toss me into the backseat of a limousine. Soon, there’s nothing left but darkness and laughter.
When I wake, it feels like I’ve slept for weeks—years. And maybe I have.
Groggily, I push myself upright on the narrow sofa. My neck hurts. My throat aches. My legs almost refuse to move as I try to swing them to the floor. There’s barely any light, but my eyes are so used to the black by now that I can see the smooth walls that surround me, the bare bulb that swings by itself from the ceiling, dusty and dim. The room is small, maybe four by five. If not for the open, empty doorway, it would feel like a cell.
I tell myself that the light is electric—not gas. The floor beneath me is tile. I’m
not in the tunnels beneath Adria; I know it in my gut. This room is dim and quiet and damp, but it is not the Society’s main headquarters, of that much I am certain. But that’s all I know for sure.
I should panic. If I were a normal girl, I’d be terrified and screaming, trying to claw my way out from this dark, dank place and the people who drugged me. But I’m not a normal girl. I haven’t been in ages. And when you add the whole “princess factor,” normal was always out of my reach.
“Hello there.”
I don’t know the woman who now stands in the arching doorway. She’s young, though. I can’t see her well, but I can tell from her voice and the way she moves that she’s not much older than I am.
“Where am I?” I ask. I try to stand, but the room spins, and I sink back to the little sofa. The girl comes forward, hands me a bottle of water.
“Here. Drink this.”
I eye the bottle skeptically. “Is it going to knock me out again?” I can’t exactly blame the PM. Some would say I had it coming.
“No. They want you awake.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound ominous …” I say, then take a sip of the water. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted, so I guzzle it all down.
“Easy now,” the girl tells me as I start to gag and choke. The water sloshes in my too-empty stomach, and I know I wasn’t just out an hour or two. I haven’t eaten in a very long time.
“What day is it?” I ask as I rise to my feet.
The girl stands in the doorway, silent.
“Where am I?” I try again.
“Come. They’re waiting for you.”
“Who?” I snap, but she doesn’t answer. She just turns and starts down a long, winding corridor.
Are we underground? I wonder as I follow. Am I still in DC? It’s possible, I suppose. But I know in my gut that I’m a long, long way from safety.
“Why am I here?” I ask, and the girl glances back, gives me a smile that’s too peaceful—too serene. Maybe I’m not the only one who’s been drugged, I wonder as I fight the urge to grab the girl by the shoulders and shake her until she’s as screwed up and cynical as I am.
I want to tell her that there’s no reason to smile, that there is no peace. But, most of all, I want to ask her where I might find a bathroom.