“I should get back to the party,” I say, and start to walk away.
“Wait. Hold up.” In a flash, he cuts me off. “We’re just talking.”
“No. That was called kissing.”
“Grace, I —”
“Why?” Whatever Spence was expecting me to say, it wasn’t this. “Why did you do that?”
“Why did I kiss you?” He raises an eyebrow and sounds like he wants to laugh.
“Is it Take Pity on Your Friend’s Kid Sister Day or something?”
“No.” Spence runs a hand through his too-short hair. “The fact that you are Blake’s kid sister is the one reason I shouldn’t be kissing you.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. You’re cute and nice and funny and I thought …”
He thought I was normal.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I should answer, but I’m too tired of this place, this boy, this night. I want my bed and my mother’s room. I want to go back to the demons I already know how to handle, so I spin and start across the clearing, back toward the trees and the beach and the party.
“Grace, wait up,” he says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean —”
Didn’t mean to kiss me? Didn’t mean to hurt my feelings? To incur Jamie’s wrath?
I will never know how Spence meant to finish that sentence, though, because in that moment there is a movement in the shadows near the trees. For a second, I think it is my unreliable mind playing tricks on me, another ghost from my past returning to haunt the present.
Even when the figure yells, “Leave her alone,” I don’t let myself believe he’s really here.
It’s not until Spence turns, too, and looks at the shadow, that I allow myself to say, “Alexei?”
He’s not supposed to be here, but even in my shock I don’t say that. He’s supposed to be in Russia, called home with his father for reasons no one ever explained. He’s supposed to be far, far away from me.
Alexei is supposed to be safe.
It’s what I want for him. But the emotion that floods my veins is enough to say that what I want for me is something completely different.
“Hey, Gracie.”
There is tension in the look on Alexei’s face, in the sound of his voice, pulsing like the beating of the waves or the pounding of the music I can barely hear.
“Who’s your friend?” he asks, unblinking, his gaze firmly glued to Spence.
“Oh, this is John Spencer. Spence is a friend of Jamie’s — they just got here from West Point. Spence, this is Alexei. He’s —”
“The Russian,” Spence says, and for the first time I realize that it’s like I’ve wandered between a lion and a tiger.
“Alexei is Jamie’s oldest friend,” I say, as much for my benefit as for Spence’s. It’s a fact I’ve let myself forget. But my brother, I have to remember, is back now.
“What are you doing here with her?” Alexei asks the other boy.
“Jamie asked me to come find Gracie, make sure she was okay out here. She wandered off.”
“She does that,” Alexei says flatly.
But Spence isn’t swayed. “Thanks for your concern, comrade, but the lady and I can take care of ourselves.”
“Lady?” Alexei yells. “She is sixteen. She is a child.”
“Um … no,” I say, even though, technically, I know he’s right. But my childhood ended years ago. I will never consider myself a child again. “I was perfectly content before either one of you got here.”
“Stay out of this, Gracie,” the two of them say in unison, their accents blending almost in harmony, so I throw my hands in the air.
“I give up.” I whirl, heading for the trees and the beach and the sea. I’ll swim home if I have to.
But Alexei’s not going to let me go so easily. He falls into step beside me.
“Come on, Gracie,” he orders, his accent heavier than I remember it. “I’m taking you home.”
I can’t take it. I face him down.
“Maybe I don’t want to go home! Maybe I don’t want you to take me anywhere!”
“Gracie, I —”
“What are you doing here, Alexei?”
Spence is behind us, lurking and listening, but I don’t care.
“I heard Lila was throwing a party. I knew you would likely be here.”
“I mean why are you here? In Adria. I thought your dad got transferred.”
Alexei shrugs. “We are back.”
“I can see that.”
“My father …” Alexei starts, then trails off, risking a glance at Spence before lowering his voice. “My father is to be the new ambassador. There are to be … changes.”
“Oh.”
For a moment, I think Alexei wants to say something else — do something else. But instead he takes my hand, gentler now.
“I should get you home. Or at least back to your brother.”
“I can do that.” It’s Spence’s voice that slices through the moment. “She’s not your responsibility.”
“Don’t tell me what she is,” Alexei says, spinning on him. “I know Gracie better than you ever will.”
“Well, you’ve never kissed me,” I mutter, half under my breath.
Instantly, I know what a mistake I’ve made. Because I watch the realization wash over Alexei’s features.
“But evidently you didn’t see that part,” I say as Alexei turns to ice.
“He kissed you?”
“Let’s go find Jamie!” I say too cheerfully, bolting for the beach.
“Grace!” Spence yells, chasing after me, but I’m moving fast over the uneven ground. I’ve spent too much time in the tunnels underneath Valancia. My eyes are used to the dark. I’m like a creature of the night, and they can’t match me.
When I reach the edge of the tree line I pause and search for Noah or Rosie or even my brother. I need a distraction.
But the pause is all it takes for Alexei to reach me.
“He kissed you?”
“I’m fine!” I shout, but it’s too late. Spence has caught up with us, and Alexei isn’t looking for an explanation. He turns and pulls back his arm in one smooth motion, dropping Spence to the ground with a single blow. Some might call it a sucker punch. I know Spence never saw it coming. He lies on the ground for a moment, sprawled and stunned.
He’s older and he goes to West Point, but Alexei is a little taller and enraged.
Spence doesn’t care, though. He lunges at Alexei’s legs, toppling them both out of the cover of the trees and onto the beach. They land, tangled together, rolling and fighting as sand billows up around them, rising like a fog.
They are darkened silhouettes, black shadows outlined in fire as they tumble and twist and brawl closer and closer to the party.
Soon, other people see them. The crowd turns. And a murmur sweeps across the beach, a low, simmering echo. “Alexei.”
But no one knows the boy who knocks him to the ground and pounds against him with a terrible backhanded hit.
I want to run to them — to stop it. But before I can move, Alexei reverses their positions and kicks, striking Spence in the ribs with a vicious blow that makes him double over for a moment before charging, unwilling to be knocked down. Not again. Not without company. They roll together, a tangle of limbs and aggression and blood.
When they get too close to the fire, a cry goes up.
That’s when I see Jamie. He’s nearer the water, barefoot in the sand with his jeans rolled up, surrounded by Lila and a mob of pretty girls that I don’t know.
When Noah appears beside me he is entirely too calm, considering two boys are trying to kill each other by the fire.
“So … Alexei’s back,” I say.
“I can see that. I’d go say hi, but he seems busy.”
Jamie is in motion now, leaping over one of the burning logs that has fallen, smoking and smoldering, from the fire and onto the sand.
“Stop it!” he
yells. For a moment, he sounds like our mother, scolding us for bickering and fighting and taking the risk of breaking her favorite lamp.
But his friends don’t hear him. It’s like there’s no sound on the beach but the sickly slap of skin against skin, the crunch of bones and sparking, burning wood.
Even the music has stopped playing.
When Spence throws Alexei to the ground, he rolls and comes up almost in one motion. Sand sticks to his sweat-covered skin. And the cry he lets out, the string of Russian curses … He sounds like a stranger.
Alexei lunges for Spence, feral and brutal. All strength and wounded pride and fury.
There’s only one boy on the beach who is fast enough to reach them, strong enough to leap into the breach when Alexei charges again.
I watch Alexei spin as Jamie catches him around the waist, using his own momentum to change directions.
How many times have I watched the two of them play at battle, tussle and wrestle and fight like brothers? Jamie, older, always a little bigger. Alexei, always a little more wild.
But now it’s not like that. It’s like Alexei has been tackled by a stranger.
“Let me go!” Alexei shouts, pushing against the offending hands. He might not even recognize my brother.
And Jamie, being Jamie, laughs.
“It’s good to see you, too, buddy. I heard you were in Moscow.”
“I’m back,” Alexei growls, then lunges for Spence, who is breathing hard and bleeding from a cut on his eyebrow. His shirt is torn.
“Control your dog, Blake,” Spence shouts before spitting blood into the fire.
Alexei lunges again, breaking free. They’re going to kill each other, I think. Before I realize it, I’m moving forward. My arms are around Alexei’s waist. I can feel the sand that clings to him, the rise and fall of his chest. It’s like trying to hold back an animal, but Alexei won’t hurt me.
Alexei will never hurt me.
“Stop it!” I yell, forcing him back toward Jamie. I’m the weakest of us all, I know. But I have a power here, even if I can’t name it. “Both of you.” I stare down Spence. “You’re causing a scene.”
I glance toward the crowd that has gathered around us. Half of Embassy Row is represented here. Most of the partygoers have their phones out, capturing the whole thing on video. It doesn’t matter that the island is too far from shore for anyone to have a signal. Word of this will spread eventually. It will spread far and wide and at the speed of light. It will live online forever.
But Alexei doesn’t see, doesn’t realize, doesn’t think. He’s pointing at Spence, shouting, “Touch her again, and I will kill you. Do you hear me? I’ll kill you!”
“Hey!” I pull his arm down and make him look me in the eye. “Stop, Alexei. It’s over.”
And then it’s like he sees me for the first time. I can actually watch the rage begin to fade. When Jamie grabs Alexei and pulls him toward the beach, a little farther away from prying eyes, I follow.
“What is going on?” Jamie’s tone of voice would make most people cower. But Alexei only glares.
“I saw him follow Grace to the ruins.”
Jamie spins on me. “You went to the ruins?”
Alexei isn’t easily distracted. “And when I found them, he was all over her.”
I see the words land. It’s like a shadow crosses my brother’s face. In the distance, someone turns the music back on. People begin to buddy up, return to previously scheduled programming in groups of twos and threes. But the three of us are near the water. And a lot of people are still watching.
They see when Jamie spins and takes three long strides in Spence’s direction.
“That is my kid sister.”
Spence tries to laugh. “It was harmless.”
“She’s sixteen,” Jamie says.
“She seems pretty mature to me.”
Jamie doesn’t say a word of warning. He just hits him.
Spence’s head jerks but he stays on his feet. Slowly, he looks back at my brother and brings a finger to his bloody lip. He doesn’t fire back, though. Maybe it’s an army thing, or a West Point thing. Or maybe just a guy thing — but I’m certain that Spence thinks he had that coming.
When Jamie steps closer, he lowers his voice. It’s not the crowd he’s trying to hide his words from, I know. It’s me.
“You don’t know my sister,” he tells his friend, but his gaze echoes with the things he doesn’t say.
She is not mature.
She is not responsible.
She is not to be trusted in the dark with strange, mysterious new boys.
She is not to be trusted. At all.
I only wish I could tell my brother that he’s wrong. But Jamie is never wrong. And nobody knows that more than me.
“Touch my sister again and he won’t get a chance. I will kill you myself.” Then Jamie turns and glares at Alexei. “That goes for you, too.”
I want to remind Jamie that Alexei is still his best friend, that Alexei was the perfect proxy. But Jamie is here because I’ve been in trouble. Because somehow, in his eyes, Alexei has already failed.
“This isn’t over,” Alexei says. Maybe to Jamie. Maybe to Spence. Maybe even to me. But I don’t get a chance to answer, because Jamie is spinning.
“We’re leaving.”
My brother’s tone is clear, and I have no desire to argue — I have no desire to stay. So I follow him to the little boat he and Spence must have brought from the mainland.
Spence smirks at Alexei, a flash of teeth in the moonlight. But when he starts to follow, Jamie blocks his way.
“Find your own way home.”
Spence doesn’t argue, and that may be the smartest thing he’s done all night.
Then I’m in the boat, alone with my brother. Which, from the way he’s looking at me, feels a lot like being entirely alone.
Valancia is asleep when we finally reach the shore. Jamie docks the boat and offers me his hand, but I jump onto the dock without him. I’m not as helpless — as broken — as he thinks I am.
I’m worse.
And I can never, ever let him know it.
In the distance, the island is lost to the darkness of the sea. But the moon still shines, its white light rippling across the water, guiding us toward the city gates. They stand open, and I walk with my brother toward the big archway in the city’s outer wall — its first and best line of defense. For a thousand years it has kept intruders away, but Jamie and I carry our problems with us.
An old playground lies down the beach. A rusty swing blows in the wind, and the merry-go-round stands silent, but I can hear a woman’s laugh and see my mother running through the sand, singing to the children who have long since grown up.
Hush, little princes, wait and see …
No one’s gonna know that you are me!
She laughs and chases a memory. Then, just as quickly, she is gone.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, lost in thought, but when I come back to reality, Jamie’s shoulder is touching mine.
“It’s weird,” my brother says, following my gaze. “Being here without her.”
“You don’t get used to it,” I tell him. He nods, then turns and starts walking toward the wall.
“Are you going to tell me what happened out there?”
“No.”
“You’ve got to talk to me, Gracie.”
“Really?” I ask. “Where is that written? Is that Adrian law or something?”
“No. It’s sibling law.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Really? Because it looks to me like someone has to save you from yourself. What happened out there?”
“What happened is that Spence kissed me. And Alexei didn’t like it.” I stop just inside the city gates and spin on him. “And judging by the punch you threw, neither did you.”
“You shouldn’t have wandered off alone.”
“News flash, Jamie: I am alone!” Technically, it’s not true.
I have family here. Friends. It would crush Noah and Megan and Rosie if they heard me say such a thing. And yet it might also be the most truthful thing I’ve said in years. “I am always alone.”
I hate the way my voice cracks, but I can’t stop it, so I don’t even try.
“That’s not true, Gracie.”
“Oh, Jamie.” I shake my head. And in this moment, I pity him. I really do. “It is exactly the truth.” I start up Embassy Row, my feet carrying me faster now. He practically has to jog to keep up.
“You weren’t supposed to grow up, you know. I was supposed to have another ten or twenty years before I had to start punching guys who kissed you.” Jamie is trying to tease me now, to make me smile. “And you weren’t supposed to …”
“Remember,” I say flatly as I stop and spin. “I wasn’t supposed to remember. I was supposed to just keep thinking I was crazy. But I am crazy, aren’t I?” I want to laugh with the irony, but then the shadows move. For a split second, I glance behind Jamie, at the presence on the dark side of the street.
I am crazy, but the Scarred Man is real, I want to tell my brother.
And he’s standing right behind you.
For three years, Dominic lived in the shadows of my mind. I could point to him now, exhibit A that I am only partially insane. But I just smile and turn away from both of the overprotective alpha males who seem to watch my every move. Let Jamie believe what he wants to believe. It’s what I did for three years, after all.
When I appear in the kitchen the next morning, Jamie is already there. His T-shirt is drenched in sweat, and I don’t have to be told that he’s already run five miles on the beach. Maybe six. Or seven. Or ten. It doesn’t matter that his body is in a different time zone. He would have risen before the sun and pushed himself to his limit. It was all I could do to make myself brush my teeth before I stumbled downstairs.
Jamie studies me over the rim of his cup of coffee and smirks, so sure in his skin, so confident of his place in this world. “Are we going to talk about it?” he asks, and I roll my eyes. He doesn’t sound like Dad or Grandpa, not even Ms. Chancellor. He doesn’t even sound like himself.
“Did you talk to Spence about it? I’m dying to hear what he said. Did he tell you it was my fault? That I made it up?”