When I reach something of a clearing, I let myself stop. I can feel the moonlight upon my face. The music is fainter and the smell of smoke is all but gone. Wonder takes the place of panic. I don’t know how far I’ve run. I don’t care. I’m too mesmerized by the sight before me.
A temple. A fort. Something is built into the side of a hill. I’m not sure what it is, but something draws me toward the massive pillars. Some still stand, and some have tumbled, spilling and breaking onto the ground, returning to the earth that bore them. Creeping vines cover almost every surface as if trying to pull the old walls down.
In the darkness, I have no idea how large it is. My light is too small, almost insignificant as it sweeps across something that must have once been an entrance. But now there are crumbling rocks and sagging arches. It’s not safe — even I know that. But when my light catches the Society’s symbol, I step closer. It’s like a magnet drawing me into the dark.
“I thought that was you.”
The voice startles me, and I spin, remembering suddenly that I’m not alone on this island. It’s a voice I recognize but don’t quite know, and it takes a second to find the figure standing in the trees, one hand held up to shelter his eyes against the glare.
“Lower the flashlight, will ya?”
Spence.
Spence has come to the party. Which means my brother is on this island.
“What are you doing here?” I ask when he steps closer.
“We heard there was a party,” Spence says, but he’s no longer looking at me. I watch him take in the trees and vines, the dim outline of crumbling towers and ancient ruins.
“So in other words, Jamie followed me.”
“Yes.” Spence flashes me a smile.
“And he sent you to keep an eye on me.”
“No.” Spence looks sheepish, charming. He gives me the kind of grin that probably goes over big with the girls around West Point. “I volunteered,” he says, but I’m not flattered, and I don’t say a single word.
“Wow. What is this place?” he asks after a while.
“Just some ruins,” I say, protective. If I’m not supposed to be here, then neither is he. And I’ve never been good at sharing.
I should tell him to go. I should tell him I want to be alone, because I do. But Spence doesn’t know the truth about my mother. He has probably never heard of the Scarred Man. This is the closest I can get to being alone while in the company of another human being, so I don’t ask him to leave. I just think about how, when my mom was my age, she was coming to parties on this island. She was joining the Society.
She was falling in love.
For a moment, I think about Alexei. He must be back in Russia by now. Home and safely out of my blast radius. It should make me happy that I can no longer hurt him. But it doesn’t.
I feel Spence coming closer. Soon his arm is brushing against mine, and I see him looking up at the symbol hidden among the ruins.
“That’s cool,” he says. “What is it? It looks kind of familiar.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
It’s not a lie. I still have no idea what the Society is about or how it can be explained. I’ve been a member less than twenty-four hours, and I barely know more than I did as a kid, chasing after my mother down the streets of the great walled city. So I just tell him what everybody already knows.
“A lot of people have ruled in Adria. The Romans and the Turks and the Byzantines. That’s probably the symbol of whoever built this place.”
Despite the darkness, Spence jumps onto one of the fallen stones of the crumbling fortress. He looks like some kind of ancient marauder, claiming the island for a far-off king.
“So, Jamie told me you moved here at the start of the summer.”
The change of subject surprises me.
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t tell me you were so pretty.”
When he jumps off the rock and lands in front of me he is close. Too close. I step back, but there’s a stone behind my foot and I stumble.
I reach back instinctively, bracing for the crash that never comes. Instead, Spence’s arms are wrapped around me, holding me a foot off the ground.
For a second, I am suspended in the air, caught between two realities. I could be Grace, the messed-up little sister. The murderer. The crazy girl.
Or I could be the girl this stranger seems to see.
I think about Ms. Chancellor and Jamie and my grandpa, and how they all want me to be normal. I’m supposed to get over it, move on. Pretend. I think about Noah and Megan, the people on the beach. This is what being a teenager is supposed to be, isn’t it? The Big Moments.
And in this moment all I really want is to be the kind of girl whose biggest worry is whether or not this boy is about to kiss her.
Then there is no more thinking. He is leaning closer and closer. I close my eyes and feel his lips brush mine. I try to stop thinking, worrying, being afraid. But my worries don’t go away. If anything, they multiply. I’m consumed by a new kind of panic. Who is Spence and why is he here and how am I supposed to face my brother after his friend’s hands have been in my hair and his lips on mine and …