“No. It’s not. It is for the best. I can turn myself in, and there can be a full investigation, without all the politics.”
“This is Adria! There will always be politics!”
“Grace, my father is worried what all of this unrest will lead to. It can’t be good for diplomatic relations and —”
“Do you think I care about diplomatic relations?” I shout. “Well, I don’t, Alexei. And you shouldn’t either. Think about it.” I grab his shirt. I refuse to let him go. “None of the politicians care about what happened to Spence. Not what really happened. They just want to make this problem go away. Make you go away.”
I can feel Alexei’s heart pounding against his chest as I grip his shirt, holding him to me and this place and this time. I force him to look into my eyes. I have to make him see.
I finally understand what Dominic was really saying: Sometimes good people stand in the way of bad things. Sometimes good people get hurt. But maybe if I’m smart enough, strong enough, clever enough, this time I can find a way to stop it.
“You have to go back to Russia. Now! You have to get out of here.”
But Alexei is stepping back, shaking his head. “I will not run away.”
“You can’t go to jail, Alexei.”
A brief glint fills his eyes. “Are you worried about me?” he tries to tease, but this isn’t funny. None of it is funny.
So I yell, “Yes!”
Alexei is taken aback.
“They’re saying someone killed Spence, Alexei. They think someone murdered Spence, and now you are conveniently willing to take the blame for it. Someone wants you to take the blame for it.”
Alexei shakes his head. “You don’t know that.”
It probably seems too improbable for Alexei to believe, this cover-up. My crazy theory. He doesn’t know what I know — he hasn’t seen what I’ve seen.
I look at the Iranian embassy. It is still dilapidated. Still forbidden. It seems like a lifetime ago that my friends and I huddled in its basement, speculating on the Scarred Man’s every move. I miss that feeling — the certainty that came with knowing who the boogeyman was and what needed to be done to stop him.
But right now the villains are nameless and faceless, omnipresent and filling every shadow. Maybe I’m becoming paranoid in my old age. Or maybe paranoia is the only thing that will allow me to see seventeen.
“I know it, Alexei. And if you’ll stop and think about it you’ll know it, too.”
“Grace —”
“We don’t know who killed him,” I say. “Or why. But do you really think this was a mugging or some random act of violence? You saw his body on the beach that day. Did that look like a boy who’d been in an accident?”
He puts his hands over mine. They are warm, pressing against my skin.
“I’ll be okay, Gracie.”
I used to hate it when he called me that. I used to say he didn’t have the right — that it was reserved for Jamie and Jamie alone. But my nickname sounds different when Alexei says it. Maybe it’s his accent, or maybe it is something else. Something … more.
Again, I think about Dominic’s words, the unspoken danger that pulsed beneath the moment. My mother got hurt. Someone wanted her dead. And I killed her.
I vow here and now that I will never again let someone get hurt if I can help it.
Never again.
“I’ll be okay, Gracie,” Alexei reassures me, but I turn my back on him, look up at the Iranian embassy, the rotten fence and overgrown weeds. Another country. Another world.
“My father said that as soon as the political aspect can be set aside we will be able to pursue justice instead of vengeance. He says —”
“He wants the mob to go away, Alexei. And he’s willing to sacrifice his own son to make it happen.”
Alexei pulls away. He can’t face me when he says, “It’s not like that.”
“It is exactly like that.”
For a second, the silence stretches between us. It’s almost quiet here, on the north end of Embassy Row. The protestors are still chanting in the distance, but the wind has shifted now. It blows their cries toward the sea.
“Please do not be angry with me.”
“You think I’m angry?” I snap, then soften. I have to make him see. “Alexei, I’m terrified.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
For leaving me?
For scaring me?
For hurting me?
I can’t tell and he doesn’t say. So I hold out the bottle of water Dominic gave me.
“I’m not thirsty anymore,” I tell him. “Do you want this?”
It’s just a bottle of water, but in the diplomatic world it’s never just that. It is an olive branch. A peace offering.
Alexei takes it with a smile.
“Thank you,” he says, taking a sip.
“Don’t let it go to waste, you know. It might be your last taste of freedom.”
Alexei’s eyes look like he wants to keep smiling as he drinks faster, deeper. But then, even though he’s standing still, he stumbles.
His hand goes limp. The bottle tumbles to the street and starts to roll down the long, sloping hill. But I don’t care about that. I put my arms around his waist and hold him tightly.