I can hear chaos behind me, cries of pain and fury and fear. But I’m already running down the dark and twisty hallway. Running to where, I have no idea. I learned a long time ago that sometimes it’s enough to just be running away.
“Someone stop her!” one of the women yells, but the voice is distant, echoing. When I turn, there is a staircase, and I hesitate a second before climbing, taking the steps two at a time into the shadows.
I don’t know where I am. I only know that this building is old, but modern. A product of this century, or maybe the last. And I know I have to break free of it. I have to get out of here and then, after …
I don’t let myself think about after.
I’m running up the stairs, faster and faster. I can hear movement up ahead. Someone is running down. Soon, others will be rushing up behind me. I’m trapped here. I know it. But the darkness isn’t quite so thick, and I ease around a corner, closer to the light of a window. It’s tall but slender, and the glass is wavy. I can see darkness outside, punctuated by patches of light, and I know the sun is going down. If I can just make it outside, perhaps I can disappear into the darkness. Perhaps I can once again run away. But this time I won’t stop running.
I pull off my cardigan and wrap it around my fist, over and over. It’s achingly familiar, this gesture. And I know I’ve been lucky so far. Or as lucky as someone who lost her mother and is now being hunted by an unknown number of international assassins can possibly be.
“Up here!” someone yells. There are feet pounding on the stairs, and I stop thinking.
I stand to the side of the window and, with my covered fist, pull back and hit just like my father taught me. I shift my weight and drive through with my legs. It feels like my fist is going to shatter, but the glass gives, too. Pieces fall onto the stone floor and out into the night.
I’m climbing onto the ledge, staring down at what looks to be a rooftop twenty feet or so below me. Maybe I’m wrong. Goodness knows, I usually am.
But I’d rather be wrong than be here.
“Grace, wait!” someone yells, and I turn to see Prime Minister Petrovic on the stairs below me, looking up at where I sit perched on the ledge like a bird with clipped wings.
But I just shake my head.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
And jump.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s how to fall.
My feet are square as I hit the surface; my knees are soft. And my first thought is that, this time, my leg didn’t shatter.
My second thought is that I am still falling.
It must be another roof because I can feel myself slip; my purchase on the slick tiles is precarious and fading.
I try to right myself, but it’s no use. I turn to my stomach and feel the slide of tiles against my belly as I slip, faster and faster, and then drop, kicking to the ground.
It takes a second to adjust. To catch my breath. But I don’t have a second. I land and crouch, feel the stones against my feet, damp and uneven. There are streetlights and narrow, twisting alleys. I can hear the sounds of traffic. The shouts of people.
I pull myself upright and run.
When I pass a man and woman holding hands, I don’t ask for help. When I turn onto a wider street, I don’t stop and look in any windows. I just keep going, curving, turning, backtracking, and twisting through the city with one goal in mind: getting lost. Because if I can’t find me, then maybe no one else can, either.
I run until I can’t run anymore. And then I stop in the middle of a large square. It’s dark now but I know it’s not as late as it seems. People walk arm in arm. They carry sacks of groceries or ride bicycles. So many regular people just living regular lives. I envy them. And I know I’ll never belong—not here. Not anywhere. I will never be safe.
But I have to be somewhere.
My breathing slows. Standing still at last, my feet and legs start to shake. And my hand hurts. I think some bones might be broken, but I’m lucky, and I know it.
I really should be dead.
I let myself draw in a deep breath, then turn, taking in the darkness and the light, the sounds of whispered conversations in a language I recognize but don’t really understand.
And, finally, my eyes catch the sight that, deep down, I’ve been expecting to see since I first perched on the edge of the window.
The Eiffel Tower glows in the darkness, smaller than I thought it would be, shimmering like a lighthouse, warning me that danger’s near.
“Paris.”
Turns out there’s an advantage to being drugged and hauled to the other side of the world. If you’re kept unconscious for a day or two, it’s easy to stay awake. I’m not exactly rested. But my feet keep moving. My mind stays alert.
I can feel the cash and passports that I keep wrapped around my body. They’re still there, itching, scraping. But present. And that is all that matters. The PM and her goons must not have searched me. They must have underestimated me. Again. That might be the only thing I’ve got going for me—the fact that I’m not quite as stupid and careless as everyone believes.