Take the Key and Lock Her Up (Embassy Row #3)(12)

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.