Take the Key and Lock Her Up (Embassy Row #3)(9)

I don’t realize I’m shaking again until I feel Jamie’s hands on my arms.

“We don’t have to do this, Gracie. Whatever test you think you’ve got to pass, you don’t.”

I do. But I can’t say so. I just pull away from Jamie’s grasp and steady my pounding pulse, take a deep breath. And soon I’m standing where the stairs used to be. The second-story balcony is breaking free, crashing down and taking Dominic’s perfect face with it.

That’s one way the Scarred Man and I are different. It takes more than a glance to see the way that this place changed me.

“Grace?” Jamie is beside me, here to stop me from doing something stupid.

He’s three years too late.

“Gracie, come—”

But I don’t care what Jamie has to say. There’s a brick at my feet, and I pick it up and hurl it as hard as I can through one of the remaining pieces of glass. It shatters and falls to the floor, and I just pick up something else and lash out again. And again.

And again.

Jamie doesn’t try to stop me. Maybe he knows he’s too weak now. Or maybe he was never strong enough to hold back the wave of emotion that is crashing through me.

One of the interior walls is half-collapsed, but I kick at the part that still stands. Over and over I pound and I pummel until the bricks move. The wall shifts, and soon it’s crumbling, just like me.

“Gracie, stop!”

His arms are around my waist, pulling me away from the bricks that are crashing to the floor like an avalanche that’s been held back for too long. Dust swarms around us. The old wooden floor creaks. And, suddenly, I wonder how long and how hard I’d have to kick to make the wall around Valancia come tumbling down. I’m half-tempted to try it.

“Are you okay?” Jamie holds me at arm’s length and looks me up and down. Poor Jamie. When will he learn that I only get hurt on the inside?

When he sees that I’m as whole as I was when I started, he tips up my chin and makes me look him in the eye. “Feel better?” he tries to tease.

But Jamie wouldn’t smile at my answer, so I don’t give it.

I just try to ease away, but in a flash Jamie’s arms are around me, jerking me back, and he’s screaming “Look out!” as I realize that the heavy bricks have crashed through the weather-beaten boards, disappearing into some unknown below.

For a moment, my brother and I just stare at the massive black hole that has opened up before us.

“I didn’t know it had a basement,” I say.

Jamie shakes his head, a hint of fear in his eyes. “It didn’t.”

I shouldn’t be surprised. My life has become a never-ending spiral of dusty, secret rooms and even darker secrets. We’re thousands of miles from Adria, but this shadowy space is connected, I can feel it, like maybe I might drop into that dark hole and start walking and, in a year or so, emerge somewhere behind the wall.

“Do you have your flashlight?” Jamie asks, proving he’s one of the few people on earth who really know me, because of course I have it. I hand it to him, and he kneels slowly to the dusty floor.

He’s nowhere near recovered, but adrenaline is the most powerful medicine there is, and right now he’s not feeling any pain. He has more energy than he’s had in weeks as he leans over the broken boards and shines my small, bright flashlight into the space below.

“I’m going down,” I say.

“Gracie—”

Jamie wants to tell me to stop, to slow down, to be careful, but as soon as he looks up he realizes he really should just save his breath.

“I’ll lower you down.”

“No,” I say, but I can’t tell him he’s too weak. “There’s a desk. I can just …”

In a flash, I’m on the ground next to Jamie and dropping into the darkness below.

The desk I land on is solid; it doesn’t even shimmy when I touch down.

“Light?” I hold out my hands, and Jamie lets the flashlight drop.

He doesn’t try to join me, and I’m glad. I don’t have the strength to tell him just how fleeting his own strength is. At least Jamie is smart enough to know it.

So I stand alone in the darkness once again. The beam of light is small but startlingly bright as I shine it upon walls covered in maps of Europe and Asia and the Middle East. There’s a globe on the end of the desk, piles of notebooks; Post-it notes cover the walls. And on every piece of paper there’s a handwriting that I haven’t seen in years.

My mother’s lipstick stains the rim of the cup by my feet, but the coffee has long since grown cold and evaporated away.

If not for a thick layer of dust, the room would look like she just popped out to take a call or help a customer. Maybe she’s gone to pick me up from school and will return at any minute. Maybe she’s been down here this whole time, just waiting for me to come back.

“Gracie.” Jamie’s voice breaks through my mind. “What’s that?”

I turn and follow his finger, directing the light at the wall farthest from the desk. I have to hop down off the old metal desk, push aside a dusty chair, but soon I’m standing in front of something like I’ve only seen in movies.

From a distance, it looked almost like wallpaper—maybe a mural of some kind. But the closer I get, the clearer the images become, and I can tell it’s really more of a collage.