All Fall Down (Embassy Row 1)

From here, the sea is gorgeous. I turn to my left and take a second I don’t have to scan down the long line of embassies. I can make out thirteen flagpoles all in a row, waving in the glow of their spotlights, ringing the wall like soldiers.

A security car is driving down the street, a searchlight washing over the exteriors of the embassies, their fences and gates. When it flashes onto the roof of Iran, I fall, crashing hard onto my stomach, lying perfectly still upon the roof. I move my head slightly, just enough to see the top of the beam of light catch the bottom of the scarf’s fluttering edge. And then the light is gone.

I wait a second, then bolt to my feet and start untangling the scarf from the pole. But it’s so twisted and snagged that I have to pull the tiny knife that my father got me for my birthday from my pocket and saw away at the silk.

Soon it’s in my hands and I’m wrapping it around my wrist over and over before I climb down the ladder so quickly I almost lose my grip.

I throw my leg over the windowsill and scurry back into the embassy’s fourth-story hallway, slam the window closed behind me, and start to run down the stairs.

I’m going too quickly. I’m going to fall. Someone is going to hear me, I think, before I remember I’m alone. And yet I cannot shake the feeling that I’m wrong.

I listen for my mother’s voice, but it doesn’t come. I have no memory of her here, in this building where I have never been. But I swear that I hear footsteps, that someone’s on my tail.

When I reach the main landing, I turn and rush down a hallway, toward a narrow alley I saw from the roof. I have to get out of here. I have to give Lila back her scarf and return to my own embassy, my mother’s bed. There are ghosts inside these shadows, I’m certain. I can feel them. So I run faster.

I hurl myself around a corner, then skid to a stop, breathing hard, staring down at a massive, gaping hole in the floor. The boards are rotten and broken. What was probably once an incredibly expensive Persian rug hangs over the edge, like a piece of asphalt not quite taken by a sinkhole. Down below, I see water glistening, hear the drop, drop, drop of more water falling into a huge, ornate swimming pool that lies in the basement.

I stand on the precipice, listening to the water drip — my heart pounding.

When a voice says, “We shouldn’t be meeting here,” I can’t be sure that I’m not dreaming. The man speaks in Adrian, but it’s the language my mother spoke to me just like her mother spoke it to her. Without trying, I understand every word.

“In Adria, the walls always have ears,” someone else answers. “What better reason to meet in Iran?”

The man’s laugh is low and dark. Perhaps it is the decaying building, but it sounds sinister and menacing. I expect there to be sharks circling in the swimming pool, a cable with acid dripping onto it, ready to plunge me to my death.

I step back, but I move too fast and the floorboards creak beneath my feet. For a moment, I think I’m going to crash right through the rotten wood, onto the men below me. But I don’t fall. Instead I stand perfectly still, waiting.

“What was that?” one of the men asks.

“Your nerves are not what they used to be, my friend,” the other man says.

And then one of the men walks to the pool. He looks down into the almost-still water. Silently, I gasp but force myself to stand motionless, knowing that if he looks up, he’ll see me. And if he sees me …

I refuse to think about what happened the last time someone saw me.

For a long moment, the man keeps his gaze locked on the pool, almost like he’s lost in thought.

“Are we going to have a problem?” the unseen man asks.

“I have no reason to think so,” the man by the pool says.

“But if a problem develops …”

“Then I will deal with it.” The man places his hands in his pockets and turns to his companion. “I always do.”

The basement is dim — the hallway only lit by moonlight. The whole building is a kaleidoscope of dark and light blending into swirling shadows. But for a second I see him clearly — I really do. Dark hair speckled with gray. A nice suit. A strong jaw.

A scar.

I am absolutely certain that I see a scar.

And that is why my hands shake. My lips tremble and I squeeze them together, swallowing the cry that is rising in my throat, fighting against the tears that fill my eyes.

And then I do hear my mother’s voice. A haunting cry. “Grace, no!” she tells me.

It is the last thing she will ever tell me.

As soon as the Scarred Man steps out of sight I stumble backward. Somehow, I make myself inch slowly, quietly, down the hall. When I reach the broken window I hurl myself through it, and then my feet begin to move faster and faster, running back the way I came, through the overgrown courtyard and the broken gate, back across the soft, sandy beach.

I hate my footsteps, how easy it will be for someone to see where I’ve been. But I don’t dare stop to smooth the sand behind me.

I’m on my stomach, belly-crawling back beneath the wooden fence, onto public land, when my shoulders leave the ground completely. Suddenly, I’m slammed into the rotting fence. I can feel the raised letters of the Keep Out sign through my wet shirt as I look up at the big, blue eyes that stare at me.

I tremble as Alexei says, “Grace, what have you done?”

CHAPTER SIX

I can’t feel the pavement anymore. Alexi is gripping my arm so tightly that my fingers have started to tingle. He doesn’t speak again, though. He just half drags, half carries me down Embassy Row. My mind is still back at that swimming pool. When I start to shake, I blame my wet clothes, the cold wind. I don’t dare say a word of protest. I let Alexei drag me along.

“Grace!” someone yells.

I stop, but Alexei tugs me harder. “I am taking you home,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Grace!” Noah’s footsteps are heavy and loud on the street behind us. When he finally catches up, he cuts us off and then leans over at the waist, panting. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

“She won’t be when I’m finished with her,” Alexei snarls.

I see Lila then, and Megan. They ease out of the shadows in front of the German embassy. Rosie must already be inside.

Lila isn’t looking at me, though. “Hi, Alexei,” she purrs as she eases closer.