Alexei nods and we start to push our way down the hill and back toward Embassy Row. But before we’ve even taken a step, the big man blocks our way. His friends see and circle us. Two of them carry torches. They are staring at Alexei and me as if we are their next meal.
“Well, what do we have here?” the leader asks. He’s not much older than Jamie. Maybe they’re American college guys. Maybe they are backpacking through Europe. Tourists.
But these guys aren’t content with the fire and the crowds and the music that is coming from somewhere deep within the city.
I know in my gut that they were outside the embassy today. I know that they have been looking for a fight for maybe their entire lives. A sick feeling fills me as I realize that they’ve found one.
“You’re him,” the leader says. It isn’t a question.
I speak in Adrian again, pull harder on Alexei’s hand, but it’s no use.
“It’s the Russian!” one of the men with the torches yells. The world is full of Russians. He doesn’t bother to specify which one.
Someone shoves Alexei, and he stumbles back, crashing into me.
“Grace, I’m so —”
But as soon as Alexei speaks, the mob descends. Hearing him — his accent — is proof enough. Besides, they don’t care about justice. They aren’t here to take Alexei to the cops, turn him over for questioning.
In the crowd, I hear words like murderer and communist and diplomatic immunity. It is the last phrase that really does it.
The fist that hits Alexei knocks him nearly off his feet. He doesn’t see it coming. I don’t know which one of the men swung first, but now the floodgates have opened. I can feel myself getting pushed, almost knocked to the ground. I lash out, kicking a man in the knee as he lunges at Alexei. But two other men are already upon him. I feel a sharp, searing pain in my side. I think about the torches and the bonfire and the smoke. There is so much smoke.
“Grace, run!” Alexei manages to yell as he knocks one of the men away, but no sooner does that man fall than two others take his place.
“Let him go!” I shout, then jump onto someone’s back and elbow the ringleader in the nose.
He curses and blood begins to stream down his face. And then there is a loud bang and, for me, the world begins to spin. Perhaps it is the motion of the man trying to throw me from his back, but the pain that slices through me is real, even as the sights and sounds that fill my mind descend to shadow.
The sound of the shot.
The smell of the smoke.
And the fire that grows and grows, filling the space and climbing up the stairs.
Most of all, I see blood. There is so much blood.
“Grace, no!” my mother yells.
And I know that I have to break free of these thoughts that fill my mind. I have to help Alexei. I have to be stronger, smarter, tougher.
I see the Scarred Man rising, walking through the smoke. I hear him yell my name.
But this is different. The Scarred Man has never spoken to me before, not in the flashbacks or the nightmares. I feel his hands on my arms.
“Grace, are you okay?” Dominic yells. And just that quickly, fresh air fills my lungs. Terror is replaced with a different kind of panic.
“Alexei,” I say. The mob is growing. “Help Alexei!”
Dominic presses me up against a wall, as out of the way as I can be, then starts toward the center of the mob. But before he can even reach Alexei, I hear a voice crying out, cutting through the madness.
“Let him go!”
Jamie has always been tough. He was raised by our father, a born soldier. But what I see isn’t his West Point training; it’s not the result of years of wrestling with our dad on the living room floor.
No. What I am seeing is sheer rage as Jamie battles ahead of Dominic, plowing through the crowd. He tosses grown men aside as if they were rag dolls. He knocks bullies to the ground like the toy soldiers he and Alexei used to play with on the embassy stairs. He is turning them all to dust because they touched his friend.
Jamie starts yelling, warning the college kids to back off, but it’s Dominic who pulls Alexei from the mob’s clutches. He drags him toward me while, behind him, Jamie keeps fighting like a man possessed by demons no one can ever exorcise or name.
I want to stop him. To hold him. To let him pummel me until I feel as bad on the outside as I do within. But Dominic is thrusting Alexei toward me.
He limps, and one eye has already swollen shut. Blood is soaking through the front of his white T-shirt.
“I’m okay, Gracie,” he chokes out, and the smile that follows makes me want to fall to the ground and cry.
“Get him home,” Dominic orders, pushing Alexei forward. He gives me a knowing look. “You know the way.”
I don’t wait for Jamie. He’s with Dominic. He’ll be fine. I just place Alexei’s arm around my shoulder and drag him into an empty alley. It’s the very place I saw the Scarred Man disappear weeks ago. Alexei leans against me, heavy and warm, but I don’t stop to explain as I reach down and trigger the opening of the tunnel. I just hope that Alexei can make it down the ladder as I push him toward it, the two of us descending into the dark.
There are hundreds of miles of tunnels and catacombs beneath the city. The Romans built them, or so I’m told. They are thousands of years old and twist and turn, climb and fall. People died here, are buried here. But I am not afraid. As soon as the tunnel entrance closes overhead, there is nothing but darkness and the dank, musty smell of a damp enclosed space.