“She does that,” Alexei says flatly.
But Spence isn’t swayed. “Thanks for your concern, comrade, but the lady and I can take care of ourselves.”
“Lady?” Alexei yells. “She is sixteen. She is a child.”
“Um … no,” I say, even though, technically, I know he’s right. But my childhood ended years ago. I will never consider myself a child again. “I was perfectly content before either one of you got here.”
“Stay out of this, Gracie,” the two of them say in unison, their accents blending almost in harmony, so I throw my hands in the air.
“I give up.” I whirl, heading for the trees and the beach and the sea. I’ll swim home if I have to.
But Alexei’s not going to let me go so easily. He falls into step beside me.
“Come on, Gracie,” he orders, his accent heavier than I remember it. “I’m taking you home.”
I can’t take it. I face him down.
“Maybe I don’t want to go home! Maybe I don’t want you to take me anywhere!”
“Gracie, I —”
“What are you doing here, Alexei?”
Spence is behind us, lurking and listening, but I don’t care.
“I heard Lila was throwing a party. I knew you would likely be here.”
“I mean why are you here? In Adria. I thought your dad got transferred.”
Alexei shrugs. “We are back.”
“I can see that.”
“My father …” Alexei starts, then trails off, risking a glance at Spence before lowering his voice. “My father is to be the new ambassador. There are to be … changes.”
“Oh.”
For a moment, I think Alexei wants to say something else — do something else. But instead he takes my hand, gentler now.
“I should get you home. Or at least back to your brother.”
“I can do that.” It’s Spence’s voice that slices through the moment. “She’s not your responsibility.”
“Don’t tell me what she is,” Alexei says, spinning on him. “I know Gracie better than you ever will.”
“Well, you’ve never kissed me,” I mutter, half under my breath.
Instantly, I know what a mistake I’ve made. Because I watch the realization wash over Alexei’s features.
“But evidently you didn’t see that part,” I say as Alexei turns to ice.
“He kissed you?”
“Let’s go find Jamie!” I say too cheerfully, bolting for the beach.
“Grace!” Spence yells, chasing after me, but I’m moving fast over the uneven ground. I’ve spent too much time in the tunnels underneath Valancia. My eyes are used to the dark. I’m like a creature of the night, and they can’t match me.
When I reach the edge of the tree line I pause and search for Noah or Rosie or even my brother. I need a distraction.
But the pause is all it takes for Alexei to reach me.
“He kissed you?”
“I’m fine!” I shout, but it’s too late. Spence has caught up with us, and Alexei isn’t looking for an explanation. He turns and pulls back his arm in one smooth motion, dropping Spence to the ground with a single blow. Some might call it a sucker punch. I know Spence never saw it coming. He lies on the ground for a moment, sprawled and stunned.
He’s older and he goes to West Point, but Alexei is a little taller and enraged.
Spence doesn’t care, though. He lunges at Alexei’s legs, toppling them both out of the cover of the trees and onto the beach. They land, tangled together, rolling and fighting as sand billows up around them, rising like a fog.
They are darkened silhouettes, black shadows outlined in fire as they tumble and twist and brawl closer and closer to the party.
Soon, other people see them. The crowd turns. And a murmur sweeps across the beach, a low, simmering echo. “Alexei.”
But no one knows the boy who knocks him to the ground and pounds against him with a terrible backhanded hit.
I want to run to them — to stop it. But before I can move, Alexei reverses their positions and kicks, striking Spence in the ribs with a vicious blow that makes him double over for a moment before charging, unwilling to be knocked down. Not again. Not without company. They roll together, a tangle of limbs and aggression and blood.
When they get too close to the fire, a cry goes up.
That’s when I see Jamie. He’s nearer the water, barefoot in the sand with his jeans rolled up, surrounded by Lila and a mob of pretty girls that I don’t know.
When Noah appears beside me he is entirely too calm, considering two boys are trying to kill each other by the fire.
“So … Alexei’s back,” I say.
“I can see that. I’d go say hi, but he seems busy.”
Jamie is in motion now, leaping over one of the burning logs that has fallen, smoking and smoldering, from the fire and onto the sand.
“Stop it!” he yells. For a moment, he sounds like our mother, scolding us for bickering and fighting and taking the risk of breaking her favorite lamp.
But his friends don’t hear him. It’s like there’s no sound on the beach but the sickly slap of skin against skin, the crunch of bones and sparking, burning wood.
Even the music has stopped playing.
When Spence throws Alexei to the ground, he rolls and comes up almost in one motion. Sand sticks to his sweat-covered skin. And the cry he lets out, the string of Russian curses … He sounds like a stranger.