Take the Key and Lock Her Up

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Megan continues. “Why would Grace’s mom come here?”

“I—” I start, but I can’t finish once I see Alexei’s face. He’s staring at the back of Megan’s camera, at the image there.

“Because that’s my mom,” he says.

When we leave, Megan drives. Noah sits with her up front, while Rosie and I sit in the backseat, Alexei beside us. But he’s not here. Not really. Alexei is a million miles away.

I don’t ask where we’re going. To be perfectly honest, I don’t care. I only know that Alexei is too quiet, too still, and there is far too much that we don’t know.

“I think …” Megan says, turning the car down a dirt road, slowly moving until the dim headlights flash over a small house that looks like it has grown right out of the earth. “Yeah. We’re here.”

Only Noah asks, “What is this place?”

We get out of the car and gather our things, follow Megan onto the porch. Somehow I’m not surprised when she knows exactly where to find a key.

“When we moved to Adria, my mom sat me down and made me memorize fifty phone numbers and twice as many addresses. This is one of them,” she says, then opens the door.

I watch her pause on the threshold, like she’s half-expecting to be shot on sight. Or at least to hear the roaring of an alarm. But nothing greets us but silence.

“What is it?” Noah asks.

“It’s a safe house,” Megan says.

“But what kind of safe …” Noah trails off when Rosie turns on the lights. The bulbs crackle and hum, like they haven’t been used in a decade or two. An eerie glow fills the room, but there’s no mistaking the row of guns that lines one wall, the computers and monitors and maps that cover another.

We all look at Megan, stunned.

“What can I say?” She shrugs. “Safe. House.”

Megan’s mom works for the CIA, and that fact has never been more obvious to any of us as we all spread out, carefully opening doors and examining cabinets.

“Is that a shower?” Noah asks, peeking into one room. “Please tell me that’s a shower.”

But I can’t let myself relax. “Megan, should we be here?”

“Do you have someplace else to be?” she asks, which is an excellent question. And the obvious answer is no.

“What happens now?” Rosie says what everyone else is thinking.

Megan got us to this place, but she’s not in charge; I can feel it as everyone turns in my direction. They’re looking at me like I’m supposed to lead, but all I really want to do is take a hot shower, eat whatever food we can find in this Cold War kitchen, and then sleep until it’s time to meet my mom in Heaven.

I’m so relieved when Noah steps forward and says, “Now we sleep. And we eat. And we try to figure out what comes next.”

“Yes!” Rosie sounds entirely too chipper. “Exactly what is the best way of breaking a woman out of a former Soviet mental facility? Explosives? I think it might be explosives.”

Luckily, Alexei doesn’t roll his eyes. “There can be no explosives, Rosemarie.”

“Of course there can be,” Rosie says, undaunted. “I saw some in that cabinet over—”

“My mother is in there for a reason!” Alexei’s practically shaking now. Not with rage, with something else. It’s like another Alexei is inside of him, trying to break out of this calm, cool shell.

I’m seeing cracks, and I don’t like it.

“She is in there for a reason,” he says again, his voice full of a calm I can tell he doesn’t feel. “That is where we found her. And that is where she will stay.”

“Alexei—” Rosie starts, but his eyes are like ice.

“This is not a debate. Whatever she did, she should stay there. People get sent to Binevale for a reason. She deserves it.”

I don’t realize I’m rocking. I don’t even know I’m speaking until the words are free. “I deserved it.”

It’s like Alexei has just remembered where I am. What I am.

“We should get you back to Dominic,” he tells me, then turns to the others. “You need to return to Adria now. Forget about us. Stick to your routines and your embassies. There are no answers here.”

Alexei grips me tight. It’s supposed to comfort, to soothe, but it just reminds me of another time when I was held too tight and for too long.

“No,” I say, pulling away from him and stalking to the other side of the room.

“Grace?” Noah eases toward me. “Are you okay?”

“No!” I snap again, then wheel on Alexei. “My mom came here. And if there’s a chance that your mom knows why, then I am going to take it.”

“You don’t understand, Grace. People do not get sent to Binevale by accident. Whatever she did to end up in that place …”

“Oh, and no one has never been imprisoned unjustly?” I ask. “Besides, criminal or not—crazy or not—I don’t care. I have to talk to her. I am going to talk to her. I don’t care what it takes.”

They know that I mean it. It’s not hyperbole or exaggeration. I’d cut off my own arm if it was the only way inside those gates. And Rosie would find me the knife.

When I turn to Megan, she’s already shaking her head, carefully considering the question I don’t have to ask.