American Prince

“I don’t know why I said that,” I said quickly. “I’m sure he does. If I see him before you do, I’ll make sure that he knows you’re here.”

“Good.” She breathed out a long breath and looked at me with an uncharacteristically vulnerable look. “I just need to talk to him is all. Not even long, if he doesn’t have long. But I just…” She looked down at her lap and twisted the belt of her trench coat around her fingers. “Please, Embry. I know it was just a week, but I can’t stop thinking about him. About us—how I want there to be an us. And he needs to know…”

How could life get any worse in the middle of a war?

Why, having to match-make for Colchester and Morgan again, that’s how.

“Okay,” I said, scrubbing at my face. “I’ll take care of it.”

But it ended up being harder to take care of than I thought. Colchester was on patrol in the next valley over, and I couldn’t exactly radio in to tell him my sister was here and wanted to fuck him. I finally managed to convey it, awkwardly enough, by radioing him and telling him he had a visitor from Prague.

“A visitor from Prague?” Even through the static, he sounded doubtful.

Sigh. “You know, man. An old friend from Prague. She’s here on base to see you. She misses you.”

“Oh.” Even though the response was short, I could hear Colchester’s men laughing at him over the radio. “Tell her I’ll see her soon.”

But soon took a while, and after two days, Morgan was downright fretful, pacing in my room as I packed up my bag for my own patrol in a few days.

“Why won’t he come back? What are they doing out there?”

I had folded the same blanket five or six times, just so I didn’t have to look at her flushed face and be reminded of how powerful her feelings were, which only reminded me of how conflicted I was about all this. “Morgan, please. He has a job to do. I have a job to do. You, on the other hand, are only pretending to work. Why don’t you go to Kiev for a few days? Go to a museum, see some old Soviet shit.”

She sat on my bed, chewing on her lip, seeming to turn over this idea. There had been a time when she’d been an architectural studies major, before the redoubtable Vivienne had pressured her to switch to poli-sci. Deep inside this baby lobbyist was still a girl who dragged me to every museum in every place we ever visited.

“The guidebook in my hotel room says there’s a medieval church in Glein. Maybe I’ll go see that tomorrow.” She sighed, closing her eyes. “I just need to talk to him. Is that so much for the universe to give me?”

I grew up in Seattle. Whenever white girls in their twenties started talking about “the universe,” I knew the conversation had reached the end of reason.

“Go to the church, Morgan. Take some pictures for Mom and your dad. I bet by the time you get back Colchester will be done with his patrol and you can talk to him, and sneak him back to your hotel for more spanking sessions.”

She glanced up at me with a sharp look, but she didn’t respond.

And when I kissed her goodbye, I had no idea that the next time I saw her she’d be bleeding from a Carpathian bullet and surrounded by flames.

7

Embry

after

I wanted to go alone, but when I get to the small airport, I’m met by a young Latinx woman with an efficient-looking haircut and someone so dear and familiar to me that I run right to him and pull him into a hug.

“Percival Wu,” I say, pulling pack and squeezing his shoulder.

“Mr. Vice President,” he says, his grin genuine and only a little bit teasing.

“Last I heard, you were in Jordan doing mysterious things,” I say. Wu had joined the CIA after the war ended, becoming one of those agents that were only identified by numbers and code names in the briefing bulletins I got every morning.

“Just got home to Chicago two days ago. When I heard Mrs. Colchester had been taken, I volunteered right away.”

I swallow at this. I don’t know why Wu of all people should be the one to make me emotional after the night I’ve had, but he does. I feel safe with him at my back, warmed by his loyalty. “Just like old times, right?”

He smiles. “Let’s hope a little easier than that. And can I introduce Agent Gareth to you? She’s newer with the agency, but quite distinguished and specializes in the kind of hostage situation we’re facing.”

“And how would you define that?” I ask them both as I briefly shake Gareth’s hand. The image of Greer at Melwas’s mercy flashes through my mind, and I shove my shaking hand into my pocket. I want to kill him. I want to kill him so badly that I can almost taste it.

“This is the kind of hostage situation that nobody but a few people know about,” she says smoothly, cutting into my thoughts. We start walking to the small plane waiting for us. “This is classified in the highest order, which means we have limited tools, but greater opportunities. I’ll explain more as we get airborne.”

“And where are we going?”

“Newport. Specifically a boathouse there.”

I look at her, and she adds, “Trust me. It will all make sense once we’re on the plane and able to talk at length.”

We got to the boathouse too late. I knew it the minute I stepped foot on the path, having crept up from the woods beside the house. We searched the boathouse, the dock, and the dark house itself, grandly imposing even in the dim evening. There’s no Greer, and no sinister Carpathians lurking about. There’s also no boat but there is clear evidence of a disturbance on the dock. Knocked over paddles, scuffs that still shone on the rain-wet wood. Like someone fought not to get on the boat.