Perfect Lies
Page 17

"Nothing is simple," Fia says, her voice dead.
"THIS IS. Choose. Now. Or I'll kill her."
"I'm sorry," Fia whispers.
I nearly jump out of my skin at the next voice. Eden. "Fia, where have you-What the hell? Annie?"
"You can't see Annie," Fia says, dreamy and distracted. "You can't know she's alive. It's all ruined. I have to fix it."
There's a soft gasp behind me and the gun moves away from my temple, the arm around my neck loosens. Sarah leans heavily against my back.
"No," I shout, lunging forward to block Fia with my body, but she's not there. Sarah falls to the ground behind me. "Fia? Fia, where are you?"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Eden is moaning something to God, over and over, but I don't need God, I need Fia. I spin, trying to find her, then notice the back of my shirt is wet. I touch it, and my fingers come away slick with something thicker than water.
"Sarah?" I ask, already knowing she won't answer.
Fia's voice brings back nightmares of empty pill bottles. "I can't do this again, I can't, I can't, no no no no, no no no no."
I hold out my hands, one covered in Sarah's blood, the other clean. "Fia, come here. Come here. Let's leave, right now. It's okay. We'll leave."
A door slams somewhere nearby and I wander in small circles trying to find my sister. I nearly trip on something, and bile rises in my throat as I realize it's an arm. Sarah's arm.
"Fia," James says, and I freeze.
"She was going to kill Annie," she says. "I had to. I-James, please, please, make it better, fix it, fix me, please please please." Her breath hitches and a sob chokes out.
I have my hands out in nothing but open space. She doesn't come to me.
"It's going to be fine," James says. "Go get in the car. I'll be there in a minute. Everything is going to be fine."
I wait for her to disagree with him, to say something to me, anything, but she simply says, "Okay."
And then she's gone.
"You just couldn't stay dead, could you, Annie?"
"I-I didn't know this would happen." Fia left me. Again.
"Of course you didn't. When do you ever?" He sighs heavily. "Now what I am supposed to do with this?"
I recoil in horror. "This is a girl named Sarah." She was my friend. She would have killed me or Fia. I don't know how to feel. I will never know how to feel again.
Eden's voice shakes. "Will someone please explain this to me? You were dead-I saw you, she killed you, I saw it. You were dead." She pulls me to her and smashes me in a hug.
James sounds annoyed. "You'll never be able to keep this quiet in your head. This whole trip is a wash. Fine. Eden, congratulations, Fia killed you for double-crossing us and alerting Lerner so they got to Sadie first. You can join Annie in death, and please for the love of all that is holy, stay away from us. I'm calling for a cleanup guy who won't tell my father it's the wrong body, and I suggest you both run. Now."
"Go to hell," Eden spits, then takes my hand and pulls me down the sidewalk, away from the blood, away from the body, away from my sister, once again broken because of me.
I didn't even get to talk to her.
I didn't even get to touch her.
And once again James will fill in the holes in her soul, drawing her even closer to him and further and further away from me.
"There's a car," I manage to say after a couple of minutes. "Cole-I don't know where he is."
"Brown hair, running down the sidewalk toward us, looks like he's going to murder me?"
"Annie? Annie!" Cole grabs me around the shoulders, twisting me away from Eden's hand. "She said-Sadie woke up and said you were dead. She said Sarah was going to-I thought I'd be too late, I thought I'd lose you." He pulls me close, holding me tighter than even Eden did. "Where's Sarah?"
"She's gone," I whisper. I have nothing else to say.
Chapter Nineteen
FIA
Twelve Hours Before
"AND YOU'RE CERTAIN IT WAS THE LERNER GROUP who grabbed Sadie? And you couldn't stop them?" the Feeler asks. She's new. I don't know her. I don't care.
I nod, channeling anger, which isn't hard. I am angry. I am so angry I don't know what to do with it. I wanted to help her, wanted to keep Sadie safe. I was going to keep her safe, but I couldn't.
I couldn't fix it.
I couldn't do anything to change what happened.
I don't tell her why we couldn't stop them. That they threatened to hurt Annie so we couldn't save Sadie. Because Annie is dead, SHE IS DEAD WHY IS EVERYTHING SO COMPLICATED SHE IS DEAD.
I frown, realizing the Feeler has been asking more questions. "Look. I recognized the guy. Sandy blond hair, face I want to smash. I fought him last spring when I was out on a hit, and then again when Lerner kidnapped me and I broke out. I don't forget people I beat the crap out of."
"No, I would imagine you don't." I don't know if her smile is amused or terrified, and I don't care. I'm done.
I stand and stomp out of the room. The one bonus to all this is that we didn't have to lie. Pixie and I decided not to tell them exactly what Sadie could do, just that we saw the tail end of her being forced into a car and couldn't stop it.
Couldn't.
COULDN'T.
I hate couldn't. I hate it so much I want to hurt someone. I want to hurt Sandy blond who threatened Annie. I want to hurt everyone associated with the Lerner group, everyone I trusted. I trusted them! It was right to trust them! And trusting them meant Sarah died, meant she was destroyed. Trusting them means Sadie still isn't safe, won't ever be safe.
I gave Annie to them. Maybe even to Rafael, if he wasn't lying.
I gave Annie to Rafael. No I didn't. I KILLED ANNIE. I KILLED HER.
I walk into the women's bathroom. Kick a stall door so hard it cracks.
Scream.
Slam the heel of my palm into the mirror, watch it shatter, watch my reflection break into pieces. A slivered and silvered distortion, all broken and jagged and ruined.
"Fia!"
I turn to see Pixie staring at me. I don't know how long she's been in here. "Fia," she says, her voice careful. "You need to calm down, okay?"
"I'm calm," I answer, raising an eyebrow at her. "Why wouldn't I be calm?"
"It'll be okay."
I laugh, and it is broken and jagged like the mirror. "No big deal. I'm pissed because this failure will probably cost me employee of the year. I really wanted a plaque. My name etched on it next to a bad picture."
She opens her mouth, and I want to shove my bloodied hand over it, want to smash her into the wall, want to keep her from saying whatever soft things she wants to say. She is just like Annie. She is a liar. She will tell me and tell me and tell me and tell me that everything will be okay, and it's a lie, it's always a lie.
She takes a step back, pain and hurt written around her eyes. She wears leather and metal armor, but she's a kid. She's a stupid kid, and she doesn't understand any of this and she doesn't know anything, she doesn't know.
She can never know.
Actually, no. If she stays here long enough, she'll know. She'll know, and then she'll be the broken doll she already looks like. You want to play here, Pixie? You want to know what it really means to be a part of all this? You want thoughts to pull out of my head and report back to Keane? I'll give you thoughts.
She leans against the black-tiled wall, stares past me at the shattered mirror. "There's an artist in Asheville, where I'm from. She works in mosaic. Takes broken pieces of mirrors and fits them back into patterns. I have one. It looks like a starburst, the pieces rearranged to shine outward like rays of light."
I narrow my eyes. "It's still a broken mirror. It's ruined. It's useless."
She shrugs, still not looking at me. "It's broken, yeah. But it's beautiful. And it means something to me when I look at it, even if I can't see myself clearly in it anymore."
I'm overwhelmed with the impulse to go over to her, to let her hug me, to cry on her shoulder. Is it an instinct? Is it right? Is it wrong?
"I'm on your side," she says, smiling sadly. "You're the only friend I have."
I pick up one of the thick, folded paper towels. Smear my blood across it, wad it into a ball, and drop it in the sink. I don't trust this impulse, I don't trust her, I don't trust me. No. I only trust me. No. I am the last person I can trust. I am the only person I can trust. I tap tap tap tap a fingernail against the sink, consider the spiderweb of my reflection.
"Here's the thing, Pixie. I don't have a side. I work here. Just like you. And I don't ever forget that." My phone rings, and I pull it out of my pocket. James. James will know what to do. He'll tell me. We'll do it together.
"Please," Pixie says, desperate. "If I wanted to hurt you, I'd have already done it. You gave your secrets away before I ever listened in your head and realized you haven't killed the people you say you did. Tap tap tap tap, Fia. Four taps. But you've killed six people. Two with the bomb. Clarice. Adam. Annie. Eden. It wouldn't even be my word against yours. All they'd have to do is look and they'd see the truth."
I c**k my head, consider. She's right. I could laugh at how careless I've been. "Are you threatening me?"
"No! I'm telling you to be more careful! I care about you. But James is destroying you. He lets you think you have the same goals, but he wants nothing that you do. He was working with Rafael, building his own group to rival his father's. He has been this entire time, playing Lerner, playing his father, building so that he can take over and create the exact same thing his father already has. He's not going to stop anything. You're just building an empire for a new Keane."
I have her slammed up against the wall before she can blink.
"You know nothing," I snarl. Nothing. You know nothing, and you are nothing, and you mean nothing to me or anyone else. No one in the whole world cares about you. I say a word, a single word, and you are the next overdosed girl floating dead in the river.
She whimpers.
I lean my forehead against hers, close my eyes. My voice comes out even, soft. "Stay out of it. I really don't want to hurt you."
I leave the bathroom before she can read me, before she can realize that I am lying, that I am nothing but a lie. I do, I care, I care so much and it terrifies me, and I don't want to care about her because when I care people get hurt.
The people we love are the ones with the power to destroy us.
James is all I have. I chose James. He has to be right. Please let him be right.
Chapter Twenty
ANNIE
Twenty-eight Days Before
WE SIT, A SILENT, MISERABLE GROUP. THE HOTEL SUITE has adjoining rooms, and the walls are thin enough to make out most of what Rafael and Cole are shouting at each other. I had been worried about what would happen when I saw Rafael again after our kiss, but it's funny how trivial something like that is now.
As much as I want to mourn Sarah, part of me is livid. I'm furious with her, furious that she made those choices, that she forced Fia's hand like that. I have no idea what this will do to my sister.
No, that's wrong. I know exactly what this will do, and this time I'm not there to take care of her. Please, James. Whatever goodness you have in you, whatever humanity-please take care of Fia. Don't let her hurt herself.
"I just don't understand," Adam says, anguish soaking his voice. "Why would Sarah do that?"
"She was on amphetamines, right?" Eden asks. She's sitting next to me, and I'm curled into her, my head resting on her shoulder.