Perfect Lies
Page 8

"Oh." She sounds deflated. "Sorry." She sips, and then a cup clinks down. "So, what are you doing here?"
"You're going to get-or may have already gotten-an offer to go to a special school for girls. You should know what you're dealing with."
I lean back and think-details, the few insights I have from visions, memories. The night I overheard the teachers talking about how to keep various girls under control. The bruises all over Fia's body I didn't know about until Eden told me. When Mr. Keane personally threatened to kill me if I messed up.
He would have done it. Still would, given the chance. I have no doubt.
Mae lets out a long breath. "Well. That was a lot of information."
"They've already trapped too many girls, stolen too many futures." I wait expectantly for her to ask how to get away from Keane and stay unnoticed.
"How do they get girls to do it? They're targeting psychics and mind readers. How do they fool them into working for them?"
I frown, taken aback. I hadn't planned on getting into this much explanation. Cole said to scare her away. "Well, not everyone is as skilled as you. I had no idea anything was wrong with the school for years." Fia always knew. I should have paid more attention. They'd destroyed her before I even figured out I should worry. "It's not like they start out most girls with assassinations. It's little things. And they pay really well."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. At least that's what I heard. The school is prestigious. My aunt was thrilled to send us. And then they set up the girls who are talented enough with jobs. But they own you. You can't get out. Mr. Keane, the man in charge of everything, is pretty patently evil."
"What's the point of it all?"
"I don't know the endgame. I only know details. He's got eyes and ears in a lot of things. I think he wants power and control, and he uses and manipulates a lot of people to get it."
"Hmm. And Fia? Where is she now that you can't go three thoughts without missing her? Dead?"
"I . . ." My stomach drops. Oh no, what have I done? Cole said to stay anonymous, and here I've already shown her that I'm a blind psychic connected to Fia. How many of those are there walking around?
"Yeah, you aren't very good at this." She laughs and I put a hand over my mouth, horrified. "Relax, 'Amy' the Blind Psychic who is supposed to be dead. I've been around the block. You learn about people pretty quickly when you can listen in on the stuff they don't filter. You're a good person and you really think you're doing me a favor by warning me about this sinister organization that wants to use my powers for eeeeevvvvviiiiillll." She pauses. "I was stroking an imaginary beard when I said that, just so you know. Answer me this: Why is Fia still working for them?"
My shoulders slump. "I honestly don't know."
"I think I understand," Mae says, her voice soft. "Because here's where you're wrong. You're treating all these women as victims, unable to get out of this crazy trap. But can't you see that we're the ones with all the power?"
"You don't know what they're like, what they'll do to control you."
"No, I can imagine. But if they're willing to go that far to use us, it makes me think they're scared silly that someone else will beat them at their own game. And I like that. I think Fia figured it out, too. Plus, to be honest, I kind of dig the idea of being showered with money and power for something I can do in my sleep."
"But-"
"No buts. I'm not a victim and I'm not going to let a corporation turn me into one. Girls like you and me? We hold all the cards. We just have to be smart enough to see it."
"You're going to say yes to them," I whisper. How could I have messed this up so bad?
"Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me. We never met. You're still quite dead."
I reach across the table, find her hand, squeeze it in mine. I should be screaming at her, telling her to do anything else, but the vision of her sticks in my head. Now I wish I knew how it ended. "My real name is Annie. Will you watch out for her? Fia? She's so alone. I can't-I hate that I can't be there for her. I don't care why she's still with them. I just want her to be happy and safe. But be careful. She can be . . . dangerous."
Mae squeezes my hand back. Her voice is softer, kinder. "Okay. I think she and I will get along really well."
I laugh, letting go of her hand and sitting back, suddenly exhausted. "You're certainly both crazy enough."
I hear her stand. "Good luck, Annie."
Did I mess this up? Could I have changed her mind? Fia could have. Fia would have known exactly what to do, what to say, heck, what to think. I messed everything up. But a small part of me is hopeful that maybe I'm sending a friend Fia's way.
Please, please let me not have sent Mae into even more danger by putting her onto Fia's path.
"Good luck, Mae." You're going to need it.
She laughs brightly. "I make my luck. I pull it out of the brains of everyone I meet."
A few minutes later someone else sits across from me. "How did it go?" Cole asks.
"I was brilliant. Anyone else you want me to drive straight into Keane's employ?"
"What do you mean?"
"I-" A familiar voice asking for a table for one registers and I freeze. It's a man. How do I know his voice? "Crap," I hiss, ducking and crawling on the floor until I'm under the table.
"What are you doing?" Cole asks.
"Shut up!" I hiss. "There's a man here. He's a recruiter for the school. If he sees me, I'm dead." Actually dead, as opposed to fictionally dead.
"What does he look like?"
I punch Cole's thigh so hard my hand stings.
"Sorry! Sorry. There's a guy in a suit by himself. He's watching Mae. I think it's him. We'll wait it out."
I sit with my back against the wall, knees bumping his, head craned at a horrible angle beneath the table. Cole orders food, acting casual.
"This is why I wanted you gone," he says, voice so low I can barely hear it over the hum of conversations and the clinking of silverware.
"Because I screw everything up?"
"Because sending you on a collision course with Keane is the worst possible thing we can do."
My aching neck agrees with him. I have to figure out a way to be better. This was not enough.
I was not enough.
Chapter Nine
FIA
Thirty-six Hours Before
I PLAY IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN IN MY HEAD, TRYING to unstick whatever got stuck and made me do something so stupid.
She walked by. I knew I needed to stop her.
I knew I needed to stop her. There was no doubt. I have so much doubt these days, but there was no doubt then.
I tap tap tap tap on my stomach, the polished oval table I'm lying on hard beneath the back of my head and the base of my spine. The chandelier overhead, understated and elegantly modern, burns funny patterns of light on my eyes. The sun has long since gone down, but no one has bothered coming in, telling me I can go or I can stay or anything.
I saved his life. Saved it so I can destroy it? Wouldn't everything be better if he were dead now? And I wouldn't even have had to be the one to do it.
Someone opens the door and walks into the empty conference room James left me in with a caution not to go anywhere. I don't look over. I'm too busy tap tap tap tapping, trying to puzzle out the why of all this.
"Sedatives," Pixie says, matter-of-factly. "Apparently she's been taking massive doses of sedatives for the last few weeks to get by all the Feeler check-ins. No wonder her thoughts were so sleepy."
She walked by. She needed to be stopped. Why? Why did she need to be stopped? "It was Mr. Keane, right? She was there to kill him. Not James or someone else." Maybe she was going to kill James. It would be right for me to stop that. I would need to stop that, because I need James.
Pixie sits on the table next to me. "Yup. Kill order for El Presidente. No one else, as far as I could tell. They had me pull what I could from her thoughts, but she was pretty good."
Pixie isn't telling me everything. She got more than that. I need to know what else she got. Don't think about it.
I saved him. The man who destroyed me. The man who would have hurt Annie, done anything, to control me. Saving him was the right thing to do.
I laugh so hard I have to wipe the tears away from where they trace down the corners of my eyes and tunnel into my hair. "So I really did save his life." Spinning and spinning and landing on this. This?
"You really did." Pixie leans into my field of vision, eyebrows knit. "You okay in there?"
"What are they doing with the woman?"
"Casey? I didn't ask."
I sit up. Suddenly Pixie is very intent on avoiding my eyes. "You don't have to ask. What are they doing with her?"
Pixie shrugs, tugs on the bar piercing her lower lip. "Women who cross him end up overdosing. Every time. It's a strange coincidence, how they all overdose and die."
Sarah saw that. Did she see Casey? Was that one of the faces that drove her to . . .
"Who is Sarah?"
I glare at Pixie, then shrug. "Someone I used to know."
Tap tap tap tap. I didn't kill Casey. I didn't. Not my fault. Not my problem. I did what I was supposed to. She's not mine. If I hadn't stopped her, she would have killed Mr. Keane. Would I have blamed myself for that death? Do I want that death?
"Wanna go dancing?" I ask.
"Hells yes."
Pixie shrugs into her leather coat and we walk together toward the lobby. The lobby I was so desperate to get past this morning. Will I be stuck there again? Mr. Keane is nowhere to be seen, but we pass an open door and I look in to see James listening as two other men talk. He's pale, obviously troubled by today's events, but gives me a ghost of a smile and a hint of a nod.
Guess I did something right after all. I don't think access will be a problem again.
All it took was foiling one murder and causing another.
I drag Pixie onto the dance floor with me, try to help her forget everything, turn it off, stop listening. She whines that she can't stop hearing things.
"Let it be static," I say. "Don't tune in."
I also give her drinks stronger than Shirley Temples. A lot of them. I tip my own drinks back and think how buzzed I am getting, how I really shouldn't have any more to drink but, hey, why not.
Meanwhile, I don't actually drink anything.
I smile at Pixie as she nods her head in time to the music. Or rather, not actually at all in time to the music. Her eyelids droop and she sways into my shoulder, resting her head there. Sleepy drunk. Sleepy drunks are adorable. Angry drunks are less so. Funnier, though.
"So," I say. "Are you loyal to Mr. Keane?"
"I am loyal to myself. Whatever gets me where I want to go."
"And right now?"
"Right now that's my big fat paychecks."
At least I can tell James she's cleared for loyalty. It makes me sad. But, then again, I'm here, doing bad things, because I am trying to get to where I want to go.
But I lost where that was. I can't find it anymore. I saved his life. That can't have been right. There is no world in which sacrificing that woman for Mr. Keane is right. And if I can't feel right anymore . . .
I poke Pixie to make sure she's still awake. "The crazy woman was plotting to kill Mr. Keane. How long do you think she was working toward it?"
"Casey. Her name was Casey. And she's planned it for months."
"By herself?"
Pixie shakes her head. "No. She thought of a few other names."