99 Lies

by Rachel Vincent

  “Uncle David?” Holden says. “Maddie’s dad’s dead.”

  I shrug in the dark. “Turns out we were wrong about that.”

  “Holy shit. Where is he?”

  “He’s not keeping me up to date on his social calendar. All I know is that he’s not going to kill his own niece. But if he doesn’t get whatever he wants from you, he has no reason to let you live.” I let that sink in for a second. “Money won’t help you now, Holden.”

  “Then why am I here?” The new fear in his voice energizes me almost as well as food would.

  The naked bulb overhead lights up, and I squint against the sudden glare. For a second, my eyes refuse to focus. I’ve been in the dark for far too long.

  I blink over and over, and gradually my eyes remember how to function. The world has color again, though that color is mostly the faded gray of aged wood.

  My gaze falls on Holden. I couldn’t see him very well, backlit by light from the front room when he was tossed in with me. But now I can see his black eye and split lip. There’s a large bruise on the left side of his jaw and a gash in his forehead.

  Maybe he fought Sebastián’s men. Maybe they remembered that he shot one of their friends before he ran into the jungle.

  Either way, the whole thing is my fault. Holden wouldn’t be in Colombia if not for me. He wouldn’t have been kidnapped. He wouldn’t have been recaptured and beaten if I hadn’t dragged him into the jungle in the first place.

  He wouldn’t be staring at me with such consuming hatred if I hadn’t chosen Indiana’s life over his, when our captors had knives to their throats.

  I blink, stunned. I have made him what he is.

  Sebastián opens the door. He has a pistol in one hand and a paper plate holding a sandwich in the other. Peanut butter on whole wheat. My mouth waters. “Tonight we’re going to play a game. Two prisoners. One meal. Winner takes all. Ready?” He sets the plate on the floor, then slides it a few feet into the room. “Go!”

  Holden and I lurch into motion at the same time. A wave of nausea washes over me with the sudden movement, and my head spins.

  He’s closer. Before I can even grasp for the plate, he’s shoved half the sandwich into his mouth.

  Sebastián laughs, and I wish I’d never left my corner. If he gets the reaction he wants, he’ll play this game again.

  Still chuckling, he closes the door and slides the bolt home.

  Holden needs food worse than I do, I tell myself as I retreat across the rough floor.

  My ex moans around a huge mouthful. “Crunchy peanut butter. Grape jelly.”

  He will never get the jump on me again.

  I’ll be fine.

  MADDIE

  “Maddie!” When Luke and I come through the front door, my mother jogs across the small kitchen and living room to pull me into a rum-scented hug, as if she wasn’t sure she’d ever see me again.

  I swallow my frustration and hug her back. Her fear makes sense. She thought Ryan and I were in the Bahamas with Genesis until the police came to tell her we were missing—from Colombia.

  She never got to say good-bye to Ryan. She still hasn’t gotten to bury him.

  “Hi, Luke,” my mother says as she lets me go, and there is tension in her voice. She likes him, but she wants to talk to me about Ryan. Alone.

  I told her he died protecting me. That’s all I’ve got in me right now.

  “Hey, Mrs. Valencia.” Luke gives her a formal nod, then seems at a loss. He’s uncomfortable here, surrounded by pictures of Ryan. Faced with a mother in mourning.

  That makes two of us.

  “I just made coffee,” my mother offers, though from the scent, her mug is at least half full of rum. “Or I could brew some tea.” A week ago, she would have told me it was too late in the day to drink caffeine. But since I’ve been back, she hasn’t said no to me once.

  “Thanks anyway.” With an awkward smile, Luke holds up the paper cups we got from the coffee shop down the street.

  “I just spoke to your uncle.” My mom sinks into her chair at the table, where her mug is still steaming. Ryan’s baby photo album is spread across the plastic placemat. “He says you won’t take his calls. He’s been very good to us, Maddie.”

  Uncle Hernán got us kidnapped. He got Ryan killed. But if the FBI hasn’t told my mother that, I’m not going to either. Not yet anyway.

  “They found the bunkhouse where you were all taken,” she says, but I already know that from the texts I haven’t returned. “Hernán is going to personally oversee the . . . disinterment.”

  My hand closes over the medallion hanging from my neck.

  I pick up the first clod of dirt, then I’m digging, frantically tossing handful after handful over my shoulder. Soil cakes beneath my nails. Bugs land on my neck, but I hardly feel the bites.

  Eighteen inches down, I scrape a muddy swath of cotton. I claw at the dirt now, sniffling, and each bit I remove exposes more of a blood-and-dirt-stained shirt.

  My finger scrapes metal, and I freeze.

  No.

  I brush the dirt away. My hand trembles as I clutch the medallion. Ryan never took it off.

  I left him there.

  “Do you want to . . . ?” My mother gestures at the album.

  “I can’t.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry.”

  She looks disappointed as Luke and I head down the short hallway. But staying won’t make her happy. Not even if I sat at the table and stared at old pictures of Ryan with her. That would only make us both cry.

  “Sorry about that,” I say as I close my bedroom door.

  “No reason to be.” Luke sinks onto the edge of my unmade bed, and I sit next to him. He hands me one of the cups of coffee so he can wrap his arm around me.

  “Thanks for coming over. The coffee shop was too public.” People were staring, because we’re front-page news. America’s sweethearts—survivors in love. At least, according to the headlines. And this morning, someone called my mom with an offer to buy the rights to my “story” for a book. Or maybe for a movie. I didn’t ask for details.

  The media doesn’t seem to care how much pressure the attention is putting on my brand-new, forged-in-fire, as-yet-undefined relationship.

  “We can cancel tomorrow’s talk show,” Luke says as I lay my head on his shoulder. “We could just go to school like normal people.”

  As if none of the past week even happened. “School may be the perfect place to hide from the media. But I can’t let the world forget about Genesis. We have to keep pressure on the government until they do something.”

  “I know. We—”

  Someone knocks on the front door, and we both go quiet as we listen to my mother’s steps cross the living room. Reporters have come to our apartment twice since we got off the plane. My mother says something to whoever’s at the door, then her voice rises. “Madalena, you have company! She’s in her room. Go on back.”

  I open my bedroom door just as Kathryn Coppela is raising her hand to knock. “Hey.” Her hand hangs in the air for a moment. Then she drops it and glances at Luke over my shoulder. “Sorry, your mom didn’t say . . .”

  “It’s okay. Come in.” I close the door behind her and sink onto the bed next to Luke. After a second, she sits in my desk chair.

  “Hey, Luke.”

  “Hey,” he says.

  Kathryn isn’t my best friend in the television sitcom BFF way. We had a rocky friendship in middle school that stuck mostly because we kept getting put into all the same classes. Then, last year when my father died and my brother wound up in rehab, I kind of pushed people away. Including her. Not on purpose. It just happened. But she’s the only one who’s tried to check on me since the jungle, not counting a bunch of Instagram and Snapchat messages from people who haven’t spoken to me in person in years.

  “I saw you guys on TV,” Kathryn says. “And there were vigils while you were gone. I can’t believe . . . Are you okay?”

  I glance at Luke, and
his shrug seems to say it all.

  No, I’m not okay. But no one ever knows what to say when you respond to a polite question with the truth. “I’ll be fine,” I tell her.

  Kathryn sets her keys in her lap. She looks really uncomfortable. “I’m so sorry about Ryan. It doesn’t seem real.”

  “I know.” Though the truth is that nothing feels real right now. Going from a jungle terrorist camp straight back to school, and friends, and home feels like turning the page in a sci-fi novel and suddenly finding myself in a western. These two worlds don’t fit together. How can I possibly exist in both?

  “Anyway, I just wanted to see how you are. You didn’t miss much school, but I have notes from history and calculus, if you want.” Kathryn brushes her long, pale brown hair back from her face as she stands.

  Obligatory condolence received. I guess this is over.

  “Well . . . Thanks.” I start to stand, but she waves me off.

  “You guys don’t have to get up. Is it okay if I use your bathroom on the way out?”

  “Yeah. Second door on the right.”

  “I remember. Thanks.”

  “That was weird,” Luke whispers when I close the door.

  I shrug. “Some people don’t know how to deal with someone else’s grief.” I don’t know how to deal with my mom’s. “It was like this after my dad died too. People mean well. But they don’t know what to do.”

  Luke scoots back to lean against my pillows, and I lie down next to him, my head on his shoulder. “So your mom doesn’t know about your uncle?”

  I shake my head, and my hair catches on his sparse chin stubble.

  “So, what’s going on with him? Are they going to arrest him?”

  “In Cartagena? I doubt it. And if they don’t arrest him, he’s not subject to extradition, so . . .” I shrug.

  “So as long as he stays in Colombia, he’s free?”

  I nod. “Freedom is the greatest privilege afforded by wealth.”

  Everything is negotiable.

  GENESIS

  The cabin’s front door opens with a squeal I know well, followed by firm, heavy footsteps. “How are they?”

  My head pops up at the familiarity of the voice. “It’s my uncle,” I whisper as I crawl across the floor toward the crack in the front wall. I haven’t seen him since they threw me into this room.

  My empty stomach insists that was days ago.

  Holden pushes his back against the wall, while I press my face against it, peering through the hole. It takes a second for my eye to focus. The rest of the cabin is lit by lamps, and after so much darkness, the light hurts.

  “They’re breathing.” Sebastián’s blurry form begins to solidify through the crack. The windows are still covered and the front door is closed. But he’s holding a beer bottle dripping with condensation. Does that mean this is afternoon? Or does he drink in the morning?

  They’re speaking in English, which can only mean they want Holden to understand. But why? They’ve been denying us information—along with food, water, and the bathroom—since we got here. With the exception of certain instances clearly meant to torture us. Like the peanut butter sandwich. And Neda’s webshow.

  If they’re letting us hear this, there’s a reason.

  “Have you fed them?” My uncle sets a backpack on the floor of the cabin with a heavy thud. He’s wearing mud-coated boots and casual hiking clothes. He looks rested, well-fed, and healthy.

  I want to kick him in the gut.

  Sebastián shrugs. “I tried to teach them to share, but they’re selfish, spoiled brats.”

  “They still need to eat.” Uncle David stomps toward our room.

  I scramble back from the wall as he unlocks the door and pushes it open. He flips a switch outside the room and the bulb overhead lights up, blinding me again.

  Holden blinks against the glare.

  “Damn it, Sebastián,” my uncle growls. “They look like skeletons.”

  Sebastián grumbles and I look past my uncle’s towering silhouette to see him heading toward a small kitchen.

  “Genesis, how are you feeling?” Uncle David squats on the balls of his feet next to me.

  I look him in the eye and force my thoughts into focus, fighting vertigo. “I’m concussed, malnourished, dehydrated, and I probably have a vitamin D deficiency from the lack of sunlight, so I’ll give you one guess.”

  He chuckles, as if he finds my suffering—or maybe my willingness to express it—entertaining. “Well, let’s see what we can do to fix at least a couple of those.” As if he weren’t responsible for everything that’s happened to both of us.

  He turns to Holden. “You must be the boyfriend.”

  “No,” Holden and I say in unison. That’s the first thing we’ve agreed on since . . . ever, maybe. “Your niece dumped me,” he adds.

  Uncle David glances at me, his nauseating smile still firmly in place. “And I’ll bet she made a scene of it. Even when the girls were little, Genesis had a flair for the dramatic.”

  “You know what else is dramatic? Kidnapping. Wrongful imprisonment. Assault and battery. Extortion. Arms trafficking. Faking your own death. Most of those are also felonies.”

  “As is mass murder . . . ,” Holden adds. But he’s looking at me.

  “I didn’t make those bombs,” I remind him. “I didn’t put them on a cruise ship full of innocent people. I didn’t even know they were there.”

  “You’ll have to excuse her.” Uncle David turns back to Holden. “She’s always found taking responsibility for her actions distasteful. I blame her upbringing. The rampant overindulgence of a child rarely produces a productive and responsible member of society.”

  “The irony here is absurd,” I snap. Holden is the poster child for entitlement. “He’s never even heard the word ‘no.’”

  “Is that right?” My uncle pulls a cell phone from his pocket and opens an app I don’t recognize, then taps on the triangle play symbol.

  An audio file begins to play. I recognize Sebastián’s voice.

  “Mr. Wainwright, we’re prepared to return your son to you tomorrow. If you’re prepared to pay the ransom.”

  “Just give me an account number.” Holden’s dad’s voice is scratchier, as if reception over the satellite line isn’t great.

  “We don’t want your money,” Sebastián says. “In fact, we’re prepared to pay you.”

  “You’re going to pay me to take my son back?”

  “We’re going to pay you for your shares in Wainwright Pharmaceuticals. Through a shell corporation, of course. I believe that’s a fifty-one-percent stake in the company. We’ll give you one-third the current value of the stock. That, and we’ll return your only child to you, alive and well. And largely unharmed.”

  Silence stretches over the staticky line and across our small room. Holden stares at the phone. He’s holding his breath, every muscle tense.

  “No,” his father finally says.

  Holden’s jaw clenches.

  “No?” Sebastián sounds skeptical, but not truly surprised.

  “I’ll meet any monetary demand,” Mr. Wainwright says over the recording. “Name your price. But I won’t let you fund your terrorist organization with profit from my company.”

  Sebastián snorts. “Mr. Wainwright, this isn’t negotiable.”

  Holden’s father huffs over the line. “Everything is negotiable.”

  Uncle David stops the recording and slides the phone back into his pocket. He turns to Holden, who’s staring at the floor, grinding his teeth so hard I can hear the friction. “Looks like you’re going to be with us for a while.” My uncle pushes Holden’s dirty blond hair from his forehead and studies a gash near his hairline. “We’re going to get you fed, showered, and patched up. And since my brother’s princesa has been indulged her entire life, this time we’re just going to let her wait her turn.”

  8 DAYS, 10 HOURS EARLIER

  Telling the truth won’t change anything.

  MADDI
E

  “We’re so glad to have you back, Maddie,” Mrs. Wilkins says as I take my seat. AP English Language is half over, but I don’t care. No one even expects me to be here, two and a half days after I escaped from captivity in the jungle. After my brother was killed. While my cousin is still missing.

  I’m only here because Luke’s parents made him go straight to school after our interview this morning, because they think normalcy is what he needs. And because, as it turns out, the school does have a no-tolerance policy on reporters.

  While I’m in school, I won’t hear my mother cry or our home phone ring. What I didn’t count on was the attention.

  I can feel everyone watching me. Last week I belonged here, but now I feel like a zoo exhibit, on display behind glass.

  Ryan had more friends in this school than I do, and my phone is full of unreturned text message condolences from seniors I hardly know. Yet there are almost none from my own friends. The school sent flowers, but no one other than Kathryn has actually spoken to me.

  Mrs. Wilkins drones on, reviewing the essay standards for the AP Lang exam. The practice test is this weekend.

  Exams feel about as relevant to real life as the possibility that I might leave school today in a levitating car. How am I supposed to care about exams when my brother is lying in a shallow grave in Colombia?

  What if Genesis died two days ago, and no one’s found her body yet? What if we never find her? My heart races and the backs of my knees feel damp. I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering what happened to her. Knowing she’d be alive and well if she hadn’t pushed me toward safety.

  I can’t spend the rest of my life lying to the world about what happened to the Splendor. The secret already feels like a parasite lodged in my heart, slowly eating me alive. But telling the truth won’t change anything.

  My phone buzzes against my hip, and when I pull it out of my pocket, I’m surprised, for a second, to be holding the latest model, in a brand-new, unscuffed case. Because my last phone was used as a detonator by the terrorists who kidnapped us.