Going Under

by Jeffe Kennedy

  There it was, Lisa Stillwell married Henry White, both listing their occupations as students. Lisa R.—an obvious anagram for Silar, now that he saw it. Temples throbbing, he searched the college records for Lisa R. White and there she fucking was, in all her glory.

  Of course he remembered Lisa White. Geek Crunch had been full of the story for months after it hit. His head swam, his blood pressure no doubt through the roof. If Emily was Lisa White, and here she was, living on Lyra, then the rest logically followed.

  Fucking Phoenix.

  Kicking himself for the fool he’d been, he made himself review it all. A computer prodigy, raking in the grades and awards, Lisa started at the up-and-coming Gametronix the day after graduation, along with her putz of a husband. He ground his teeth, even as his gut roiled, enforcing discipline on himself to see it through, filing the data as he went. Thinking back, his brain clearly delivered the image of the big fucking satellite dish on the side of her house. And had that been a phoenix figurine among the glass animals? Of fucking course it was.

  How she must have laughed at him. A “stalker” she’d called it. More like an army of trolls. No wonder she’d relaxed once she determined he didn’t know who she truly was. And she’d asked him, hadn’t she? If he liked computer games. It had been subtle. Subtle enough for lust-blinded him to miss it.

  She’d gotten a raw and shitty deal, sure, but he couldn’t care. Because, oh look, Lisa White supposedly took off for Indonesia, where her data trail sputtered and died. Phoenix hit the forums months later. No doubt she’d tried on other identities in the interim, and he’d track every one down for the article.

  His unerring instincts had led him right to her and he’d missed it. All that secrecy. No wonder no one had been able to sniff “him” out. Never once had it occurred to him that Phoenix could be female, and how she must have loved pulling that over on all the misogynistic idiots who’d tried to take her down. She had them eating out of her hand with no idea that she was the very one they thought they’d defeated.

  The story would explode—beyond even his wildest expectations. That Phoenix turned out to be Lisa White? The truth would rock the internet community like a 9.0 quake.

  She’d played him. Phoenix had. Maybe she’d even suspected who he was, why he’d come to Lyra. Her cronies on the forums had tipped her off to his pursuit enough times. All that hard-to-get, chase-me shit, followed by ball-cracking sex—had she done it simply to distract him?

  Could she be that much of a manipulator? She was clearly clever enough.

  One small step to ruthless enough.

  Regardless, she’d proved herself to be a master of lies. Far exceeding his father’s skill. Fox sought out Phoenix on the forums and sure enough, she was there. Leaving comments here and there, talking up the new game module. In the past twenty-four hours, when he’d been conveniently out of town, the chatter had kicked up to light speed. Seemed the module slated for Christmas release would include kinky sex scenarios, where the players could choose to be dominant or submissive.

  Everything she’d learned from him.

  If he’d been on boil up until then, it blew into white-hot rage.

  If he’d been considering, if only on the edges of his thoughts, not exposing her, not breaking the story perhaps until he talked to her, that vaporized in the heat of his betrayed anger.

  He nearly went over there, to throw it all in her face. The way she’d used and manipulated him. But no, his vengeance would be sure and swift—and all the better for being unexpected. As she’d done to him, the expertly wielded dagger in his back. He’d expose her lies for the world to see. That was what people like her deserved. She’d pay the price and he’d walk away richer and with his pick of gigs.

  It would be sweet in the end. Sweet enough to wipe away the enduring taste of bitter bile.

  * * *

  Em physically flinched as the front door boomed shut.

  Then slowly let herself slide down the wall, to sit, knees drawn up. Sun slanted in the windows but didn’t reach her. Paralyzed, she stared at the splash of warm light and wished she could reach it. But it seemed as far beyond her as the possibility of ever not being this person who lived eternally alone.

  But she’d chosen it this time. She hadn’t waited for it all to go up in flame, to be burned, skin cracked and bleeding before she removed herself from danger.

  She was just stunned at how fast things had ended between her and Fox. Because this situation wasn’t anywhere near as bad as before, right? The end of a casual love affair. Fox might have looked gut shot, but he’d get over her soon enough, find some other willing female to play sex games with.

  She’d get over him too. If she knew anything, it was how to recover from disaster.

  Still, a feeling of impending doom haunted her, anxiety compressing her lungs even as she tried to ignore it. Fox had lied to her about who he was, so why had he really come to Lyra? Surely it couldn’t have anything to do with her Phoenix identity. If he’d known who she was, he’d have tried to uncover evidence, wouldn’t he?

  She had to consider how he’d been obsessed with getting into her house. Was that why? But why the elaborate subterfuge, the sexual affair? No, he’d been genuinely stricken that she’d called it quits. And he’d said he didn’t game. Of course, he could have lied about that too.

  So many lies. The wave of them crashed over her, sending her under.

  Dinah sidled in, for once ignoring the forbidden toys and arching against her, purring comfort. She stroked her soft fur. Let her be that joke, but she wasn’t alone. Dinah and Anansi at least gave her honesty, even if she didn’t always care for how they expressed their opinions.

  And they didn’t judge her.

  Em choked a little at the cramp in her chest. How quickly Fox had been ready to call her a liar. For no reason. Judging her for presumed sins he knew jack shit about. If he’d known anything about what she’d actually lied about, he’d have thrown it in her face.

  She’d become paranoid was all, always thinking she needed to hide. Running away, as Fox mockingly suggested. It didn’t matter who he really was. Maybe even he didn’t realize the deal-breaker he’d tripped with her, that he’d been so ready to damn her for not telling the truth when he’d committed the very same sin.

  If she’d learned nothing else, it was to be wary of people ready to throw the first stone.

  Jesus, people went through this kind of thing all the time. Normal people had love affairs that came and went. They’d discovered a fundamental incompatibility. Sure, it hurt. That would fade. She’d been in far worse pain than this when Henry left. Surely the end of her marriage had hit her far harder.

  Except it didn’t feel that way. It was some fresh, new hell. More. It felt like somehow this incident, what should be a minor bump for anyone else, had ripped open those old wounds. Meaning she hadn’t healed at all, only scabbed over.

  And now she bled freely again, her life force spilling across the floor, no extra lives to spend.

  Chapter Thirty

  When Fox got the payday from the story, he’d buy his mom, if not a new house, at least updated furniture. As it was, he sat at the same kitchen table he’d eaten his breakfast cereal on countless mornings before school, with the linoleum crack that had looked like a lightning bolt then and just looked dirty and broken now.

  “Will you stay in town long?” His mother set down a cup of coffee and a plate of Chips Ahoy, beaming at him.

  Why he’d come here after filing the story, he didn’t know. Seemed like the thing to do, especially since he’d thought he’d explode if he stayed in L.A. a minute longer. The drab Midwestern winter only exacerbated his dour mood, however. It seemed impossible that he’d thought Lyra depressing. He missed the emerald landscape with a visceral hunger. There should be a misty sea, humped blue islands shrouded by lay
ers of shifting fog, and a beach to run on.

  And Emily. How could he both miss and despise her?

  “I don’t know,” he belatedly replied, realizing he’d forgotten to answer. “I haven’t decided.”

  “You missed Thanksgiving with the cousins, but Aunt Shirley is hosting Christmas. Maybe you could stay through then, since your big story is done. Your sister will be here and you haven’t seen little Amy since her third birthday.”

  The mention of Christmas made him think again of Emily. Of Lisa, Silar or Phoenix, or whatever the hell he should call her. Of all her names, Emily seemed to be the only one she’d totally made up. Other than Phoenix, but even that made sense, given her history.

  His editors gleefully planned to time the scoop with the release of the new Labyrinth module, with syndication rights going faster than hotcakes around the world. So far they’d kept it pretty secret, though rumors were heating up that Phoenix would soon be outed, and it would be a major scandal.

  A few privy to the story’s full scope even speculated whether Lisa White—much easier to think of her that way—could be or would be sued. She’d had a noncompete with Gametronix, cemented by the fact that she’d resigned instead of being fired. They’d no doubt strong-armed her into it, but the lawyers wouldn’t care. The papers and magazines certainly didn’t care. Except that additional lawsuits would draw out the stories for months to come, always a good thing for sales. Oh, they’d feted him and showered him with all the glory a guy could want. He’d upped the holiday bonus for everyone and sent the year-end predictions off the charts. The publisher even took him out to The Ivy for Thanksgiving dinner, the best wine flowing freely.

  Fox had gotten seriously drunk and it hadn’t done a thing to make him feel better.

  He’d lasted about another week, until all of the stories were finalized. Then, unable to bear the festive mood, the jarring juxtaposition of L.A.’s glitzy façade with tinseled decorations meant for evergreens, not palm trees, he’d bought a plane ticket home.

  And immediately regretted the decision. He’d never last through Christmas. If he’d had the vague thought that he could weather the story breaking better here, in the small town that birthed him, away from the left coast and all its various blinking communications, he’d been sorely mistaken.

  The image of Emily haunted him like an earworm. He couldn’t get her face out of his head. It hadn’t helped that he’d gotten to know her—in all her incarnations—so well in the past couple of weeks. He’d resurrected the entire Gametronix debacle as a side article, telling himself that he at least would be telling her story as it should have been told.

  If anyone hadn’t heard of Lisa White, they’d know her after this. The world deserved to know. Hell, Emily deserved that much, not the duck-and-cover job her weak-ass bosses and colleagues had buried her under. She should have gone public from the beginning, gotten the media on her side. Refused to resign. But no, she’d run and hid, just as he’d watched her do over and over.

  Just as she’d done in that last argument. Now that the hot edge of betrayal and anger had cooled with perspective, that much was clear. Of course she wouldn’t have talked it out. Much easier for her to cut bait and bail.

  It still pissed him off though.

  And if he felt bad about how this would hit her, well...sometimes the truth hurt. He should know.

  “Your father is doing better these days.” His mom dipped her cookie into her coffee and took a delicate bite.

  “He could hardly do worse.”

  “True, true.” She shook her head, copper curls bouncing. “But the new job is working out and he’ll be celebrating his tenth anniversary of not gambling.”

  “You don’t talk to him, Mom!” Jeez, she probably still sent the loser money too.

  “Of course I do. We had twenty-five good years together. That doesn’t vaporize.”

  “They were not good years. He gambled, lied to you about it, got me to lie to you about it, destroyed your credit. Hell, you could have left this shit town years ago, if not for him.” Fox dug his thumb into the crack.

  “Don’t mess with that and don’t call my home a ‘shit town.’ You might have taken off as fast as you could, Raynard, but I like living here.”

  “You deserve better,” he stubbornly insisted and drank the aluminum-flavored coffee, wishing with all his heart that every damn thing didn’t make him think of her.

  “Do I? How do you know what I deserve? Or what your father deserves, for that matter?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that you’ve been sitting as judge, jury and executioner for his sins for too many years. What happened between your father and I was just that—between us.”

  “Bullshit!” The anger whipped out of him. Maybe not so cooled after all. “He involved me all along, getting me to lie to you, making me complicit.”

  “One of his many mistakes, yes,” his mother replied coolly, “but you were his child. And you loved him so, so much...” She broke off and blinked out the window, pulling back the tears, the same as Emily would do. “That’s what I regret most—not what he did, but that you lost that love.”

  “He deserv—” Fox stopped the words, but his mother gave him a knowing look. “I don’t care about that, Mom. What I hated was...” He drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I lied to you, that I hurt you. I should have apologized before now.”

  She sipped her coffee, considering. Then put another cookie on his plate. “No, I don’t accept your apology.”

  He sagged inside, accepting that. Maybe someday.

  “Look at you.” His mother smiled, cradling the cracked mug. “You’d think I just grounded you. I don’t want your apology because you never offended me. You were only trying to protect both of us in a hard, horrible situation. People do the best that they can do.”

  “I could have handled it better.”

  “Sure you could.” She nodded thoughtfully. “We all could have, but that’s done. What matters now is how we handle things going forward. We all learned our lessons from that, didn’t we?”

  What have we learned from this, Sparky?

  “Bailey Jones moved back to town.” His mother changed the subject gently.

  “Did she?” He restrained a comment about that being poor judgment.

  “Divorced. Living back home for a while. Maybe you should go see her.”

  “I’m not going to see her, Mom.”

  “No, I suppose you’ve both moved past that, also.”

  They had, hadn’t they? With a sense of relief, he knew he had no desire to see Bailey again, that he liked having her in his head as they’d been, in what seemed to be an idyllically innocent youth. There was only one woman he wanted to see.

  “I met somebody new,” he blurted and bit into the too-sweet cookie.

  “Someone special?” His mother’s eyes gleamed with that acquisitive light that meant she was thinking of grandchildren but wouldn’t say so.

  He snorted. Emily was special, all right. She’d stand out in this drab town like...well, like a Phoenix, all full of fire, restless energy and exotic beauty.

  “Maybe you should invite her for Christmas. I’d love to meet her. Oh! Or him. You should know that would be okay too.”

  He drank too much coffee in a gulp and it burned his mouth. “Mom!”

  “Timmy Burdock turned out to be gay—no surprise there, except to his folks—and now he’s married and Sally Burdock says they are visiting for the holidays. Makes out like it’s some exotic new fashion or something.” She hmphed her annoyance.

  “Well, if you want to keep up with the Burdocks, Mom, I could drum up a boyfriend. Or maybe one of each—to top them. You could show us off at church.”

  She laughed, a genuine open-hearted peal of delight. Ho
w long since he’d made her laugh? He imagined her and Emily laughing together, and suddenly the thought of her here didn’t seem odd at all.

  “Mom, the thing is that this woman—it is a her—yeah, she’s special, but it’s over.”

  “I’m sorry.” His mom reached across the table and gripped his hand, a gesture that tore him open. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  “She dumped me,” he admitted.

  “Then she’s not smart enough for you.”

  “No, I—I deserved it. She found out I lied to her about something.”

  “Imagine that,” his mother observed in a dry tone.

  Stung, he put his mug down. “Not like Dad. I wasn’t hiding a whole other life that would be a danger to her. I—” Except he had. He’d done that exact thing. Right in dear old dad’s footsteps. He’d been exactly what she feared most. Only neither of them could have known it. “She lied too,” he finished, knowing it sounded weak.

  “Seems to me you should be sitting at her kitchen table, offering her this apology you’re carrying around. Unless she’s not all that special. But I have to say—I know you’ve been through other breakups and not a one of them brought you home.”

  “I don’t know why I wanted to come here.” After he said it, he winced, realizing how it sounded.

  His mom squeezed his hand a final time and let go. “You will.”

  * * *

  Emily slogged through the days, trying to get back into her old groove. Since she didn’t plan to slit her wrists, she focused on the job. Work had saved her before when her world collapsed and it could be the rope she held onto this time. Even if she never had anything else, she had that. She spent her time at the computer, being her other identities—all stronger and better people than the real her—and took refuge.

  She worked, day and night, making up for the time lost to Fox. She prowled the forums, fanning the flames of excitement over the new module. The company had been leaking careful hints and she did her part by talking them up. This would be big and nothing could tarnish it. Phoenix would get major credit, but so would Cindy and Syd—she’d make sure of it. Marketing had drafted the publicity strategy, giving Phoenix the credit as long as possible. A lot of memos had flown about, with concerns over concealing the presence of women with core responsibility on the design team.