Love & Lies

by Julie Johnson

  I entered, deposited my bike in its designated rack near the far wall, and nodded at Istvan, the beefy security guard who ensured that only employees made it through the back entrance. Hurrying toward the sorting room around the corner, I mourned the fact that there was no time for a leisurely pace or a sip of water. In the past five years, Hermes had overtaken the competition as Budapest’s largest courier service, which meant there was rarely a dull moment for anyone who worked here, from the bike messengers to the sorting staff.

  I ignored my strained muscles as I walked through the doors and tossed a smile at Konrad, one of the young Hungarian teenagers who worked in the stock room on summer breaks and weekends. After three weeks on the job, I still found myself taking in the chaotic space with wide eyes. The sorting room was always a blur of activity, with new packages arriving every few minutes. Konrad and four other young men worked nonstop in the sweltering room, plotting the best delivery routes, clustering packages, and restocking the returning bike messengers.

  Parcels headed to the same general neighborhood were grouped together and given to a single messenger for maximum efficiency. Speed, productivity, and number of deliveries were logged to ensure every courier was pulling her weight. It was strenuous and sweaty and more stressful than any other job I’d ever had.

  If not for the pay, I would’ve quit after my first shift.

  My only saving grace was the fact that Hermes couriers were exclusively young women about my age, so I wasn’t competing with the delivery times of super-speedy muscle-men. When I was first hired, I thought this all-female staff was strange and rather sexist, but within an hour on the job I’d figured out why the company would adopt such a business model. Pretty girls delivering packages in form-fitting, brightly colored uniforms was the crux of what made us the most popular parcel service in the city.

  Hermes girls were something like cultural celebrities. Tourists snapped pictures with us, smiling policemen stopped traffic to help us through particularly jammed areas of the city, and the clients receiving their packages were always happy to see us on their door stoops.

  In short, despite our smaller statures and our tendency to get lost in the city’s many twisting avenues, a cute, feminine courier in a helmet got things done ten times faster than a brooding Hungarian man with a backpack.

  And, anyway, each bike was rigged with a built-in GPS screen between the handlebars, to guide us while we were out making deliveries. Our helmets were bluetooth-enabled, so we could easily receive calls from headquarters without fumbling for a cellphone in our bags. Constructed of the lightest carbon-fiber, the bikes weighed less than fifteen pounds and whipped along faster than any cycle I’d ever ridden back at home. They also each cost more than I’d made in my first two weeks of work.

  “What do you have for me this time, Konrad?” I asked, grinning when I reached the young man’s station.

  His head lifted, a wide smile already on his lips. “Only three, Faith.”

  I cast my eyes heavenward and pressed my hands together, as if in prayer. “There is a God.”

  Konrad snorted. “Don’t thank God, thank me. I just gave Sara the seven-parcel run that should’ve been yours.”

  “My true savior,” I drawled, grinning at him and batting my eyelashes coquettishly.

  “Yeah, yeah. You gonna go out on that date with me, now?” His brown eyes lit up hopefully.

  I laughed. “Call me in ten years, Konrad.”

  “I’m almost sixteen!” he protested. “Only four years younger than you!”

  “Five,” I amended. “My birthday was last week.”

  “Happy birthday, Faith.” His smile was warm as he handed over the packages.

  “Thanks.” I winked and turned away from him, loading the three small parcels into my backpack with a bounce in my step.

  Konrad had ensured that my last run of the night would be quick, which was a good thing considering my thigh muscles had begun to ache somewhere around hour three of my shift and, in the time since, had worsened to a steady burn. I’d have to ice them later.

  I’d zipped my backpack, grabbed my bike from its rack, and was wheeling it toward the exit when I heard a familiar voice.

  “Hey, loser,” Margot called breathlessly, pushing her bike through the opposite door. She’d just returned from a run, by the looks of it.

  “You’re a sweaty mess,” I called back, grinning at her.

  “I don’t sweat, I sparkle!”

  Istvan’s muffled laugh was audible across the room. I rolled my eyes as I wheeled my bike onto the exit ramp. “See you in a few!”

  “Drinks after shift?”

  “Count on it!” I tossed over my shoulder, smiling as I clipped my helmet tightly beneath my chin. I programmed my route into the GPS, slung my messenger bag firmly across my back, and pedaled off into the sunset.

  * * *

  The bass thrummed through the speakers so loudly, I had to watch Margot’s lips if I had any chance of making out her words. The song, Dark Paradise by Lana Del Rey, was familiar to me, but it still came as a bit of a surprise to hear American music blasting at a club in Hungary. The DJ put his own spin on strains I knew by heart, remixing it with a pounding dance beat, and the crowd of revelers around us contorted their bodies in time with the pulsing bass.

  Clutching Margot’s hand firmly in mine, I tugged her petite frame behind me as I cut a path through the throng. Our venue of choice tonight was Iguana, a huge, multi-level ruin club at the heart of the city. Ruin clubs were fantastic and totally foreign to me, but in Budapest they seemed to be all the rage for tourists and locals alike. Birthed from the ruins of abandoned buildings and redesigned to create the ultimate festive atmosphere, each club had its own unique design and vibe, but they all had one thing in common — they were always packed to capacity.

  Margot and I had been eager to check out Iguana for weeks, but this was the first night we’d succeeded in getting through the velvet-roped doors before closing time.

  “Drinks?” I yelled to Margot.

  “What?” she shouted back, cupping a hand over one ear.

  I blew out a huff of frustration and mimed a drinking motion with my hands.

  She nodded in comprehension, but her expression turned forlorn as she took in the sight of the bar. When I glanced over, I couldn’t blame her — it was so crowded, we couldn’t see the bartenders behind the mass of people waiting for drinks. It would take ages to reach the front of that line and, in my experience, club drinks were usually overpriced and under-liquored.

  Thankfully, I’d been a Girl Scout for approximately two months during second grade. I hadn’t learned much in that short time span, but one vital lesson — always come prepared — had stuck with me. Well, that, and a love of delicious mint-chocolate flavored cookies.

  Snapping open my clutch purse, I pulled out two mini, airplane-sized bottles of Fireball whiskey from my stash. I’d had to leave my phone at home in order to fit the nips inside, but it had been worth it.

  I grinned at Margot’s stunned expression as I pushed one of the tiny bottles into her hand.

  “Classy,” she mouthed at me, her fingers curling around my gift even as the insult left her lips.

  I shrugged, grinned, and unscrewed the plastic cap. “Down the hatch!”

  “What?” she yelled again.

  Rolling my eyes, I poured the alcohol between my lips. I swallowed and my senses were abruptly overtaken by the warm, cinnamon burn of the alcohol. It tasted like the Wrigley’s Big Red bubblegum I’d chewed as a kid, and I happily licked the remnants from my lips. Margot spluttered a bit, but managed to swallow hers in two gulps.

  “Good?” I screamed in her ear.

  She nodded, a smile curving her mouth.

  I snapped my clutch purse closed, saving the remaining two bottles for later consumption, and grabbed Margot’s hand once more. Tugging her toward the center of the undulating mob of dancers, I felt my hair grow damp around the temples and wished for a hair elast
ic to pull it up. I was definitely working up a sparkle in the intense heat created by hundreds of moving bodies.

  We reached a point when the wall of people became so thick, there was no way to get any closer to the DJ booth, which was elevated on a high, circular platform. On the lofted stage beside the speakers and sound equipment, four female dancers in skimpy green lingerie and shimmering makeup shook their bodies to the pulsing beat, much to the delight of the male patrons below. Similarly-clad performers were scattered on platforms along the club walls, putting on a nonstop show under the dizzying, multicolored light beams that throbbed in harmony with the song’s tempo.

  Every few minutes, confetti would blast from the ceiling in an explosion of color, raining down on the dance floor below, and everyone in the club would raise their arms into the air and scream. The thin, colorful pieces landed on sweaty limbs and stuck like paper-mache — after a few confetti explosions, the entire crowd was awash in rainbow hues, a sea of club-goers covered in scales like some strange species of vibrant, deviant fish. We were an ocean of immoral mermaids and mermen, our bodies pressed flush together, gliding so languorously, it wasn’t hard to imagine the air flowing around us was water.

  Iguana was definitely an experience.

  Margot and I danced for what felt like hours, pausing only once to finish off our supply of whiskey. When a set of arms wrapped around me and a hard, male body pressed into me from behind, I glanced up at Margot and widened my eyes in question.

  “So hot,” she mouthed, flashing me a quick thumbs-up sign before turning to face the attractive man who’d just approached her.

  Somewhat giddily, I grinned and gave myself over to the music. All too soon, however, I found my happiness wavering as my partner’s unskilled hands guided me into a inept, inconsistent gyration that stirred horrible flashbacks to junior prom night and called to mind an image of Otto, my childhood dog, humping his bed pillow with unchecked vigor.

  Unfortunately, I seemed to be the pillow in this situation.

  Either my partner was severely rhythmically challenged, or seriously intoxicated. Judging by the smell of cheap gin emanating from his pores, it wasn’t too hard to guess which.

  After five minutes of suffering, I was about to extricate myself from his grasp when, to my surprise, his hold on me suddenly vanished. Above the din of the music, I heard what sounded almost like a low grunt, and then his hands were simply gone from my waist. I managed to spin around in the crush of bodies, but there was no one behind me — as though he’d never been there at all.

  Puzzled, I started to turn back to Margot, but halted when my eyes caught on something that sent my heart stuttering. I felt a thrilled jolt of electricity shoot through my system as I stared across the expanse of dancers, straight into a pair of darkly familiar eyes. Eyes I’d been longing to see again, if only to prove myself right — that fate really did have a hand in whatever was happening between me and the handsome stranger. That we would find each other again.

  Startled by his presence, I blinked rapidly to clear my whiskey-blurred vision and to reassure myself that he was actually there, rather than a figment of hopeful imagination.

  When I opened my eyes not even a second later, he was gone.

  There were no signs of him in the crowd. In the place I thought I’d spotted him, two blonde girls in plastered-on dresses were entwined in an intimate embrace. Behind them, a pair of drunken tourists were having a competition to see who could stick their tongue the furthest down the other’s throat. My stranger was nowhere to be found.

  It only took a few seconds to convince myself that I’d been imagining things.

  Seeing him in the crowd because I so desperately wanted to.

  Disappointed, I turned back to Margot and, for the millionth time since I’d walked away from that café without getting so much as his name, I regretted my own stubbornness. If I never saw him again, I only had myself to blame.

  Chapter 8

  Weston

  A GODDAMN DISTRACTION

  * * *

  I hated places like this.

  Full of trendy music, migraine-inducing light shows, and stupid, superficial patrons.

  Clubs like Iguana were all glitz and glamour on the surface level, with their lingerie-clad performers and velvet-draped wall panels, but if you peeled back that thin veneer of glitter, you’d find a black, rotten core. The dark ambiance and sexually-charged atmosphere created a haven for the worst kind of people.

  Predators. Pickpockets. Robbers. Rapists.

  They were drawn in like poisonous moths to an irresistible flame.

  I wasn’t talking about the mobs filling the dance floor, here to have a good time with friends. Not the tourists and exchange students, happy to have a night out on the town, or even the locals who got a kick out of foreign girls-gone-wild.

  I meant the ones who lingered in the shadows, who huddled by the far walls. The ones out of the spotlight. They didn’t crave attention; didn’t want to be seen. Their clothes weren’t flashy or form-fitting. They spent their nights watching. Waiting. Preying on the party-goers, who made such easy targets.

  I wasn’t the only monster here, tonight.

  My eyes tracked her as she moved deeper into the crowd, my gaze steadfast, unwilling to lose sight of her for even a moment. Every now and then, her hair would catch the light, flashing pink or green or some other hideous, fluorescent color. I ignored the feeling that swelled in my chest when I watched her laughing, her smile so bright, it practically glowed in the dark.

  I hadn’t planned to follow her tonight. I had far more pressing things I could — should — be attending to at the moment.

  Command had been requesting a debrief for hours. Cameras needed to be rigged on the Hermes entryways. Several suspects required tailing. Three separate phone taps had to be placed and monitored. The movements of this girl shouldn’t have been high on my list of priorities and certainly didn’t merit an in-person surveillance detail.

  And yet, here I was.

  Earlier, I’d watched from the shadows and overheard her chatting with her roommate as they walked home from work. As I’d listened to them discuss their plans for the evening at the club, I’d found myself struggling to justify the need to watch her tonight.

  I told myself there’d be predators who could interfere with my endgame. If I didn’t protect her — as nothing more than an asset, of course — she could get into all kinds of trouble and I’d have to start over, laying the groundwork with a new mark. I fed myself bullshit excuse after excuse, knowing all the while that I was fabricating reasons to be around her.

  I knew I was getting too close. I was fully aware that the smart thing to do would be to pick another girl for this assignment.

  But for some reason, I couldn’t walk away from her. Not yet.

  She fascinated me.

  I’d been trained to watch. I could stare at the most tedious of targets for hours without so much as blinking, because it was my job and I was damn good at it. But it was no chore to watch her. She had a way of moving through life that was just… pure. Authentic. Real.

  Everyone in the world had nervous tells. Trademark gestures they made when they were scared or anxious. Some people blinked too much when they were lying through their teeth; others didn’t blink at all. A truly accomplished liar might be harder to spot, but even they had telltale quirks and mannerisms that gave them away, eventually.

  I’d been watching Faith Morrissey for a week now, and she didn’t have a single one.

  Not because she was the best liar I’d ever met, but because she didn’t live her life by covering things up. She laid it all out there, for the world to see. Her flaws, her beauty, her innermost self. There was nothing affected or superficial about her. There wasn’t a fake bone in her body.

  She didn’t do secrets, or half-truths, or lies.

  In every tangible way, she was my opposite…

  And a goddamned distraction I couldn’t afford.

  I bit
the inside of my cheek to reground myself as I turned and headed for the exit. I couldn’t believe what a fucking pussy I’d become over this. How weak was I, if I couldn’t tear myself away from an average American girl? I’d never formed an attachment to a mark — never come close, not even after months of deep cover. I barely knew this girl. So, what the fuck was my problem?

  I berated myself all the way to the doors.

  You’re an idiot.

  You’re losing your professional edge.

  You need to regain focus on the big picture, or this entire mission will fall apart.

  None of my internal rebukes were enough to stop me from looking back at her one last time when I reached the exit. My eyes cut straight to her through the crowd and, despite myself, I felt my blood begin to boil when I saw some half-cocked local attempting to mount her from behind on the dance floor. The look on her face told me his attention wasn’t welcome.

  Walk away, Wes. This isn’t your business.

  I sighed. Bit my cheek. Cursed myself.

  Fuck.

  Not two minutes later, I’d shoved my way through the mob to reach them. His back was to me and his arms were still wrapped tight around her torso. Seeing his uncoordinated thrusts, the way he ground himself against her, instantly had me clenching my jaw. I felt my hands curl into fists even as my internal voice screamed to walk away.

  Self-restraint had never been my strong suit.

  One swift undercut to the left kidney and a strategically placed boot sent him reeling. With nothing more than a quiet oof of pain, he was gone, quickly lost in the crowd. The glare I shot after him made sure he’d stay lost.

  Before she could turn fully around to see what had happened to her dance partner, I was already fading into the crowd. For the briefest instant, I let my gaze meet hers across the sea of bodies. Her confused caramel eyes went wide in half-recognition, half-hope. Her mouth parted in a gasp. Her hand lifted involuntarily, reaching toward me through the crowd, as though she couldn’t help herself.