Liquid Lies

by Hanna Martine

  She tried not to trip over her stomach as it dropped to the gravel.

  He leaned down, way too far into her space. “You’re upstairs a lot.”

  To step back would scream guilt, to announce her weakness for Reed. “What are you saying?”

  “What do you think I’m saying?”

  She leaned so close to Xavier their noses almost touched. She jabbed an angry finger at Reed. “That man kidnapped me. He stole my life. He locks me in that room upstairs and keeps the entire world out of my reach. He’s like a wall, Xavier. You think I want to have a conversation with him, let alone what you’re insinuating?”

  Xavier’s wide eyes held hers in a long, uncomfortable stare.

  “Are you trying to turn him?” he asked.

  “Turn him? Didn’t you hear what I said before? No matter what I do, my people are fucked. I can’t win. There’s nothing for me to turn him toward or against! How many times do I have to say it?”

  And that was the absolute truth. She had nothing to give, nothing to work toward of her own.

  He straightened to his full height and inhaled thinly through his nose. He didn’t look convinced. Her only hope was to swerve his mind down a different road, get it away from Reed.

  “Let me ask you something,” she said. “Which is more important to you: freeing the slaves or getting off Earth?”

  Disgust curled his lip. “They’re one and the same.”

  “No. No, they’re not. Not to Nora. Not in the idea of hers you endorsed.” There. A flicker of doubt in his Mendacia silver eyes. She charged on. “You told me to make a choice. If I go along with the Genesai plan, the Tedrans will return to your home planet. If I plant a bomb in Company HQ during the weekly Board meeting and then go after the Plant workers, the Tedrans will be free, but they’ll still live here on Earth. I’m asking you, Xavier, which would you prefer?”

  He was a tortured, bitter man who viewed her as a representative of the people he hated most. He answered exactly as she expected.

  “Above anything, I want justice. I want the Ofarians to acknowledge what they’ve done, that it’s wrong. I want them to pay for their crimes.”

  “The Ofarians who are responsible for Mendacia, you mean.”

  His coolly handsome face twisted into something wild and vicious. “Aren’t all of them?”

  Her own ferocity rose to match his. “I had no idea what was happening until you took me into the Plant. You saw my reaction. Meryl Streep couldn’t have faked that. I understand your plight, Xavier. I honestly do; it makes me ill to know what I’ve been a part of. What I don’t understand is why I have to be the one to bring your revenge on my own people. I don’t understand why I have to make this choice.”

  His wide shoulders lifted in the tiniest of shrugs. “Because you’re the Translator.”

  A goddamn gene mutation in the Ofarian makeup that came randomly every couple of generations. It made her want to rip out her own tongue.

  At last she looked away from Xavier, down to her feet. She didn’t want to see his smugness any longer.

  “I don’t really have a choice, do I?” she finally said. “I mean, I have to help you no matter what happens. And if you’re okay with the outcome, if you truly have no preference, it really is up to me, isn’t it?”

  When he didn’t answer, she moved back a few steps. They’d earned a bit of distance, and Xavier exhaled in obvious relief. His shoulders and hands relaxed. She thought back to the Plant, how the Circle had affected him, how he couldn’t even stand to be attached to her by four feet of chain. Even now, he glared back at the house, chin jutted out.

  “I know you would never say it, Xavier, but you depend on me. And you would never, ever admit it, but you place hope in me.” That brought his head back around, but what she saw in his eyes wasn’t anger. It was shock. And maybe a bit of truth. “I understand why you say the things you do to me. Why you treat me this way. I also know I’ll never change your opinion of me until I fulfill what you brought me here for.”

  “If you betray us”—his harsh whisper magnified the wet chill in his stare—“if you keep my people in slavery, I swear on the stars that I will see every last one of your kind die. And you will be the last.”

  She planted her feet, laced her fingers, palms down, in the Ofarian prayer fashion meant to resemble water, and vowed in the Ofarian language: “I promise you I will free the slaves.”

  “What?” he snapped at the sound of her mother tongue.

  Keeping her hands together, she repeated the oath in Tedranish.

  He softened, even if only a fraction, then turned on his heel and stalked toward the house. As he passed Reed, Reed came forward without acknowledging the surly Tedran. Reed barely glanced at her as he took up position on the opposite side of the fountain.

  A stone bench curved behind her knee and Gwen sank onto it, her back to the house and to Reed.

  She replayed everything she’d said to Xavier. How she would do as the Tedrans said because she literally had no other options. Even if she continued to hide her communication with Genesai, it wouldn’t do anything to free the slaves or lift her people from their dependence on Mendacia. What she’d told Nora and Xavier the other day was absolutely true: there were other ways she could remedy all that had been done wrong. But to free the Tedrans, punish the responsible Ofarians, and maintain the Secondaries’ secret existence, she couldn’t be in the lake house. She was trapped here. Except…what if she wasn’t…

  The seed of a plan nestled itself deep in her brain. She could see inside it, see how it would sprout, know what it would grow into. But the seed was broken and a few bits and pieces floated around in the ether, waiting for her to connect them. She needed glue, a bonding agent. Something—or someone—to bring it all together.

  Behind her, Reed’s subtle movements created photo-quality images in her mind. She closed her eyes and listened. As he shifted on his feet, his heavy boots moved dirt and tiny stones over brick. That deep shush was the sound of his denim-clad thighs rubbing together. He adjusted his neck in a small series of cracks. His arms were crossed and he drummed his fingers on his forearms.

  That silence in between? That was him watching her. The very weight of it made her sag. Even in the chill of the evening, she could sense its heat.

  Her head dropped, dread filling her fast.

  No. There had to be another way. She sat there for what felt like forever, poring over ideas, turning them over and inside out. Agonizing. They all came back to one solution.

  The timing for this could never be right, but it was especially awful now, given all that Reed had just said to her upstairs. Gwen drew a ragged breath, anxiety making her insides boil. He would think she was using him. He would assume she was manipulating his feelings to make him go against everything he said he wouldn’t. The thought of it made her dig her elbows into her stomach, and she used the discomfort to keep everything down.

  If the prospect of Reed’s reaction didn’t hurt enough, her birthright hung over them like a thunderhead. If she did this, she’d be disobeying one of the most important rules of her people. The same rule that had ordered Griffin to kill Yoshi and his henchman, and who knows how many others. No Primaries allowed inside. Ever.

  There was no other way. She had to rely now on the truth—veritas, not mendacia.

  “Reed.” She kept her face averted from the cameras she knew were trained on her, but spoke loud enough so he could hear. “I need to tell you why I’m here.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Reed’s panic came off him in a powerful blast. She didn’t have to see him to know; she felt it.

  “No. Do not tell me why you’re here.”

  She fixated on a lightning-bolt-shaped crack in the rock face before her, despising herself for what she was about to say. “I’m going to talk, and since you have to be where I am, you’re going to listen.”

  “I’ll drag you up right now, lock you in your room.”

  “Xavier’s grown suspicio
us. He questioned me about you, about us. That’s what this meeting was all about. Don’t take me anywhere outside of the camera’s sight. You’ll just make it worse.”

  He didn’t say anything, and Gwen knew she had his reluctant attention.

  “I’m asking you to listen. I didn’t want to do this. Honestly, I didn’t. I held out and held out…but there isn’t another way. I’m asking for your help. Please, Reed. Please listen.”

  “Shit.” Then, under his breath, “I knew I shouldn’t have stayed.”

  She was not a religious person. She did not subscribe to any of Earth’s faiths, and the devotions of her ancestors had been watered down to myths and fables. The rituals had scripts and specifics, but not much heart. The Ofarians’ original, true religion had evolved into something completely secular, yet at that moment, she found herself praying. Praying that Reed didn’t mean what he just said.

  They were only two people. Thousands of Ofarians and hundreds of Tedrans needed her. It was a terrible choice, but the right one to make.

  Sweeping his doubt under the rug stabbed her in the heart, but she had to do it to say what was needed. To go on, she couldn’t be ruled by her feelings for him. Because what she was about to say would undoubtedly change his feelings for her.

  Or destroy them.

  “There are a lot of people in danger.” She pressed her palms to the cold stone bench, locking her elbows. “People I love back in San Francisco, thousands of others I’ve never even met. They don’t know it, but they need me. I’m all they have. Nora thinks she is the answer, but doing things her way would be…disastrous.”

  The autumn cold rode piggyback on the wind, shaking browned leaves off trees and shrubs and icing her bones. It didn’t help that she felt that frosty separation slither between them again. She couldn’t allow it to come back. She pushed at it with her words, hoping their severity and desperation would slow the division.

  She drew a deep, shaking breath. “You asked me to go home with you. ‘When this is all over,’ you said. This will not end, Reed. That’s why I said no. Not because I didn’t want to.”

  “They told me you wouldn’t be hurt.” Threat darkened his tone, and she stole a bit of comfort from that.

  She laughed to keep the tears at bay. “They lied to you. I’m as good as dead if Nora gets her way. Technically your agreement with her is valid. The danger to me comes after I’m done doing what she wants and you’re long gone.”

  He made a low sound in his throat.

  “The world will become dangerous for me and everyone I love unless I can work against Nora. Unless I can put my own plan into play. With your help. You said you stayed for me…”

  “Don’t.” His anguish slashed at her with invisible knives. “Don’t you dare use what I feel for you to make me do what you want.”

  “I swear I’m not!” She couldn’t help it. She swiveled to get a glimpse of his face and immediately wished she hadn’t. It was twisted with confusion and longing and anger. All directed at her. His eyes flashed in warning, telling her to turn back around.

  She pretended to shift positions on the bench and stretched out her legs in front of her.

  “I knew you would think that,” she said, “and it’s not true. Please. Just listen to what I have to say, then judge whether you still think I’m using you. But not before. It breaks my heart you think me so callous.”

  Even if his silence wasn’t meant to be a prompt, she took it as such anyway. She inhaled through her nose. Here we go.

  “What I’m about to tell you is the absolute truth. I am not crazy. I am not on medication.” Reed had gone quiet and still as a rock. “That first day, when Nora and Xavier took me away without you, they drove me way out to the middle of nowhere Nevada. There…Nora’s people are being held as slaves. She kidnapped me because she wants me to free them.”

  “Slaves.” Disbelief dripped from his voice.

  “They’re being forced to create a product sold for more money than you could possibly imagine, to a worldwide clientele that is incredibly guarded and the elite among the elite. This product is sold by my company.”

  “The sales job you mentioned?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a slave owner.”

  As she shook her head, her hair fell across her face, and she welcomed the curtain. “I had no idea. I swear. I thought our product was created by carefully selected, highly skilled people in a legal manner. I really did.” She thought of the last time she’d stood in front of the Board, desperate to sit among them. To help make their decisions, to know what they did. “Maybe I would’ve learned the truth in time. But instead I had to witness it through Nora and Xavier’s eyes. He was one of them, you know. A slave. Nora broke him out. And she made him take me back there.”

  She heard the familiar scrape of Reed’s palm against his grizzled cheek. She didn’t realize how much she’d come to love the sound.

  “That’s why you were so upset when you got back.”

  Oh, thank the stars he was beginning to understand. “Yes. It was horrible. The worst thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t—still can’t—believe that people I know are responsible for it. That it’s been going on right under my nose. That I’ve naively dedicated my life to keeping it going.”

  “Gwen, I shouldn’t know this.”

  “You still worried about your paycheck?”

  He paused. “I’m worried about a lot of things. Money isn’t one of them.”

  She didn’t know quite what to make of that.

  “Nora wants me to free her people. But there’s a price. Or else she wouldn’t have had to kidnap me.”

  “You’re important within the company,” he pieced together.

  She nodded. Important because she’d made it so. Pushed herself to the top. Expanded Mendacia’s markets fivefold. Created more jobs for the increased business and enabled the Company’s prosperity to trickle down to the Ofarians who weren’t directly involved. Keep it together. Do not cry. Now more than ever, you need your head.

  “This product,” he said, “what is it?”

  “It’s something that makes people look different than they actually do. Younger. Stronger. Smaller. Healthier. Uglier. Completely disguised. Whatever they want.”

  He didn’t react for so long she feared he might have taken off or tuned her out. His boots moved over the path and around the fountain. When he lowered himself to the far end of her bench, facing diagonally away, it took all her power not to turn to him.

  He rubbed his hands together. “So this product. It’s makeup?”

  I’m so sorry, Dad and Delia and Griffin. I’m sorry, Mom, for betraying all you taught me. This is the only way. “It’s more like…magic.”

  His hands froze mid-swipe. The muscles in his thighs tensed up. He didn’t even breathe. The entire garden paused.

  “Magic?” he finally spit out. “What kind of asshole are you playing me for?”

  The hostility and doubt didn’t deflate her. Instead, it fed her strength and resolve.

  “I’m not playing. Everything I’m saying is real. Everything is true.” The words tasted like sandpaper. “All of Nora’s people are slaves. They are…a different race. They’re called Tedrans.”

  Reed forgot where they were and threw a disgusted look over his shoulder. He caught himself, snapped his eyes back to the dying garden. She wished she hadn’t seen it. To know how he felt was one thing. To see it was another. She had no choice but to press on.

  “Tedrans have the ability to make what’s false seem like reality. To create illusions. It doesn’t really change things, just alters someone’s perception. And it’s not permanent. When the glamour wears off, so does the illusion. The Tedrans can change anything, not just people and physical appearance, but that’s how my company has been marketing it. We call it Mendacia.”

  “Latin for ‘lies,’” Reed murmured. “Clever.”

  “It’s incredibly expensive. We sell it to extremely wealthy people all over
the world, and I’m not talking about C-list actresses. I’m talking about hedge fund billionaires and heirs to fortunes behind some of the largest and most powerful global companies. Royalty, even. You have to sign a pages-long agreement just to open a discussion with us. Iron-clad privacy clauses keep us exclusive and secretive, and no one wants to admit they use it in the first place. Mendacia turns them into whomever they need or want to be. It’s made me, and us, very wealthy.”

  “Nice sales pitch. You notice you still talk about it in the present tense?”

  “Ah. So I do.” She dug her thumb into her forehead, where a dull throb had begun. “It has to stop, Reed. The production, the Company, everything. It has to end, and I’m the only one who can do it. But not from in here. Not how Nora wants it done.”

  He spit into the bushes, as if to expel the story from his body. But there was much more to go.

  “A small group of my people have been holding Tedrans as slaves for generations. They have forced the Tedrans to drain their powers. Doing this drains their life. So to keep up supply, this group forces them to breed.” That did it. She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. “My people make and steal children, Reed. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  He wasn’t wholly made of stone. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him shaking his head in disgust.

  “You keep saying ‘my people.’ Who the hell are you then?”

  Oh, the fear in his voice. She couldn’t talk about the Ofarians yet, so she wiped her nose on her sleeve and veered off course.

  “I told you my job in the Company was sales. That’s not entirely true. I’m really a Translator, with a capital T. I advance new markets, learn the language, then bring in my dad to make the sale while I serve as interpreter. I also translate the spells that come from the Mendacia Plant into the client’s native language.” She was doing it again, using the present tense. Her throat tightened up. “It’s why Nora kidnapped me and not my dad.”