The Juliette Society, Book III

by Sasha Grey

  Despite the horror of the situation and the story she’s telling me, hearing that name on Anna’s lips sends a thrill through my spine and down my limbs. “He killed her?”

  “He maintains that it was an accident. That the scene got out of control, but it’s difficult to believe him, with his history.” She continues. “I loved your story about her, by the way. It was as if you knew her. You perfectly captured her.” She shakes her head to clear it. “I’ve been living in JS safe houses, bouncing from place to place, first recovering then finding somewhere that’s more permanent while also gathering intel on him.”

  “And yet you’ve ended up here on the island right under his nose?”

  She nods. “Dominick and I are part of a faction. They’re the ones who have kept me safe after making me disappear.”

  “And you wanted to do the same to me. This faction? What is it you do?”

  Dominick’s voice comes from much closer this time. “He’s not someone who can be told what to do. We believe the only way to neutralize him is from an outside source. This isn’t just about him or us. Think of us as the cleanup crew. We step in when things get messy and put them to right. Unfortunately, he has gone over the line on more than one occasion.”

  “And was planning something similar with me?” I ask, now feeling more than a little glad about the way I left his crazy ass, though I wish I’d have taken the lube with me when I left him there with the Doms.

  Anna shakes her head. “He’s not like that. With him, it’s more a case of spontaneously going too far, past the point of no return. It would be an accident, but the result would be the same.” Her gaze clouds. “He’s vicious when he wants to be and we saw how things were progressing.”

  I want to know exactly what he did to her so I can do it to him, but revenge isn’t what they need me for. “And I got on his bad side by not doing as I was told like a good little girl. And now you think he was about to cross the line again so you’re here first, exposing yourselves and telling me the truth about your disappearance. To prepare me for what’s coming next.” I understand. They mean fake my death just as they’d faked Anna’s to get her out of his radar. “Would he have even believed the same thing had happened a second time? Actually a third, because of Inana.”

  Anna shrugs. “Even if he didn’t believe in his shitty luck with potential partners, he feels things so shallowly he’d have found another toy soon enough. And if he had cared enough to notice you’d gone missing after the accident, he’d have assumed it was an enemy taking out someone he wanted in order to annoy him.”

  Murder as means of annoyance. It’s not hard to see how a man like this would have terrible enemies as well. I knew this was a dangerous man, but I had no idea how close I’d come to being snuffed out. “And why are you telling me now instead of staying in the shadows, scuttling around and pulling strings in the dark?”

  Anna’s full lips thin into a tight line. “It’s not like that, Catherine. I can’t even count the amount of times I wanted to call you, text you, or try to communicate with you, but he’d have traced it and found me, no matter how carefully I’d hidden the truth in code, risking everything my friends had done for me.” She looks at Dominick and smiles before turning back to me with a more somber expression. “And then, when it finally was safe to send you, I don’t know, a letter or anything—by that time, he’d set his sights on you instead. Moved on to you, and again I couldn’t risk it for selfish reasons.”

  Selfish reasons. Are there any other kinds? I let her words sink in. I’m in this mess because of her. Directly and indirectly, for if I’d never met her, I wouldn’t have been drawn in. I should be furious, but I can’t gather enough outrage to be truly angry at her. I can’t even get mad at Dominick for leading me down the garden path, as they say, even though he fucked me. I asked him to and definitely can’t regret those nights.

  I turn to him as something else occurs to me. “Your video at the industry party. That was this place, meant to lure me in, wasn’t it?”

  He nods. “And you almost blew it for me when you asked him about Honduras. I had a lot of explaining to do to him that night.”

  How much of my life have they directed over these past few years? Can I be mad at those who have given me so much, taken so much? Not with everything I’ve seen and learned. Not with the way it’s all shaped me into something I’ve grown to like.

  Dominick fills the silence I leave. “We’re outing themselves because you had no idea how close you came to being killed by X—and you need to keep your distance from him…but there’s also the matter of exposing him. We were days away from getting you out. We’d have manipulated the crash so he’d have thought you’d passed away from injuries sustained there. But the next day he released the video of you. . . . We didn’t foresee that, unfortunately.”

  “Yes, it sure was unfortunate how you failed to stop one of your own members from burning my reputation and career to the ground. Try completely fucked up and irresponsible… and for nothing.” I shake my head, remembering waking up in cold bathwater. I could have died then. “You trashed my car and put me at risk for nothing.”

  Anna sits straighter. “That’s just it. We didn’t go through with the plan because there’s still a way we can turn this around. But we needed the notoriety he’d created around you to do it.”

  Dominick nods. “The faction we’re a part of believes that now is the time to take him down. He’s gotten out of control, growing more reckless by the day. More people are going to die, and he’s also risking exposing us.”

  I bark out a laugh, truly amused at the way he’s trying to appeal to my emotions right now. “Why should I care about a few members of a society who didn’t give a damn about me—especially if I was in so much danger. This place is responsible for breeding a man like this and allowing him to thrive. Why didn’t they redirect him to someone else, or step in and tell him to stop? Surely there’s someone who could force him.” I shake my head. “No, you know what I think? It seems like you’re trying to scare me into doing your dirty work—because it would be dirty. If he was so close to losing control when he thought there was a possibility I’d write something he didn’t want, it’s going to be nuclear if I actually go against him.” My skin heats up with passion. “Why should I? Why should I risk being killed for any of you?”

  “Because it’s not just about us and The Juliette Society anymore. This is massive, bigger than any of us could have dreamed, Catherine.” Anna’s words come out fast, hushed, urgently. “You’ve heard of the Zika Virus?”

  “Of course I have.” I haven’t been living under a rock.

  Dominick sets a dossier of info on the bed, including the USB.

  Yeah, that one. The same one they’d taken from me after La Notte. I’m struck with a prescient feeling that hits me like an internal earthquake. Because if this is, in fact, the same USB, then I could have done something to stop X four fucking years ago. “Is this the one you took away from me when I chose to tell Inana’s story?”

  He nods.

  If they were giving me the chance to take X down then and I turned it down to tell Inana’s story, that means that in a way, everything he’s done for the past four years has partially been down to me. It’s like that old proverb: If you save a man’s life, you become responsible for him.

  Because I didn’t take him down then, he’s been going around taking lives, unchecked. Then again, there were at least a few people in The Juliette Society who knew what he was up to the whole time. My sense of guilt lessens marginally when I realize they’ve also known about this information, whatever it is, for longer than me, and chose to sit on it. “You’re giving me another shot at this?”

  Dominick nods. “There’s always been a darker side of The Juliette Society. Naturally, when you have certain people involved in it, people who are accustomed to having power and prestige get it by nefarious means. Not all, but enough to abuse the privilege they’ve attained. Our faction wants things to be blown o
pen because dark things live in the shadows of power. It needs to be transparent once inside or we’ll rot from within.”

  “I can understand that. But what’s that got to do with Zika?”

  Dominick plunges ahead. “X is very into designer viruses that help with ‘population control,’ as he’s into Eugenics. You’re familiar with Eugenics?”

  “Hitler and his bullshit ‘superior race,’ right?”

  He nods. “Selective breeding, yes, to encourage positive traits you want to propagate, but it’s also about weeding out the ones you wish to end to discourage negative traits from continuing. Some people already do it in society in less controversial or malicious ways.” He gives me a moment to let this sink in, but he doesn’t need to.

  “He’s using it for population control in places like Honduras. Places where there aren’t as many vaccine programs and health care options.”

  Dominick nods.

  Zika can cause paralysis and cause birth defects as well, the worst in my opinion being microcephaly. I remember seeing videos of babies who’d been born with the virus. My heart broke for the babies affected, and their families, for their lives had changed as well because of their baby’s needs.

  And yet it seems diametrically opposite to his idea of a better, healthier future. He’s creating illness instead of curing it. He’s using Zika as population control in areas of the world he deems unworthy of living.

  This is too big. We’ve all idly or actively wished for the end of cancer, a cure for AIDS. We’ve all sat and toasted to world peace, and cringed at the news when another report of violence or a pandemic comes to the forefront. In the moment we’d do anything to see it stopped, give anything for our world to be a better place not only for ourselves, but for the generations to come.

  But this is too big for me to take in. A band of pressure forms over the top of my head as my shoulders solidify with tension. We’re not talking about a throwaway decision here, and the weight of Anna’s and Dominick’s stares and hopes is too much pressure. I can’t breathe. “I need you two to leave.”

  Anna shakes her head. “Catherine—”

  “I need to think! Please.” I squeeze her hand, wanting her to know I’m glad she’s alive and well and I’m okay, but right now I need to be alone.

  She nods and dresses and she and Dominick are gone in under a minute. I pace around the room, trying to sort it all through.

  Never mind processing the fact Anna’s still alive; my future is on the line right now.

  I told you before that celebrities have been known to fake their deaths. That regular people have been known to do the same. And here I am, faced with the choice to do just that.

  I’m to blindly trust the faction who won’t reveal themselves to me, other than the tantalizing face of a friend I loved and lost, and the man I recently found a connection with. Can I trust Anna and Dominick? Maybe. Can I trust the faction they represent? Maybe. Can I trust X? Definitely not, but at least his motivations are clear. What he wants is clear. What does the faction want?

  They want me to publish the article and take X down. It all seems so simple on the surface when it’s stated like a fact. My article will be high profile, especially seeing as how there’s scandal around my name, bumping me up into relevance. Even if it’s tinged with the video, it will bring attention and the authorities will come sniffing around X. They’ll find out exactly how shady his dealings are, substantiating my claims, and arrest and charge him. Justice will be served, reigning supreme, and we’ll all live happily ever after and fuck off into the sunset.

  Except that’s not it. There are more extenuating facts. Like the fact that I’ll be exposing myself, transforming myself into the bastard’s biggest target. And even if the authorities manage to not fuck it up long enough to arrest him, there’s no saying the charges will stick—or that he won’t simply get off with a slap on the wrist or a white-collar sentence where he’s free to plot his revenge while making some new crooked contacts in his low security resort.

  If I don’t write the article he wants, he’ll likely dispose of me. Hell, after the things I did to him, that’s basically a foregone conclusion anyway, and I’m not likely to get off with a nice clean exit. No, he’s going to make me suffer, probably to teach others a lesson through me. If I write the one that should be written, exposing the truth, he’ll either kill me or The Juliette Society will assist me the same way they helped Anna get away from him.

  Either way, Catherine dies. I die. Faked death or genuinely taking my last breath, my life is going to be over forever. No great loss in the grand scheme of things. What’s one tiny life compared to the billions who have lived and died before me, and the innumerable ones who will come after?

  But priceless is not the same thing as worthless. What’s a life worth? If I take the noble route, does that increase the value of myself through some nebulous, objective morality I don’t truly believe in? If karma’s real, this would be guaranteeing amazing things to come in my future, but I don’t put much weight in karma, either.

  Is this choice truly mine? Is there a choice at all? It’s disturbing how closely it mimics X’s perverse love of eugenics, only in this case I’d be giving my life, literally or figuratively, for the untold multitudes of those who would die of this virus—or at the very least, be profoundly affected by it. One life for the good of many others. It seems like a no brainer when you’re just crunching numbers.

  But is my life a fair trade for the quality of life of strangers and their babies? What about my family, my hopes and dreams, and the potential I have living within me? What is all that worth? Is it worth more than them? No one knows where the ripples on the pond will go, who their efforts will touch and affect. Maybe something I create will inspire someone to create something else, or provide a nexus or inspiration for something that changes the shape of the world.

  Or, maybe it will inspire evil. Maybe the biggest gift I can give to the world is not a creation born of my soul and heart, but my disappearance from the fabric of history. My ending may be the best thing I’ve ever done for the world. But is this plan truly one of global import and consequence? Is it necessary?

  Anna and Dominick and whoever the hell else were involved in this scheme certainly seem to think so. One of the most basic instincts of a human being is survival. It goes against some fundamental spark at the base of ourselves to truly give up. I’m a fighter. And throwing my life away because of Mr. X feels so damn wrong I want to scream. It’s like admitting defeat. Even if my sacrifice takes him down, he’ll think he bested me and there’s nothing I can do to contradict that without blowing the whole thing apart.

  Because the other law of the jungle is that assholes have friends, and if not friends, allies. Secrets turn to honeycombs, stuck together and intricate until you can’t pull one out without the rest being exposed. X is sure to have insurance when it comes to his safety.

  The faction likely has a way around this. I hope. Their methods seem inexact, if I’m going by the car crash Dominick orchestrated. And yet, they were successful when it came to Anna and her new life. She’s still alive and right beneath X’s nose.

  They seem to know what they’re doing, but they’re asking so much. If I declined, would they turn against me?

  Would they trade my life for the story? In a heartbeat. But they’re trying to save me, give me another existence even as they would gladly snatch my identity away as a fair trade. They’re giving me an option—or making it seem like they are.

  It all comes back to the question of free will. Is there such a thing? And if not, then in my subconscious, I’ve already made my decision.

  We’re all just waiting on me to act upon it.

  TWENTY-SIX

  MY DECISION TO WRITE THE article and sacrifice myself, choosing a faked death because, fuck X, is solidified within the next three hours.

  After wandering around my villa and unsuccessfully wishing things would go away on their own so I wouldn’t be faced with an impo
ssible choice, I dug a little deeper into the materials Anna and Dominick left, and it goes even deeper than I thought.

  Part of me was hoping that they’d been lying or embellishing the truth about the things Mr. X had done and was into. They weren’t. If anything, they’d downplayed how far he’s gone with genetically modifying viruses and releasing them into parts of the world no one really thinks is suspicious when an outbreak occurs.

  In more than a few countries—Africa, Cambodia, El Salvador. It doesn’t matter that the places he chose to test were small and impoverished and those living in them were likely struggling with day-to-day life. They deserved a chance to live as much as every single person born on this planet. The odds aren’t ever on our side, but the way he’s so cavalier about the lives of thousands of people sets me on edge. I confirmed it with searches outside of the materials given to me, my due diligence.

  For a moment there I sort of regretted doing what I’d done to him at his party.

  Not anymore. Now I wish I’d done more, humiliated him more, gone more extreme with people watching him being debased. He cares nothing for anyone but himself. It’s hard to regret doing mean things to someone truly evil.

  The truth needs to be told. He’d burn the world to kill one person he thought may have slighted him. I’m definitely dead either way, but I can put an end to his insanity.

  With a stiff drink to drown out the disgust at the things he’s done, I type up an article for my editor. It’s the most controversial, damning piece I’ve ever written. It covers everything from Ebola to the Zika virus and the Rockefeller conspiracy—which isn’t the focus and I can’t substantiate, but if I allude to it, I know the sensationalism will draw more people to read it. People want to believe that the rich and influential are out to get them.

  In this case, with X, they’re not wrong at all. Specifically, he’s out to get me. And so I’m doing the one thing I can that ensures I go out with a bang.