by Molly Harper
Sure, the knife wouldn’t kill him, but it would hurt like a bitch.
“Look, if you don’t want me touching you, all you have to say is no!” Finn insisted, his eyes glittering angrily.
Apologetic Finn was gone, replaced by angry, unpredictable Finn. Dangerous Finn, who’d reminded me just after our jump that he’d done me a favor, helping me to survive, and not to test him, not to threaten him even as a joke. Dangerous Finn did not appreciate me holding a knife to his throat. Dangerous Finn looked like he was calculating exactly how far I could push down the knife before he tossed me into the trees.
“This has nothing to do with you touching me, or kissing me, which is going to stop, too, by the way.”
“Then what is this about?” he asked, twitching his hips as if he was going to reverse our positions again.
I pressed the blade tighter against his throat, drawing just the tiniest drop of blood. Finn’s head dropped away from the blade, and his body stilled. I watched the small ruby drop well against his skin and fought the urge to throw the knife away and apologize, even as the wound closed. “You were helping Ernie! You’re after the book, too. This whole thing, from the very beginning, was a scam.”
There was a moment in which I could practically see the explanation forming in his eyes, the beginnings of a reassuring smile forming on his mouth. And I wanted that. I’d held on to some scrap of hope that I was wrong, that this was a misunderstanding and I’d overreacted. I wanted him to offer completely acceptable explanations about how I’d misinterpreted the situation. I would have gladly accepted whatever embarrassment was due to me. But instead, he shook his head and said, “I can explain, Anna.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I spat at him.
That was a lie. I totally wanted to hear it.
“Why put up the act? Why ‘rescue’ me and drag me all over creation when you could have just killed me?”
“I wouldn’t do that!” He reached for my arms, and I gave him a look that could only be described as “murder eyes.” He backed away, hands in the “surrender” pose. “I wouldn’t hurt you. I didn’t know they were going to crash the plane. And afterward, I helped you because I wanted you to trust me. And I wasn’t sure if I was really going to take it or not. I figured, why worry you?”
I barely restrained the urge to cover my face with my hands, making me vulnerable to losing the knife. It was humiliating, the lengths he’d gone to in order to make me think that he had no clue about my package. I’d thought I was so sneaky, so clever. I’d been so proud of my subterfuge. I’d believed, for just one minute, that I was capable of something that didn’t center on being stuck in my own head.
Clearly, I was wrong.
“That first time the pilot came after us in the woods. It seems awfully convenient that you showed up just as he threw the spear. And then he just ran away, leaving you to ‘protect’ me. Have you been working together this whole time, or did you have some sort of bad-guy break-up on the plane?”
“No, it’s not like that, Anna.”
“You were going to just, what, keep me here in the woods until you figured out how to get me to your bosses?”
“No, I was supposed to get the book from you. I owe a debt to a family of shifters—which are a real thing, by the way. They sent me after you when they heard that you had the book. They’ve been looking for a complete copy of Friar Thomas’s manuscript for years.”
“So what, you were supposed to take the book and toss me out of the plane?”
He shook his head. “No, nothing that violent.”
“Pardon me for nitpicking, but Ernie trying to stab me felt pretty damned violent.”
“It was supposed to be left to me. I was supposed to use my talent against you. I can get into other people’s heads. It’s not quite mind-reading. I’m more like a passenger who gets handed the controls. I can see what that person thinks; I can see a little of their history. But the point is that I can control them. I can make them move, make them do what I want. I was supposed to make you hand over the book in the middle of the flight and then nod off into a nap. Easy-peasy, no harm done.”
“Except for the part where I get off the plane without the book I’m supposed to deliver to a vampire and face a possible draining.”
“Oh, Jane wouldn’t hurt you. She’s too much of a goody-goody,” Finn grumbled.
“What?”
“Never mind. Look, I’m sorry. It was my job. It was nothing personal. I didn’t know the pilot was going to hijack the flight. He must have been a backup plan, in case I failed. The shifters have good reason not to trust me. And when we were halfway through the flight and I hadn’t taken it from you, Ernie followed plan B.”
“I have good reason not to trust you!” I shouted.
“Just put the knife down, and I’ll explain. I don’t want to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to hurt you.”
I rolled my shoulders, gripping the knife handle and pressing it down against his throat. He hissed, squirming away from the pressure of the blade. “Well, that’s too bad, because I don’t particularly care if I hurt you.”
In that moment, he looked oddly relieved, like he was happy I was resisting him. The tension drained out of his body, and he sank into the ground. I really hoped this wasn’t a sex thing.
“So when you were just sitting there on the plane, staring at me, while Ernie was trying to stab me in the face, were you trying to get me to give up and let him kill me?”
“No!” he exclaimed. “I was in your head but could barely get control because of the sheer amount of noise in there. The anxiety, the fear. Is that what it’s like all the time?”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t let him think that sympathetic, almost piteous tone affected me in the least. I merely stared at him, giving him the deadest expression I could manage. Of course it was like that inside my head all the time, but damned if I was going to tell him that.
“Well, it was the saddest thing I’d ever felt,” he said. “I couldn’t get around it, so I turned my attentions to Ernie. I tried to get him to sit down at the controls, take over the plane again, but I was a little distracted by the knife fight and the impending plane crash. I couldn’t get Ernie under control, either, so I had to step in between you. And you know the rest.”
I stared at him for a long, long time, and a sudden thought bubbled up to the surface of my brain. “So that first night, when you kept trying to persuade me to climb under the tree and go to sleep and then I basically lost control of all my motor function and don’t remember how I ended up under that pine canopy, was that you?”
“Yes,” he said, wincing. “You were so tired and shocked, it was like all of your defenses were down. It was a lot easier to persuade you. But I haven’t done it to you since.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was the way my eyes narrowed or the vicious snarl I let loose, but Finn suddenly rolled out from under me, smacking my knife hand aside before I could swing it toward him.
“How could you do that?” I yelled at him, punching him in the sides. My blows had no effect on him as he pinned me to the ground. “How could you do that to me? How could you?”
“I’m sorry, Anna.”
“Save it,” I growled, baring my teeth at him. “Find a way out of here on your own.”
“I have just as much reason to want to get the book to Jane as you do. Frankly, I take it a little personally when my employers try to kill me. I mean, cheating me out of money, that I’ve come to expect, but there’s such a thing as professional standards.”
“I can’t trust you, Finn! Is that even your real name?”
“Look, I’ve told you everything. What do I have to lose at this point?” he demanded. “If I was going to take the book, if I was going to hurt you, don’t you think I would have done it by now? You don’t put the energy into a long con without a payoff, Anna.”
“So what’s your payoff? What are you conning me for? I’d really like to know so I can give it to you and you can le
ave me the hell alone.”
“That was a bad way to phrase it. There is no con, I just want to help you!” he protested. “I like you. I like the way you make me feel. I like the way you talk to me, the fact that you don’t fall for a good portion of my bullshit. I can be me instead of the person I think you want me to be. And maybe it’s selfish to want to keep feeling that way, damn the consequences. I’m a selfish person, Anna. For a long time, I’ve thought that was the smart way to be: look out for yourself, and only yourself, because no one’s going to do it for you. But there are times with you when you make me want to be more.”
I pushed him, and to my surprise, he eased his body off mine. “Don’t. Don’t say that to me when you don’t mean it. Stop trying to find my angles,” I said, shaking my head.
“I’m not.”
“I don’t think you can help it. Lying is so easy for you, you don’t even realize you’re doing it.” I pushed to my feet, backing away from him. “Just stay away from me, Finn.”
He sighed. “I can’t do that. You won’t make it out of here by yourself.”
“We’ll see,” I growled. I scooped his shoes off the ground and threw them into the lake. Slipping the knife back into the bag so I wouldn’t trip directly on it, I took off running toward the trees. From the looks of the sky, I had a few hours until the sun rose and it was safe for me to move around without worrying about Finn. He could be right behind me for all I knew. I stopped, listening for the sound of him moving nearby. But when I didn’t hear so much as a leaf rustling, I took off running again, taking a strange serpentine pattern through the trees that I hoped would be harder to follow. I touched as many objects as possible, crisscrossing my own path, and tried to make it as difficult as possible to keep track of me. I was amazed at how fast I was able to move now that I had some calories and water in my system and some decent shoes on my feet.
But I was keenly aware that if Finn really wanted to catch me, he would have caught me by now. Something was keeping him from running me down like one of the possums he enjoyed so much. Maybe it was embarrassment that I’d figured him out? Or maybe he just didn’t like running in waterlogged shoes.
Maybe he was toying with me again.
I ran as far as I could before my side started to ache and my breathing sounded like something from an obscene phone call. With all of my attempts at misdirection, I wasn’t sure how far I’d actually gone, but I couldn’t hear or smell the lake anymore, so that had to count for something.
I came to an oak with a particularly low-growing branch and used it to throw my leg up over the next branch in a none-too-graceful fashion. And then I did it again, and again, silently thanking Rachel for those stupid Pilates she made us do on weekday mornings. Before long, I was a good twenty feet off the ground, settled in a sort of cradle formed in the crux of four branches, surrounded by nice, concealing foliage. I pulled a bottle of water from my bag and sipped it until my mouth didn’t feel so dry. And wished for the hundredth time that I hadn’t packed my meds in my checked suitcase.
I fought to keep my breathing under control and catalogued myself from head to toe. Boots: intact. Feet: still aching like hell. Lungs: dear God, no. Hands: bark, you evil skin-scraping bitch. Heart: equally scraped up. Head: never mind.
I buried my face in my abraded hands. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for this again. I was ashamed that I’d thought for one second that Finn could actually want someone like me. Sad, socially awkward Anna with her near-agoraphobia and survival statistics. Oh, yeah, I was just the sort of girl to attract the attention of a handsome man with eternal life and killer cheekbones.
Michael had taught me that lesson and I was too quick to forget it. I took a longer drink from the water bottle and threw my arms around my head, as if to block those thoughts out of my brain.
Michael Malone had been a charming classmate in my graduate school’s fairly small history department. We’d met at a doctoral-student mixer, and he’d actually sought me out, asking my adviser to introduce us. I suspected that it was because of my father’s reputation, but he was just so handsome and charming in that “sensitive, shy academic type who has life all figured out” sort of way that I didn’t care.
He’d become a fixture in my peer review groups, my class schedule, the very small social circle I developed. He was so sweet, giving me silly little presents and taking me to parties and calling me his “girl.” He’d fulfilled all of the stupid, teen-rom-com-fueled dreams of a girl who hadn’t been allowed to date in high school. Even though we were hundreds of miles away from my father and his home campus, Michael kept pressing me. Couldn’t I introduce him to the renowned Daniel R. Whitfield, PhD? Couldn’t I discuss Michael’s research area of interest with my father or maybe even show him some pages from Michael’s doctoral thesis to get some feedback? Didn’t I want my father to get to know my boyfriend better?
But I’d only just established some connection with my father, a relationship that my mother couldn’t control. I didn’t want to complicate it by asking for favors my father rarely granted for his colleagues, much less a grad student he didn’t know. Michael had been so disappointed that I scrambled to try to make it up to him, “helping him” with his coursework and taking him to faculty events where I hadn’t even been invited, so I could parlay my father’s reputation into introducing Michael to important people.
I wished that he’d been a typical guy, pressuring me into irresponsible use of tequila and a physical relationship I wasn’t ready for. But to be honest, he’d rarely pushed for much outside of our academic lives. I’d worked so hard to try to turn whatever it was that we had into a real relationship, something that would make me normal, something I could bring back to my mother and show her, “Look, see, there are good people in the world and one of them likes me,” that I didn’t register how one-sided it was. He kept pressing me. Couldn’t I just devote an hour or two to grading papers for the class he TA’d, so he could research? Couldn’t I just let him pick my father’s brain about this or that topic? Couldn’t I just let him peek at my doctoral project so he’d know if his work was comparable? Couldn’t I just? He always made it sound so reasonable and trifling to ask, like I was some unreasonable person for not immediately agreeing. It was “just” and “only.”
Michael’s demands and the weight carried by my father’s reputation meant that I had to work twice as hard as the other students just to come off as somewhat competent. There were times when I hid at the library archives just to get some peace and quiet, searching through the occult selections only recently deemed “possibly not insane ravings” since the vampires’ Coming Out. I’d felt drawn to supernatural texts, not just because of the “new” depths to plumb, a rarity in historical circles, but because I felt a certain kinship with creatures of the night—odd, disenfranchised, and only able to leave their homes during certain hours.
For my PhD, I’d used the contacts I’d built at the Council to politely request information, and they’d sent a crate of books that a woman named Ophelia Lambert had deemed “too tiresome to catalogue.”
I’d pored over them. Some turned out to be nothing, the ancient equivalent of dime-store novels. Others were invaluable in helping me understand the secret history of the undead, how vampires had helped shape the new American government with their financial and underground cultural influence on players such as Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson. In the end, I learned a lot more about ancient books and their management than what my professors deemed acceptable history. But I’d loved every minute of it, and I shared my joy with Michael. He’d told me it was adorable that I was researching something so obscure, but he wondered if it wouldn’t be better to focus on something like his treatise on underappreciated Civil War generals of neutral states.
He’d never shown a moment’s interest in my work, in my interests, right until the moment he submitted his own take on vampire movements throughout early Colonial America to the thesis committee, along with original research documents
and materials he’d taken from my apartment. His own thesis, the one I’d put hours into helping him research and type and proof, had been a feint. All along, he’d been taking the notes and research I’d shared with him and shaped them into his own convoluted theory about vampires’ influence on the colonies, showing it to his advisers and asking them to keep the “revolutionary material” quiet.
In general, innocent people don’t worry about having an alibi. And people who would never think of stealing someone else’s research don’t think to build a case that they were the authors of their own work. Michael copied all of my notes in his own dated journals. He could show e-mailed discussions with his adviser about the material. He’d taken his own photos of the documents—stored in my room, thank you very much. He even followed up on the phone interviews I’d done with members of the Council, so if asked, they could verify his claims that he’d spoken to them. By the time he was done, I looked like the sad, psycho girlfriend who was copying his work word-for-word while he was devoting his life to the pursuit of knowledge. He’d routed me so thoroughly I didn’t stand a chance in front of an academic review board. The review board had been so impressed by his “groundbreaking” research that they’d fast-tracked him for a faculty position. Hell, he’d gotten an interview with Smithsonian Magazine out of it.
And when I’d confronted Michael about his lies, his response was to placidly fold his wire-rim glasses on his desk and tell me, “Prove it.”
To put it lightly, I was devastated. That thesis represented years of my life, and it was all gone. No one at the university believed me, not even my own adviser, who had supervised me for two years. Michael had managed to convince her that I’d spent all that time simply reporting to her on what I’d watched him learn. I supposed I didn’t help myself, running to the dean with my frantic, hysterical claims that Michael had stolen my research, while he remained cool as a cucumber. A cucumber with a degree and a job offer. And I had no original research, no paper, and nothing to show for my years of work.