Liquid Lies (24 page)

Distantly Gwen could hear the call of the water knocking at her subconscious, trying to get in, but the
nelicoda
Reed had made her swallow an hour ago had kicked in nice and strong. She could jump in and swim like a Primary, of course, but the guard with the rifle looked like he was a good shot. And she’d never really been a good swimmer with her arms and legs. Classic Ofarian arrogance.

Nora had brought Gwen here to taunt her, to show her what she could not touch. Because of that, Gwen took an even greater pleasure in lying. Against Nora, knowledge was a far more powerful weapon than water or a gun. She told Nora she had no idea what Genesai was saying.

“That’s unacceptable,” Nora spit. “Our window is closing. Rapidly.”

Gwen threw out her arms. “I don’t understand what more you want me to do. Genesai passed out. When he wakes up, I’ll try again.”
And I won’t tell you a goddamn thing until I’ve figured out my own path.

The dock vibrated as someone approached. Gwen held her breath, thinking—hoping?—it might be Reed. But it was Adine, her small footsteps making a big ruckus over the wooden slats. The tiny Tedran held two stainless steel coffee mugs. When she reached them, Nora took one mug without saying anything. Adine turned to Gwen and extended the other mug.

Gwen intended to refuse, but her body craved caffeine. She took the mug, curtly thanked Adine, and downed the thick black stuff in a couple of shots. As she lowered her arm, she saw Adine staring at her. Not just waiting for Gwen to finish drinking, but out-and-out staring. Opened jaw and stiff posture, to boot. Behind her rounded eyes there was something else. It wasn’t anger, like with Xavier, or frustration and condescension, like with Nora. It wasn’t fear. Wonder, maybe? Awe?

Gwen shifted uncomfortably. Was this what it would be like if Nora got her way and the world found out about Secondaries? Would people stop and stare at Gwen like she’d grown a third arm?

“You can go, Adine,” Nora said.

Adine very nearly snapped to attention. Then she bent her head, took Gwen’s mug without looking at her again, and hurried back to the house.

“Her father was a Primary,” Nora said when Adine was out of earshot.

That explained Adine’s lightened Secondary signature. Interbreeding wasn’t something Ofarians ever did, so Gwen hadn’t been able to readily explain it. Not for the first time, she wondered about Delia, whether her sister had had children with her Primary. Whether Gwen was an aunt.

Nora frowned into her mug. “He’s the only man I ever loved. But he found out what I was, and then he couldn’t exist anymore.”

This woman just got more awful by the second.

“When was that?” Gwen asked.

“Beginning of last century. The Ofarians couldn’t use Adine anyway. She has no glamour. But her mind…her mind is something extraordinary.” She said
extraordinary
like the Brits did, dividing it into two words.

Nora sipped her coffee, her lips curling into a smile over the rim. “Reed knows about Adine. Not that she’s Tedran, but what her mind can do—
has
done. He thinks he’ll be able to hold it over us in case things don’t go his way, but anything he knows will be worthless once we’re gone.” Another sip, another smile. “I think I got a good deal on him.”

The pleasantly chilled autumn day turned arctic cold.

Gwen’s eyes skated over the house’s sloped grounds. Where was Reed? There, by the guard’s hut, leaning on the wall near the door, speaking to the gruff-looking guy inside. Badass small talk. Gwen was learning Reed’s body language, though, and no matter where he was positioned, he always kept an eye on her.

How could she convey to him to
get out now
? He was aiming a plastic toy gun at a charging tank. She was as good as dead anyway, and nothing he knew—or
thought
he knew—would save her. It would just keep him in the crosshairs, if not of Nora’s weapon then of the Ofarians’. Because if Gwen got out of this alive and she had to tell her people everything that had happened here, Reed’s life would be over anyway.

Griffin was very good at erasing Primary eyewitnesses.

Xavier stalked across the terrace then took the steps two at a
time down to the water. Nora turned to watch him approach.

“Well?” she asked in Tedranish when he reached the two women.

“Still some unrest in the Plant,” he replied in the same language. “They’re asking for you. They need more proof.”

Nora swore under her breath.

“It’s so sudden,” he added, remembering his own reaction to Nora two years ago and applying it to the dozens of wide-eyed Tedrans he and Nora had been secretly speaking to for days.

Nora pressed a hand to her forehead. “I can’t afford to go back. I want to be available when Genesai wakes up. I need to go back with Gwen.”

Xavier growled in frustration. She was losing sight of her priorities. “You can’t afford not to go back. If they don’t believe you—if they don’t believe
in
you—all of this is pointless.”

Nora pinched her lips, those midnight dark eyes dancing in thought.

“We have Muscle now, right?” He nodded disdainfully in Reed’s direction. “Let him take Gwen back. Your people need you.”

Nora locked eyes with Gwen, and after a few dreadfully long moments, the older woman nodded.

He exhaled and thrust a finger in Gwen’s face. “Will the ship fly?”

She backed off a step and he enjoyed her retreat. “I don’t know yet,” she said. He liked hearing her speak Tedranish, like she had to come down to his level. “That’s just what I was telling Nora.”

“Get your ass moving. It could be any day now.”

Gwen blanched. Good.

“Here’s what’s going to happen.” Nora crossed her arms. “The Ofarians will follow the same protocol they did last time they moved the Plant. They’ll do it at night, loading the slaves into a big truck. Adine’s secured our own truck. She’ll drive; I’ll disguise it with glamour.”

“And Xavier?” Gwen prompted.

He cleared his throat. “I’ll be with the slaves.”

He recalled the hushed, one-sided conversations he’d recently had with 111J and 003AC and every other grown Tedran as they’d lolled in their cells. Some of the men remembered him; all of the women did. They were in awe he’d escaped, but what they really wanted was to be touched and acknowledged by Nora, the mastermind behind their freedom. Their queen.

Then Gwen did something so unexpected he thought he might have been hallucinating.

She rounded on Nora. “I can’t believe you keep making him go back there.”

Even Nora seemed taken aback. She sputtered, “It’s…it’s what he knows. Where he’s needed.”

“And where he was
tortured
!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Xavier noticed Reed pull away from the guard hut. A small movement, one he masked by sweeping his eyes over the entire compound, but he’d reacted to Gwen’s outburst, that was for sure.

Xavier hated that he’d shown Gwen so much of himself that day in the Plant. He wished he were anonymous. He wished he could look at this whole thing with distant eyes like Nora and Adine. But he couldn’t, and he’d die before Gwen saw any more weakness in him.

He inserted himself between Gwen and Nora. “As the Tedrans are being moved outside, away from the neutralizers, I’ll give the signal and the quickest-reacting ones will cloak themselves and any others they can. They’ll board the hidden truck, we’ll bring them to the lake and Genesai’s ship.” He looked slyly at Gwen. “And the world will get a really interesting show.”

She clamped her fingers on his arm, her pinch angry and electric. “What do you mean, the ‘quickest-reacting ones’?”

He spun away from her, from what her awful proximity did to him. “Don’t touch me.” He rubbed his arm where she’d grabbed him. “Not everyone will have power. The children who haven’t hit puberty, the pregnant women, the others who are coming off being drained—they need the strong ones, the ones who are waiting for the signal, to cloak them.”

“The opening will be small,” Nora mused, tapping her lips. “Outside there are no permanent neutralizers, but the Ofarian guards will have neutralizer guns.”

“What if the Tedrans don’t react in time?” Gwen’s sharp eyes darted between Nora and Xavier. She’d figured it out: the big, giant hole in the plan. “What will happen?” she shouted.

Xavier looked to Nora, who met Gwen’s demanding stare with cool regard. “Some of us will not be making the journey,” Nora said.

Gwen grabbed two handfuls of her hair and whirled away, stamping to the end of the dock. Xavier flinched, fearing she’d make a dive for it. He couldn’t go after her; neither could Nora.

But Gwen just stood at the edge, taking deep breaths. After gathering herself, she came back. “Your plan won’t work.”

“It’s the only way,” Nora said. “We may have to suffer losses. Leave behind a few to help the greater numbers.”

“So the punishment you want my people to face—the fear, the scrutiny, the media circus—you are willing to inflict on your own people. The weaker ones, too.” Neither Nora nor Xavier said anything, and Gwen barreled on. “It’ll be a new kind of slavery. You know that, right? You’ll rip your people out of one cage and shove them into another.”

Nora lifted her chin. “Xavier has made all this known to them. They understand their sacrifice.”

He dropped his head, watching the gray water shimmer through the cracks in the dock. When he’d told the slaves that part, almost all had cried. They understood because they’d been forced to. They had no other option. His heart was already broken, but this chiseled chunks off its hard lump. Gwen understood his pain, and he didn’t know how to deal with that.

But if Nora believed this plan to be the best way, so did he.

“No.” The anguished sound of Gwen’s voice brought his head back up. “
No.
You’re not using me the right way.”

“What do you mean?” Xavier began, but Nora held up a hand to him.

“You took me because I’m the Translator, but I’m something more among my people. My dad is the Chairman. I’m the only family he has left. He will listen to me. My
people
listen to me. They respect me. Let me take what I know back to San Francisco. Let me confront the Board and figure out another way to—”

“Do you still honestly believe your father isn’t fully aware of what goes on in the Plant?”

Gwen paused and Xavier held his breath. “I can’t say what he knows, only that I know he’s a good man and he loves me and will listen to me. The Board is divided, more on my dad’s side than on Jonah’s. All I have to do is get to the Chairman and we’ll have the strongest ally imaginable on our side.”

Our
side. Xavier didn’t know how he felt about those words on her lips.

Nora’s head snapped back as though she’d been slapped. Even her eyes watered. “And you think that Chairman Ian Carroway would volunteer to help destroy the company he’s built up? You’re delusional. You’ve been infected by the Company mentality, the Ofarian arrogance.”

“Every Ofarian I know outside the Board would be mortified to know what’s happening to your people. That’s the truth.”

“Maybe. But they have no power against your Board, or against what the Board has built. Your culture, your whole existence, revolves around
Mendacia
. You think your people will want to destroy all that? What will they do then?”

Gwen’s mouth opened for a swift retort, but Xavier got the feeling it was more a reflex, because she quickly closed it. By the slump in her shoulders, he knew what Nora had said had hit home.

“You think on that some more,” Nora said, “then go back to Genesai and get us our ship.”

TWENTY-THREE

The argument stopped as abruptly as it had started, making
Reed uneasy. The echoes of that foreign language lasted long after Nora turned and walked away. Xavier loped after his diminutive leader.

Gwen stayed at the dock’s edge. She looked ready to jump in and swim for it. Reed prepped himself to go in after her, boots and all.

Nora didn’t spare Reed a glance as she swept past, but Xavier paused at the bottom of the stone steps going up to the house. Xavier looked pointedly between Reed and Gwen, frowning, then lumbered toward the terrace.

What was that all about?

“Hey, man.” Frank, the ex-motorcycle gang member, ex-con hired guard with the missing fingers, slipped out of the hut Reed reclined against. “Gotta take a shit. You got eyes on this place for a few minutes?”

Reed had eyes for more than just this place. He nodded, nonchalant.

“Thanks,” Frank said before dashing to the back of the boathouse, where, apparently, there was a toilet.

Reed surveyed the area. Frank, gone. Nora and Xavier, inside. Cameras sweeping all around.

The dock lurched under his feet. Gwen stood with her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach.

She whirled, bit out something in that weird language.

He held up his hands. “Just me.”

Conflict rippled across her expression. She didn’t want to be happy to see him, yet she was. He couldn’t put a word to the way that made him feel.

She swiveled back to the water. “They took me for the wrong reasons, Reed. And I’m not doing any good trapped here.”

He recognized the dig at the tense way their conversation had ended last night. They really did stand on opposite sides of the DMZ. Suspicious, selfish, and passionate, the both of them.

He didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything.

They stood side by side for many long minutes, gazing across the lake. He could feel the vibration of her tension, the shiver of anger.

“It’s my birthday today,” he blurted out.

She looked up at him. “Nuh-uh.”

He nodded. “It is. Thirty-eight. Happy birthday to me.”

“Last night you said you were thirty-seven.”

“I was. Last night.” He nudged the zipper of his jacket to his chin, wishing he’d brought a hat out. Fall had kicked out Indian summer sometime during the night. He’d celebrated his birthday in all kinds of weather, all over the globe. “Know anything about Libra guys?”