Dangerous Lies (Lies 5)

I didn’t feel any pain, which shocks me. Death should be the worst pain, but all it feels like is a final end—an eternal end, an erasing of memories.

And yet, I remember her—Liesel, my huntress.

I may have forgotten everything else, but her love can’t be taken from me, not even by death.

My mind clings to the memory of Liesel.

Where is she? Is she dead too? Is she floating in this darkness with me?

I dip down, my stomach drops.

How is that possible?

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Am I an angel? Am I flying?

Voices register in my brain.

What is that?

I move my fingers. I still have fingers! They barely operate at first, but the more I wiggle, the more control I have over them.

Finally, I’m able to move them enough to feel my face. There is fabric covering my head. I push it up, and light blinds me. I try to close my eyes, but my lids move too slowly. Everything moves too slowly.

I’m not dead.

I’m on an airplane, by the looks of it.

Liesel is sitting down the aisle from me in a chair facing Corbin and Maxwell. She’s not dead, either. She’s very much alive.

Did they save us?

“Why did you save us?” Liesel asks them.

“You know why,” Corbin answers.

Maxwell looks annoyed and tired by this conversation, like they’ve already been talking for a long time.

She frowns. “The treasure.”

Corbin nods.

Liesel considers. “I’ll find the treasure, just leave my kids alone.”

Corbin smiles; it’s what he wants.

“No!” I say, but nothing comes out. They don’t look at me. Am I really here? Maybe I am dead?

“You will help me find the treasure; otherwise I’ll kill you and Langston, and all three of your children will grow up parentless. But first, I need proof that you’ve paid your sacrifice. I saw Beckett’s hands. Maxwell saw Siren and Zeke’s sacrifices. None of us were there to witness your sacrifice, however,” Corbin says.

“How do I prove it?” Liesel frowns.

“We’ll go to a hospital to get an ultrasound.”

Ultrasound? Do they think she’s pregnant too?

“That’s a waste of time. We need to go, now,” she insists.