Perfect Lies (Mind Games 2)

She leans against the black-tiled wall, stares past me at the shattered mirror. “There’s an artist in Asheville, where I’m from. She works in mosaic. Takes broken pieces of mirrors and fits them back into patterns. I have one. It looks like a starburst, the pieces rearranged to shine outward like rays of light.”

I narrow my eyes. “It’s still a broken mirror. It’s ruined. It’s useless.”

She shrugs, still not looking at me. “It’s broken, yeah. But it’s beautiful. And it means something to me when I look at it, even if I can’t see myself clearly in it anymore.”

I’m overwhelmed with the impulse to go over to her, to let her hug me, to cry on her shoulder. Is it an instinct? Is it right? Is it wrong?

“I’m on your side,” she says, smiling sadly. “You’re the only friend I have.”

I pick up one of the thick, folded paper towels. Smear my blood across it, wad it into a ball, and drop it in the sink. I don’t trust this impulse, I don’t trust her, I don’t trust me. No. I only trust me. No. I am the last person I can trust. I am the only person I can trust. I tap tap tap tap a fingernail against the sink, consider the spiderweb of my reflection.

“Here’s the thing, Pixie. I don’t have a side. I work here. Just like you. And I don’t ever forget that.” My phone rings, and I pull it out of my pocket. James. James will know what to do. He’ll tell me. We’ll do it together.

“Please,” Pixie says, desperate. “If I wanted to hurt you, I’d have already done it. You gave your secrets away before I ever listened in your head and realized you haven’t killed the people you say you did. Tap tap tap tap, Fia. Four taps. But you’ve killed six people. Two with the bomb. Clarice. Adam. Annie. Eden. It wouldn’t even be my word against yours. All they’d have to do is look and they’d see the truth.”

I cock my head, consider. She’s right. I could laugh at how careless I’ve been. “Are you threatening me?”

“No! I’m telling you to be more careful! I care about you. But James is destroying you. He lets you think you have the same goals, but he wants nothing that you do. He was working with Rafael, building his own group to rival his father’s. He has been this entire time, playing Lerner, playing his father, building so that he can take over and create the exact same thing his father already has. He’s not going to stop anything. You’re just building an empire for a new Keane.”

I have her slammed up against the wall before she can blink.

“You know nothing,” I snarl. Nothing. You know nothing, and you are nothing, and you mean nothing to me or anyone else. No one in the whole world cares about you. I say a word, a single word, and you are the next overdosed girl floating dead in the river.

She whimpers.

I lean my forehead against hers, close my eyes. My voice comes out even, soft. “Stay out of it. I really don’t want to hurt you.”

I leave the bathroom before she can read me, before she can realize that I am lying, that I am nothing but a lie. I do, I care, I care so much and it terrifies me, and I don’t want to care about her because when I care people get hurt.

The people we love are the ones with the power to destroy us.

James is all I have. I chose James. He has to be right. Please let him be right.

ANNIE

Twenty-eight Days Before

WE SIT, A SILENT, MISERABLE GROUP. THE HOTEL SUITE has adjoining rooms, and the walls are thin enough to make out most of what Rafael and Cole are shouting at each other. I had been worried about what would happen when I saw Rafael again after our kiss, but it’s funny how trivial something like that is now.

As much as I want to mourn Sarah, part of me is livid. I’m furious with her, furious that she made those choices, that she forced Fia’s hand like that. I have no idea what this will do to my sister.

No, that’s wrong. I know exactly what this will do, and this time I’m not there to take care of her. Please, James. Whatever goodness you have in you, whatever humanity—please take care of Fia. Don’t let her hurt herself.

“I just don’t understand,” Adam says, anguish soaking his voice. “Why would Sarah do that?”

“She was on amphetamines, right?” Eden asks. She’s sitting next to me, and I’m curled into her, my head resting on her shoulder.

She told me she stayed because they threatened to kill her mom. It was the hardest choice she’d ever had to make, because she loved me more than she ever loved her mom, and betraying my memory to protect that woman was torture. But now that Eden’s dead, too, we can be together. I shouldn’t be so grateful, considering everything that was lost for this to happen, but I won’t let Eden go again.

It took us a few days of hotel hopping before we all got to the same place and felt safe enough to meet. Sadie has barely spoken five words to any of us. She also hasn’t showered, and I can smell her from across the room. Someone needs to take care of her, help her, but we’re all so shell-shocked by what happened. At least she seems calm and resigned to being with us.

Eden continues. “I’ve seen some of our girls on it. It can make you paranoid, even trigger brief psychotic episodes.”

Apparently Cole feels the same, given the accusations he’s hurling at Rafael.

“Get away from her,” Eden snaps.

“What?” Nathan says. I wish he weren’t here.