“Oh, no,” she whispers. There’s a buzz and a click. “Come on!”
Cole grabs my hand and runs forward. I’m dragged behind, trying my hardest to match his pace.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” I know this voice, too. Nathan. “You can’t go back there!”
“Mae, what’s going on?” another man asks.
“It’s a setup! Rafael Marino is after Mr. Keane,” Mae says.
“Is that true?”
“No!” Nathan shouts.
Cole lets go of my hand and I back up until I hit the wall.
“We have a situation!” the Keane security guy says, met by crackling static. There’s the meaty sound of a fist connecting with a face, and he cries out.
Someone hits the wall next to me. I know by his cologne that it’s not Cole. I jump on Nathan, throwing my arms around his neck and wrapping my legs around his torso.
“Go!” I scream.
I hear Cole run. I can feel a gun beneath my thigh, where it hits Nathan’s hip. I let go of his neck and grab the gun as he slams me into the wall and I drop to the ground. The vibrations of his feet pounding the floor follow Cole. Someone fires a shot. The security guy shouts, Mae screams, and I hear bodies slam into a wall. Then the sound of a door opening.
I stand, the gun heavy and cold in my hand. I know what it looks like. I’ve seen it so many times now. I know I will get into the room without being stopped.
I know my part.
I walk toward the end.
FIA
Two Minutes Before
PIXIE LOOKS UP AS JAMES AND I WALK BY.
“Fia, wait. Can I talk to you? Please?”
I don’t think anything at her. I don’t think anything at all.
Left foot, right foot, James’s hand on my shoulder, guiding me. Left foot, right foot, so much can be accomplished without active thought. We pass through the doorway. I see Sandy blond with a gun, standing sentry in the hall with one of our security guards.
Ours.
Keane’s. Ours. Mine. Doesn’t matter.
Outside the room James stops, squeezes my shoulder but I don’t feel it, not like I ought to, I don’t feel anything. I’m a not-person. Not not not not. Tap tap tap tap.
Tap.
His father joins us. James opens the door and walks in, his posture perfect and his steps confident and his smile his very best, most assured lie. Rafael and the girl are waiting.
I follow, sliding along the wall, because I am a not-person and not-people take up no space in rooms.
I look at Phillip Keane, but he doesn’t look at me, because he already knows I’m a not-person, h
e’s known all along. He made me this way. I look at the girl on the couch, but can’t keep looking at her, because if I keep looking at her, the girl on the couch will be a real person, and even not-person me can’t kill a real person.
There is a strange sound that wants to escape from my mouth. Can’t let that sound out. Teeth against knuckles to keep the sound in.