Perfect Lies (Mind Games 2)

Something slams into the wall, and then the door bursts open, and two more people (not-people? Who can say anymore) tumble into the room, fighting. Cole and Sandy blond. I have fought both of them before. Cole should go after his knee. It’s probably not fully healed yet. But who should I want to win? I cannot sort through anything to tell what will happen, what should happen, if I should make something happen. I have fallen into a black hole of wrong and there is no feeling here.

And then Annie follows them, a gun in her shaking hand.

“No,” I say, and it makes me a person again but

no

no

no

Annie is a person. She’s the only person, the only real person in the whole world, and now everything is over forever, no matter what, because she’s here now and Phillip Keane is staring at her and he knows, he knows what I did, I’m a person again, I’m a dead person and it doesn’t matter

nothing matters

nothing matters anymore, there is no safe, there is no way to fix this, I do what James wants and Annie is dead, I do what Rafael wants and James hates me forever, either way, either way I lose. I’ll pick an ending and then I’ll be done.

I put my hand on Annie’s shoulder and reach for the gun she’s pointing at nothing, because the gun is an ending. It’s a fast ending.

Annie’s shoulders droop, but then steel runs through them and she elbows me in the stomach. I jerk backward, shocked and hurt and—she hurt me?

“No,” she says, her voice soft but made of the same steel that took over her shoulders, and I don’t know this Annie. This is not the Annie from my dreams, the young and innocent Annie among the flames of my destruction.

“You don’t get that future, Fia,” she says.

She moves the gun from pointing at nothing to pointing directly at Phillip Keane. He does not have time to look surprised before she pulls the trigger and with a deafening pop Annie creates an end.

James cries out. Phillip Keane is on the floor with a hole in his head.

I am still here. I didn’t do any of this.

Annie did.

ANNIE

After

MY HAND HURTS, BOTH FROM THE WEIGHT OF THE gun and the force of the recoil. “Nobody move,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I thought it would. “I know where everyone in this room is.”

I’ve certainly seen it enough times. But not this part. This part is new. I made this part.

“Cole, did I kill Mr. Keane?”

“Yes.” His voice is even and I hope he doesn’t hate me now. But I don’t regret what I did. Maybe I will, but not today, because I protected Sadie and I saved Fia. They needed me, so I did it. And Fia needs more saving.

I swing the gun to where I know Rafael is sitting on the couch. If I knew for certain that he was going to hurt me or Fia again, I’d shoot him. I wouldn’t hesitate. But I don’t have that guarantee, and I can’t justify it. “You. Leave. If you ever come near me or my sister—or Sadie—again, you’re a dead man.”

“Annie,” he says, “we’re on the same side. Now that—”

“You set this up. You set us all up. We are not on the same side. Don’t think I will ever forget that you were willing to destroy my sister. Get out.”

I hear the creak of leather as Rafael stands.

“This isn’t over.” James’s voice surprises me. It’s tortured, strained, full of more honest emotion that I’ve ever heard from him.

“Far from it,” Rafael answers. I hear someone else stand and leave the room, and that’s when I remember Cole was fighting with Nathan. I had completely forgotten to take Nathan into account. But I didn’t need to. Cole was with me.

I reach my free hand back until I find Fia’s. It feels small and cold, and I wrap it in mine, tug her gently forward until I can feel her body at my side.