Perfect Lies (21 page)

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.

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.

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.

“May I get up and see if my father still has a pulse, or will you shoot me, too?” James snarls.

I lower the gun, feel James walk in front of me.

“I’m sorry,” I say, because I am. “It had to be done.”

It did. I am as certain of that as I have ever been of anything. So many deaths—too many deaths—because of this man. He can’t hurt us anymore.

“You’re ruined now, too.” Fia’s voice is sad, so sad. “I couldn’t save you.”

I lean my head against her shoulder. “This was my choice, Fia. I made the right choice so you didn’t have to make a wrong one.
I
saved
you
.”

“What now?” she whispers.

“I honestly have no idea.” The only future I’d seen is gone now.

“You could have stopped this,” James says, dazed and lost.

Fia leans closer to me.

“She couldn’t have,” I say. I changed everything. I took what fate had laid out for us, and I made a different choice.

“No one’s going to kill me.” Sadie’s voice is relieved and puzzled, and very, very small. James clears his throat of a strangled sob. Fia drifts in his direction, then stops, tethered by my hand.

James sounds exhausted, but there is that edge of anger to his voice, the edge that has always been there. It sounds hardened, now, baked in a fire to a razor-sharp sheen. “I wasn’t lying, Fia. We were almost there. I was so close.” He stands, his voice getting distant. I imagine him looking out the window, back turned to us all. Fia lets out a strangled, lonely sound, and I squeeze her hand tighter.

James continues. “My father killed himself. He discovered his accounts were drained almost dry, that another company had bought controlling shares in all his endeavors, and that there was a whistle-blower whose information would have sent him to prison. I’m going to find his body in here in a few minutes, along with a note.”

“We’ll be leaving, then,” I say, relieved. But it also makes me wonder—how had Fia never questioned James’s comfort level with disposing of bodies? “Come on, Sadie.”

“No, I don’t think so.” His change in tone freezes me in place. “You have powder residue on your fingers, you are on all our security footage, I have multiple witnesses putting you in the building. You leave. I never want to see you again. As far as I’m concerned from this time forward you really are dead. Sadie stays with Fia and me.”

“You can’t—”

“I
can
,” he snaps. “Unless you want to shoot me, too, and figure out how to get out of this mess on your own. Be my guest, Annie. Blow my brains out.”

I stutter, my mind skipping through ways around his demands, but … I have nothing. I have no leverage. I saved Fia for now, but I didn’t save Sadie.

“No?” James asks, mocking me. “Then get out of my building before I call security.”

“You have no money,” Fia says, sad.

“What are you talking about?” He takes a breath, then sounds kinder. “Come here, Fia. It’s okay. I’ll let Annie go. My father—I—” His voice catches and I wonder if it’s an act or if it’s real. “I didn’t want this. But it’s done, and you’re safe, and we can move on now. Everything he had is mine. We can finally move on.”

“Everything you had is
mine
,” she says. She moves closer to me, and I realize someone is standing on her other side. A low murmur lets me know that it’s Mae.

“I don’t understand,” James says.

“All the accounts. All the money. I hid it.”

I don’t know whether he sounds angrier or sadder. “Why would you do that?”

I feel her shoulder move in a shrug next to me. “Just felt like I should. Been doing it for months.”

“Fia.” Her name is a growl coming from deep in his throat. “I know this isn’t what you had planned. And I’m sorry I let you think we were going to destroy everything and then walk away. But I can’t. We can’t. I owe it to my mother to see to her legacy. People know girls like you, like Sadie, exist now. They’re not safe. If we’re here, if we’re in control, then we are the most powerful and we can keep them safe. Together.”

“I love you. But I can’t—” Her voice changes; she’s turned her head away, toward the window. “I can’t stay. I can’t live with what you wanted me to do.” Another small shrug, like she’s trying to shake something off her shoulders. “What I would have done.”

Mae chimes in. “Annie gets the school, and oversight into everything you do with the girls in your networks.”

“Absolutely not.”

I hear Fia whispering beneath her breath, “A Keane is a Keane is a Keane, my Keane. I’m going to burn the school to the ground.”

“You have no choice.” Mae sounds matter-of-fact, like a teacher explaining the rules on the first day of class. “If you don’t do what Fia says, you’ll have nothing left. She’s listing account numbers in her head right now. She had access to everything, and you never checked up on her. I’m sorry, sir.” The sarcasm positively drips from her voice. “She never thought about this around me. Otherwise I definitely would have reported it to you like a loyal employee.”

“Secrets,” Fia says, and I can hear the smile on her voice but it doesn’t sound like a happy smile. “Even from you, James. Especially from you.”

“Fine.” His teeth strain the sounds of the words. “We’ll talk about this at home. There’s no reason to make a decision now. I have a dead father to take care of.”

“I’m not going home,” Fia says.

Fia is pulled away from me. “I’m sorry,” James says. “I’m sorry for everything. I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. I was scared, and desperate. I thought we could handle it together, like we’ve always done. This doesn’t have to— this isn’t the end. This is the beginning. You and me. I love you. I can’t lose you. Not now.”

“I love you, too. But that doesn’t make it right. I can feel that now, I think.” Fia takes my hand again, turns me around.

“Fia,” James says, and for once he doesn’t sound angry. He sounds lost.

Fia doesn’t go to him.

“You can’t burn it to the ground, Fia,” Mae says, voice teasing. “So stop thinking it. Annie and Cole will work out the details of the school with James after the funeral.”

“Yeah. Come on, Sadie,” Cole says. I feel safe with him here, shielded from James so that I can focus on Fia.

She walks forward and I walk with her. “Good-bye, Pixie,” Fia says. “I’m sorry. I lied about everything.”

“You can’t lie to me.” Tears play at the edges of Mae’s words. “I always knew you liked me, you stupid brat. I’m coming with you. I have a suspicion I’m out of a job as a receptionist. My typing skills sucked anyway.”

We walk out to the elevator, Mae talking down security, saying exactly what they need to hear to turn around and leave before finding Mr. Keane’s body. Eden is waiting in the lobby, flirting madly with the guard. “Well,” she says, huffing. “It’s about time.”

Together, we walk out. Five very not-dead girls, plus the love of my life. This future was never supposed to be any of ours. It wasn’t one Sadie saw, or I saw. It was one Sarah couldn’t begin to hope for, to the point where it drove her mad. It was a future not even Fia could make for herself.

This is
my
future. The future I made happen.

We are free.

The New York day is bitter cold and devoid of sunshine, but I’m warm.

“I NEED YOU.” ANNIE SCOWLS IN FRUSTRATION AND
disbelief. “I can’t do this without you.”

I smile, because she always has been the worst liar. “You can.”

“But I don’t want to.” When I don’t answer, she changes tactics. “What about Adam? He’s going to be in Chicago near the school. We have to keep an eye on what he does, help him. And he’s in love with you, Fia.”

I zip up my bag, tap tap tap tap the zipper, try to think of anything I’ve forgotten.

I’d like to forget nearly everything.

Adam, sweet gray eyes long fingers Adam. “I hope he finds someone who can love him back.”

“But where will you go?”

I close my eyes, breathe deeply, think of nothing. I need to be nothing. I need to be nothing for a very, very long time until I can decide what something I want to be. “James bought me a sailboat.”

“He
what
? I thought you two weren’t speaking.” She stands, alarmed. She has a right to be. Most minutes it’s all I can do to breathe without him.