My burner phone chimes for the fifth time in two minutes, and I contemplate throwing it out the window. We’re fourteen stories up, so it’s definitely not surviving the fall.
“Sorry.” I smile tightly at Morgan and the reporter, Mindy Gomez. Mindy has only just begun to ply us with questions, and I can tell from her expression she has many, many more.
This interview was arranged in twenty-four hours, thanks to Cassian pulling some strings. He promised Mindy would be sympathetic, and I suppose she has been, but any questions about my childhood are difficult to answer. I hate it, always have.
They haven’t found Camber yet, which is one bit of good news. So when I say I’ve lost touch with all my siblings, there’s no gotcha follow-up. Camber is safe, for the time being. And I’m here getting very politely probed for every detail of my fucked-up life.
It doesn’t help that other reporters keep blowing up my burner phone. I wasn’t careful enough when I went to get a new one, and the employee sold my info. Being recognized fucking sucks, and I don’t know how Morgan deals with it. And now I’ve got to ask Gage or one of them to bring me a new phone like I’m a teenager.
I delete the five texts that have come in, all from randos asking for comment. And then I shut off the phone because it’s useless now.
Morgan’s face is impassive as she waits for me to finish, the way it’s been since she came out of the board meeting. There’s been no more softness, no more intimacy. Only a laser-like focus on fixing everything that’s going wrong. I can admire it even if I do miss the closeness we had before. Not that I should be missing it. She’s doing what she needs to, and I’m doing what I need to. Which includes this interview, although I’d rather be scrubbing off my skin with steel wool. My every protection is being stripped away here. I’ve got the money to disappear again, but it’s going to be much harder now.
“No problem,” Mindy says, all fake polite. “Whenever you’re ready to start again.”
Yeah, I’ll be ready to start again never. But I merely nod.
Morgan steps into the gap, tries to steer the interview. “My father left behind a project with amazing potential.” She sounds a bit like she’s pitching the board, which I suppose she is. They’ll definitely read this interview. “It’s a brain-computer interface—”
“We can get to that.” Mindy interrupts more smoothly than should be possible. “But first I’d like to finish up with Tynan’s childhood.”
Morgan’s expression shutters. Mine would too if I wasn’t already completely over this interview.
“This project of Morgan’s is more important.” I push toward polite but get dragged into surliness anyway.
Mindy smiles. “Sure, but your childhood is unique. You said it was very isolated.” She leans in, her tongue practically lolling out. “How isolated? Was it only you and your siblings?”
My jaw clamps shut. I know what she wants—all the sordid details. How I never went to school, had to teach myself to read out of whatever books I could find, how seeing a TV for the first time blew my fucking mind. How I had to stitch up my younger brother when he sliced his thigh open and thought the entire time there was so much blood he was going to die. And how I’d have to dig the grave if he did.
“Yes, just us,” I say tightly.
“What was that like? Why did your father keep you so apart from the world?”
She already knows exactly why he did: because he was paranoid to the point of insanity. Because he thought the world was filled with horrors and lies and we were only safe if we kept away. It’s not any kind of new story, as I learned when I got out and found out my story wasn’t that unique. Yeah, we were exceptionally isolated, but there are plenty of people who keep their families away from the wider world. Some of those kids even go on to write best-selling books about it.
No, Mindy wants the details so she can salivate over them. It’s sad and freakish and she wants to thrill herself with it, getting close enough to be just a little scared but never close enough to be really threatened by it.
I made the mistake of telling people about my childhood when I first got out. I was surprised by people’s sympathy at first—Dad always said people on the outside were corrupted, but those people seemed genuinely upset at what I told them. But slowly, as I learned to read people who weren’t my family, I realized they only wanted to hear about it to… to feed off the story. It made me sick when I finally understood. So I stopped telling the story. To anyone, including the guys I thought were my friends. My new family.
After the wreck, I was so glad I hadn’t told them anything. That they couldn’t go find my dad or Camber or any of my other siblings and tell them how sad they were that I was gone when they’d sent me to hell in the first place.
I tilt my head, study Mindy long enough to have her shifting in her chair. She knows I know why she’s asking that, beyond journalistic curiosity.
“Why he did it isn’t anything new,” I say coolly. “If you’re looking for something novel and sordid, it’s not there.”
I’m supposed to be feeding her a story, one to distract from the much worse one we’re trying to hide, but I’m not going to offer my childhood for the public to lap up.
Mindy’s gaze cools. She’s not pretending to be my friend anymore. “Where are your siblings now? Are you in touch?”
As if I’d toss any of them into this, even without the danger to Camber. “No.”
“Have you looked for them?”
I’m sure she has, or at least tried to. Without proper last names or birth certificates, we’re not easy to find. “No point.” I flash a hard smile at her, warning her. “Without names or addresses or ages or even social security numbers, it’s almost impossible.”
She digests that, looks for another angle. “So you were all alone then. Until you met Ira.” She looks at Morgan. “How did that feel, to have Tynan come into your lives? I understand you were all very close.”
Morgan’s cheeks go faintly pink, and I know exactly what she’s thinking about—those teenage fantasies she told me about. I’m thinking the same thing, although I shouldn’t.
“We were.” Her voice gains strength. “We were like a family, all of us.”
“Hmm.” Mindy’s attention swings back to me. “So why did you disappear after the crash? What happened to make you go into hiding?”
I’ve been preparing for this since my identity came out. The police never quite bought it—not that they were able to do anything about it thanks to the team of high-powered lawyers on my side—but the general public might.
“You have to understand.” I lean in, lower my voice. “My father was… paranoid, to put it best. I was raised to be paranoid. About everything. And when that car crashed, I immediately assumed it had been deliberate. That someone wanted me dead.”
Mindy is nodding along in time with my voice. I pull her further along into my explanation.
“I figured that if whoever was responsible knew I was still alive, they’d try again.” I let my gaze flick toward Morgan, tear it away with effort. “And if that happened, someone else could be hurt. I couldn’t let that happen. So I left.”
Morgan knows that’s a lie, but her breathing has slowed, deepened. Her lips are parted, and if this journalist weren’t here, I’d kiss her until she couldn’t see straight.
“My God,” Mindy says, shattering the moment. “Did Ira say anything to you? Can you give me any details?”
Immediately my gut twists. But I knew this was coming too. “There wasn’t much time. But he did tell me to take care of his daughters.”
That part isn’t a lie. And is something I never told the police about because what business is it of theirs? I wanted to tell Morgan first, and even though this is something I’m giving to the journalist to appease her, I’m also giving it to Morgan too.
Morgan sucks in a shaky breath, claps her hand to her mouth. Her eyes are wide, haunted.
I reach for her hand, hold it tight. Mindy watches us closely. Suddenly I see a way to give her exactly the story she wants.
“No more questions about the accident,” I say with quiet authority.
“Sure,” Mindy says smoothly. She’s still staring at our linked hands.
I give Morgan’s hand a squeeze. When her gaze meets mine, I tell her silently, Trust me. Follow my lead.
For a moment I think she won’t. And why should she? Trusting others hasn’t worked out well for her recently. If I had the time and space, I’d explain everything, get her agreement before going ahead. But I don’t.
I need her trust and I need it now.
Finally she gives the barest nod of her chin. Not enough for Mindy to notice, just enough for me.
I pull her hand into my lap, a burning weight on my thigh. “Let’s get back to that project we were discussing earlier.” I settle back in my chair, taking charge. “The brain-computer interface.”
Mindy’s gaze darts between Morgan and me. She senses two paths here—one, the juicy story of my childhood and disappearance, which she hasn’t gotten completely out of me. And two, the even juicier story of whatever is going on between Morgan and me. Which to choose?
I’m not giving her the entire story on that either, not that she knows it. But even a few crumbs is more than any other outlet has. She’ll have quite the exclusive here, but only if she chooses door two.
“Yes,” she says slowly. “Let’s talk about that.”
I sense Morgan relax a fraction next to me, her fingers losing some of their stiffness. She even manages a hint of a smile. “Like I said, it’s revolutionary. And once my transition to CEO is complete, my father’s company is going to make it reality.”
“I worked with him on it before he died,” I say, picking up the thread easily. “His last wish was that his daughters be happy, safe, but I’d say seeing this project to completion was his second-to-last wish.”
It’s true too, although I didn’t know it at the time. Somehow the press hasn’t found out that Ira was dying already, which is a small mercy.
“You worked with him on it?” Mindy’s eyebrows pop up. “Interesting. And Morgan, what made you decide to assume control of the company now? You were very happy at Inspiron, as everyone knew.”
She means the social media front Axel and Morgan put up of their perfect, glossy relationship. Kind of like the front Morgan and I are putting up right now.
“It was time,” Morgan says simply. “I was ready for a new phase in my life. And when Tynan returned and explained what this last project meant to Dad, I just knew.”
The look she gives me is equal parts fondness and heat. I forget for a moment that we’re pretending. Kind of.
I hold her gaze as I say this next: “And I’ll be working with Morgan to bring it to fruition. We’re partners in this.”
A small light comes into her eyes, hesitant, like she doesn’t want to believe it. Certainly I never intended to stay, to become part of this again. But I can’t take it back, and I don’t want to.
“Can I just ask?” Mindy interjects. “Why did you decide to come out of hiding after all this time? What spurred this?”
I’ve been asked this for days now, almost as many times as I’ve been asked why I went into hiding in the first place. I’ve been saying that Oscar’s collapse instigated it, never giving anyone the true timeline. But I can’t find that lie in this moment for some reason.
So Morgan answers for both of us, perfectly. “He came back for me.”