Chapter Three: Secrets Are Like Lies
I don’t know what is going on anymore. Frustration sets me to pacing, while Oscar leans against the wall as if none of this matters. What was he talking about? He can see hunger? Van knew about it, and so did Ketchup! I struggle to shove away my irritation at that and focus on the bigger problem. I glance over at Annabelle, but I’m too wound up to even talk to her. At first, I was determined to believe her, defend her even, until Van found her and nearly tore her apart. I immediately took that to mean Annabelle was guilty, but then Van did a complete one-eighty. I don’t know who or what to trust anymore.
Finally coming to a stop, I face Annabelle. “Why did you run?” I demand. Annabelle shrinks back. Guilt spears me, for a moment, but I refuse to let it linger. I deserve an explanation. “Why?”
“It had nothing to do with David,” Annabelle says quietly. She glances over at Oscar fearfully before dropping her eyes again.
Oscar looks as if he’s not even paying attention, but he makes it clear that he is listening raptly when he says, “I’m not going anywhere, Anna-Belle, who’s not so pretty when she cries like her name might make you think.” He stops staring absently at the wall and meets her eyes directly. “Say whatever it is you need to say, and it better be the truth, or we’ll be walking out of here with one less threat to worry about.”
Annabelle’s eyes flit over to mine. The honest panic in them begs me to break my hostile stance, but I force myself to stay firm. I won’t let Oscar kill her if she’s innocent… at least, I’ll try to stop him. I’m no longer all that certain about what he can and can’t do. I’ve already witnessed a small portion of what his power can do, and I’m in no hurry to see anything more. Refusing to let thoughts of my parents surface, I stare Annabelle down until she finally starts talking.
“I promised you I was with you when it came to the Eroi, and I am. That’s not the problem,” Annabelle says.
“Then what is?”
Annabelle’s hands twist together, and she refuses to look at me. Her voice is small as she says, “Ivy.”
Suddenly, Oscar pushes away from the wall. The movement sends Annabelle scurrying to the opposite side of the couch. The terror in her eyes seems to amuse my brother. He scoffs. “If I was going to kill you, Annabelle Lee wannabe, I wouldn’t alert you to the fact.” Turning to me, Oscar scowls and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I have no interest in romantic squabbles. Deal with this, and meet us outside quickly.”
With that, he walks out the door, making a pit stop by the arm of the couch for some reason, and leaves us alone. I shake my head and turn back to Annabelle. “Are you going to explain what you taking off in the middle of the night has to do with Ivy?”
Annabelle settles back into the couch and lets her head fall into her hands. “What do I have to explain? I didn’t imagine the way you reacted to her.”
“Of course I reacted when Van almost tore her to pieces. How could I not?”
“That’s not what I mean,” she snaps.
“Then what?”
Finding the strength and fierceness I know so well, Annabelle glares up at me. “How about when they took her away, and you tried to follow her? How about the way she looked at you?” Her bottom lip starts to quiver, but she tightens her jaw instantly.
“Who cares how she looked at me?” I argue. Even as the words leave my mouth, though, the memory of Ivy staring at Annabelle’s hand in mine with a crushed expression tears at me. I try to shake it off as nothing, but it’s not as easy as it should be.
“See,” Annabelle says more softly, “it does matter. She’s still in love with you.”
Snapping my eyes up to Annabelle, my anger threatens to boil over. “Ivy never loved me. She wouldn’t have done what she did to me if that were true.”
“Can you honestly say you have any clue why she did what she did?” Annabelle shakes her head. “You can’t understand her any more than she can understand you.”
Frustrated, I scrub my hands through my hair. “I don’t understand this, Annabelle. You ran away because you think Ivy is in love with me? That doesn’t make any sense!”
“I ran because you’re still in love with her, too!” Annabelle snaps. “You promised me you weren’t, that this wasn’t about finding her and saving her so you two could be together. You promised me, Zander, and you lied. You lied right to my face.”
Her expression crumbles as the words leave her lips. She buries her head in her hands, hiding behind a curtain of her hair. More emotions than I can process tumble around in my head, but one more surely than anything else. My hands curl into fists as my anger reaches its limit.
“I am not in love with Ivy Guerra,” I say through my teeth. “I never was.” Reaching forward, I yank Annabelle’s chin up, so she is forced to face me. Her startled, fearful expression has no effect on me. I’m too pissed to let it register.
“I never lied to you, Annabelle, and I never will. You’re probably the only person I can honestly say that about, so how dare you accuse me of dragging you into danger just so I could rekindle a doomed romance with Ivy,” I say angrily. “I let myself get sucked into an illusion with Ivy, and I regret every minute I spent with her. I abandoned my family and put the people I loved in danger because of her. That is not love. That’s not even friendship. You’re accusing me of betraying you? Well, what the hell did you just do to me by pulling this stupid stunt?”
Annabelle blinks in surprise at my tirade. Stunned, it takes her a few seconds to speak. “I didn’t… I haven’t put anyone in danger. I never meant…”
“I don’t care what you meant to accomplish by this,” I snap. “How do you think Van and Ketchup explained disappearing to David? Didn’t you think he’d come looking for them after a while? He’s been texting them for the last half hour wondering where they are. What’s going to happen when he drives over to Ketchup’s house and they’re not there?”
Pressing a shaky hand to her lips, Annabelle’s eyes well up with tears. “Zander, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause them trouble.”
Heaving out a massive sigh of frustration, my hands drop to my side. “What did you think I would do when you took off? Just let you go?”
She doesn’t have to answer for me to see her thoughts. A good portion of my anger falls away as I realize she really did think I wouldn’t come after her. I drop onto the couch next to her and look up at the ceiling, not sure what to do.
“Besides the fact that there’s no way I’d ever just let you run away from me without an explanation, didn’t you even stop to consider what everyone else would think when you ran off like that?” I look over at her, trying very hard to understand. “They all thought you had betrayed us to David.”
Tears spill down Annabelle’s cheeks. “Did you think that, too?”
“No,” I say, sighing, “well, mostly no. I wanted to trust you, Annabelle, but you made it difficult. I had no idea why you would have ran, if not because you were freaked out about spying on the Godlings.”
“Zander, I’m so sorry,” Annabelle says through her tears.
I pull her into a one-armed hug, but everything I said a moment ago is still true. “Look, I have to get Oscar back to the hospital, and Van and Ketchup back to our house, before all hell breaks loose. I need to go. I’m sorry.”
“Of course.” Annabelle pulls away, sniffling and wiping at her tears. “Will you… will you come back after everyone is home safe?”
“I…”
Normally, my answer would be an automatic yes, but I hesitate, worn out from everything that has happened today and not sure spending time with Annabelle right now is what I want. All of that runs through my head, but another thought occurs to me as well. I’m not supposed to be home right now. Where else am I going to go?
“Yeah,” I say, finally. “I’ll be back later.”
Annabelle obviously senses the tension still lingering behind my answer, but she doesn’t comment on it. She just nods her head and pulls her knees up to her chest. Part of me wants to do something to reassure her, but if I can’t do that for myself, what hope do I have of doing it for her? Sighing, I tell her I’ll be back and escape to the hallway.
As soon as I pull the door shut, three pairs of eyes pin me where I stand. Van and Ketchup drop their gazes a moment later, looking oddly guilty. Oscar just sighs and asks if we can get going. I’m more than ready to get out of here. We make it back to the truck a few minutes later and pile in. Nobody says much of anything until I merge onto the exit ramp that will take us to the hospital.
“Where are you going?” Oscar demands.
“You’re closest. I’m dropping you off first,” I say.
Oscar’s jaw clenches. “Who says I’m going back?”
“I do!” I snap. “I’ve already been captured, shot with a tranq dart, and sold my soul to the people trying to kill me today. I don’t have a lot of patience left for anyone else’s crap, Oscar.”
“I’m not going back!” Oscar shouts.
About ready to pull the truck over and beat the living daylights out of him, I’m extremely grateful when Ketchup cuts in.
“Oscar, if you don’t go back, it’ll put Van and everyone else in danger.” He glances over at Van, who is half-asleep against his shoulder. “David’s already going to be suspicious. If you go missing the same night we’ve been off the grid for hours, and Zander and Annabelle are supposedly out of town, he’ll know something is going on. Plus, the police will get involved. You’re a murderer, Oscar. They won’t turn a blind eye to you up and vanishing.”
Oscar has never liked being wrong, and this moment is no exception. He slumps down in his seat and sulks, looking more than a little terrifying. I shake my head. The hospital staff are likely in for a rough couple of days. I can’t do anything about it, though. He has to go back, and he knows it. He may not like it, but he won’t risk Van’s life just for a chance at freedom. My life… maybe, but not Van’s. I relax a little as I continue toward the hospital.
By the time I come to a stop behind the building, Oscar has resigned himself to becoming a prisoner once again. I almost feel sorry for him. Then I remember the reason he’s here, and my sympathy vanishes. Putting the truck in park, I get out and meet Oscar. His earlier pouting has vanished. He squares up next to me with a serious expression.
“I want to know what was on the phone Isolde gave you at the Eroi compound, and why you didn’t want Van to know about it,” Oscar says. “Secrets are like lies.”
I shake my head. Not everything is as black and white as he thinks. “Trust me on this one, Oscar. Van doesn’t need to know what’s on the phone.”
“Who are you to judge what she should and shouldn’t know?”
My shoulders tense up because I can hear the accusation behind his words. He thinks his judgment is so much better than mine is? “You know, Oscar, I’m getting fed up with the way you treat me. I know I’ve made mistakes, but I’m the one still on the outside, still doing my best to hold our family together while you hide in a mental hospital. I know what Van can and can’t handle better than you do, because I’m the one who’s been with her every day since you killed our parents!”
“Van and I have always been closer than you and she will ever be,” Oscar snarls. “So you’ve been with her lately. I was the one who watched over her for years! You were too busy brooding and being self-righteous to pay her the attention she deserved.”
“I’m not going to argue this with you right now, Oscar,” I snap. “The fact is, Van doesn’t need to know that Chris, the one Godling she actually trusts and looks up to, is a cold-blooded killer! He’s an assassin. They all are, at least the top ones. David is training us to become exactly what the Eroi say he is. Knowing that about Chris will kill her. She’ll never be able to get through her training with him without revealing herself and what she’s trying to do. I couldn’t care less if you think I’m wrong, because the fact is, I’m the one taking care of her now, not you.”
For a long moment, Oscar is quiet. His jaw works back and forth as he stifles his earlier anger and faces me. “No, Van doesn’t need to know about Chris.”
“So glad you agree,” I say with a roll of my eyes. Like I need his approval.
Oscar grabs my shirtfront and yanks me over to him. “You still don’t know her as well as you think you do. If you did, she’d trust you with her secrets.”
“We’ve both learned not to trust anyone unless we absolutely have to. I don’t blame her for keeping things from me,” I seethe, “but don’t confuse her coming to you for answers as unconditional trust based on the closeness you once shared. She comes to you because she’s desperate for answers. You have no idea what you’ve put her through over the last year. I’m the one who had to hold her at night for months while she cried. I’m the one who saw her broken down by heartache and despair, only to watch her find her strength again and be stronger for it. She’s not the same little girl you left behind when your search for answers left her alone and terrified.”
Oscar shoves me away from him with a snarl. For the second time tonight, he knows someone else is right, and he hates it. “This is a risky plan, regardless of all of this. We both know her well enough to see the truth. Spying and deceiving are not Van’s strongest areas. I doubt her ability to survive this deal unharmed.”
“She’ll be okay,” I say, but my conviction is thin, at best.
The way Oscar grimaces says his faith is about as foolproof as mine is.
“I’ll help her. I won’t let anything happen to her, Oscar, I promise.”
I expect him to lash out with another round, pointing out my many faults and failures, but he surprises me by saying, “I know you won’t.”
Oscar turns, then, and starts toward the hospital. Before he gets more than a few steps away, though, he turns back and locks gazes with me. “You proved yourself today, Zander, but don’t forget, I know how to get out of here, and I’ll use that knowledge if I need to.”