The Gender Secret Read online

  I focused on my senses, trying to find what had jolted me from sleep, when I heard something upstairs. There was a banging sound echoing down.

  Violet was still asleep, her exhaustion more profound than my own. I was loathe to wake her up, but if I didn’t, she would be mad at me later for excluding her.

  I shook her awake gently.

  She woke up, her eyes wild and confused. “Viggo?” she said groggily, her voice thick with sleep.

  “Listen,” I said, placing a finger on her lips.

  She froze for a second, tilting her head. There was a pause, and then the same banging sound, coming from upstairs.

  “Ms. Dale?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “It might be. Let’s just take our guns to be sure.”

  She flashed me a look, one that told me she would never be caught dead without her gun, and stood up.

  I did the same, tucking the gun into the band at the small of my back. Violet was staring at me, her eyes scanning me from top to bottom.

  “You took a shower,” she said, her tone half-observant, half-accusatory.

  “You passed out,” I replied with a smirk, pushing past her.

  “Viggo?”

  I paused, glancing at her from over my shoulder. She was looking back at the bed. She turned back to me, and gave me a nervous smile. “You… weren’t… sleeping with me, were you?”

  I tossed back my head and laughed. She was too naive at times. “Of course I was, Vi. But for safety reasons.” I winked at her, and she gave a deep sigh, then followed behind me.

  We headed upstairs quickly. I pushed open the door and heard something clanging from the room where we had left Ms. Dale. I moved up to the door, and glanced into the room quickly. Violet was beside me, her gun out.

  “It’s Ms. Dale,” I whispered. “She woke up.”

  Violet bit her lip, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. “Wait here,” she said, and stepped around me into the room.

  “Ms. Dale?”

  The banging stopped. “Violet,” came the older woman’s voice.

  “Can you please lie back down? We worked really hard to help you, and I don’t want you undermining that while you’re still healing.”

  There was a long pause. “We?”

  That was my cue. I stepped into the room, behind Violet.

  Ms. Dale’s brown eyes raked me over. “You’re the idiot who shot me,” she said after a moment.

  I shrugged. “Guilty as charged.”

  Scowling at me, she sat down on the bed. “Did you miss, or were you actually trying to wing me?”

  “I don’t really like to kill women, so…” I trailed off, leaving her to her own implications.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re Patrian,” she announced.

  Violet cut in. “Ms. Dale, this is Viggo Croft. Viggo Croft, this is Melissa Dale. My former defense teacher.” Violet took a step closer to the older woman. “Except you’re not, are you?”

  Ms. Dale stared at Violet, her face unflinching. “You’re wanted for your crimes, Violet,” she stated simply. “You had to know that Matrus would send agents after you.”

  “Why you?”

  Ms. Dale paused, staring at both of us. “First, answer my question, Violet—why are you with this Patrian?” The way she said Patrian, like a slur rather than a cultural identity, made me feel a flash of rage.

  “My name is Viggo, Melissa,” I said.

  She did something with her face, a slight tightening in her facial muscles, but I could feel her disdain for me. I almost wanted to laugh in her face.

  Violet placed a sharp elbow in my side, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to serve as a warning. She wanted to handle this herself.

  I sighed, and crossed my arms. Fine, she could handle it herself. I was just going to watch Ms. Dale like a hawk.

  “Viggo helped me survive The Green,” Violet replied.

  “Surely you are aware that—”

  “He was sent from Patrus to arrest me for my crimes?” Violet interjected. “Yeah, who in this room hasn’t been sent to retrieve me?”

  Ms. Dale and I shared a look. I waggled my fingers at her, she gave me a look of disgust.

  Violet ignored us both. “Ms. Dale—I did not kill Queen Rina. Nor did I betray Matrus.”

  “Forensic evidence found your handprint at the scene. You ran away. You killed Lee.”

  Taking a deep breath, Violet reached into my bag and I watched her pull out the pieces of paper—Lee’s twisted confession and the two pictures. “Lee orchestrated everything,” Violet announced, handing the papers to Ms. Dale.

  I watched as Ms. Dale looked at the pictures, her face reflecting nothing. Then, she opened the letter. I observed her closely, and I was glad I did. Her lips tightened slightly as she started to read. There was a flash of recognition in her eyes, quickly hidden.

  I doubted Violet noticed—she seemed focused on the letter and Ms. Dale’s opinion of it. I wanted to warn her that it wouldn’t matter—Ms. Dale would still feel compelled to take her in—Matrus needed to catch someone for the crime. Then again, I knew Violet knew that already. She was nurturing a moment of false hope, and I didn’t have the heart to remind her that it was false.

  The silence stretched out, punctuated only by the sound of paper rustling as Ms. Dale read. Then she handed it back to Violet, along with the pictures.

  After taking a moment to collect herself, Ms. Dale started speaking, her voice soft. “Violet, we need to return to Matrus with this, and the egg. We can sort it out when we get back. I’ll help you.”

  Violet hesitated, her eyes searching Ms. Dale’s, who offered her a small tight smile.

  “You’re lying,” I announced. Ms. Dale glanced at me, and then turned her gaze to Violet.

  “You know you can’t trust a Patrian,” she said. “They don’t care about women. You lived over there with them. You’ve seen how they treat us. Like we’re no better than dogs.”

  “Hey, Matrians aren’t much better,” I shot back. She bristled, but I barreled on. “The tests that you run on all the boys, singling them out for aggressive tendencies? You convict them before they have a chance to commit a crime. They’re innocent, but you deem them guilty, brand them, and send them away.”

  “It’s to ensure the continuity of our way of—”

  “Save it,” I said, cutting her off. “Patrians may place women low in social standing, but at least they still have rights. You don’t even give those boys that. You just ship them off.”

  Violet had been standing silent while we argued, but opened her mouth, cutting me off. “I am not going anywhere with either of you,” she stated, matter of fact. “Because no matter where I go, I’m dead. Strung up as a villain so that both of your little civilizations can continue to spin and play your petty games.”

  Ms. Dale opened her mouth to protest, but Violet waved a hand, silencing her. She leaned over Ms. Dale, her face a mask of stone. “Ms. Dale, there is only one thing I want from you,” she said, her voice soft and deadly.

  Ms. Dale, for her part, looked non-plussed. “You’re not in any position to demand—”

  “You are restrained, wounded, in a facility where I have a gun and you do not. I am in the position to do whatever I want. And while I don’t want another death on my conscience, this is incredibly important to me.”

  Ms. Dale searched Violet’s face for a long moment, and then nodded. “What do you want?”

  “Where are the mines?”

  Ms. Dale sighed. “I don’t know, Violet. To the north?”

  Violet absorbed the information for a moment, and then nodded. “Thank you for nothing,” she said, before stalking out of the room. I felt torn in that moment. I wanted to question Ms. Dale further, but Violet was clearly upset.

  “Do you have any idea what she’s been through?” I asked abruptly, the words exploding from my throat.

  Ms. Dale didn’t bat an eyelid. “That story is just that—a story. I thought maybe… but
after hearing all of this… it sounds insane.” She paused, giving me a piercing look. “And if you believe it… well, then you’re not thinking with your brain.”

  My jaw clenched, and I whirled on my heel and left, closing and securing the door behind me. I started to follow after Violet, but I paused, Ms. Dale’s words rolling through my head, making me second guess myself.

  I wanted to believe Violet so badly at this point. Everything she had done and said… it had been in earnest. Yet, I couldn’t get past the fact that she had planned to betray me. That she had spent weeks earning my trust, knowing that I would be indicted for her actions.

  I needed to think.

  24

  Violet

  I was livid as I stalked down the stairs back into the living area. My hands were shaking with unspent rage, and I could feel red hot tears threatening to spill from my eyes.

  My foot barely touched the carpet before I was running. Down stairs and through the levels, until I reached the common area. Only there could I let out my cry of frustration.

  I kicked a sofa, and then snatched a throw pillow off it, screaming into it before I sent it hurtling across the room. I wanted to destroy something—to take my rage out on an inanimate piece of furniture—so that I could just get whatever it was inside of me out.

  I felt like I was coming apart at the seams. I tried to sit, to calm my breathing, but it didn’t help. The sensation, the urge to fight, was crawling up from a pit in my belly and threatening to force its way out through my mouth.

  I had expected… something different from Ms. Dale. At the very least, I had expected her to be honest. The way she had reacted to Viggo after he had called her a liar though… was there anyone in this world I could trust?

  My heart told me I could trust Viggo, but even that was uncertain. Almost as uncertain as my feelings toward him, and his toward me.

  My eyes darted around the common room. I needed something, anything, to vent my wrath on. My gaze came to rest on a punching bag off in one corner of the room. This corner was clearly designated for fitness, given the weights and machines scattered around. However, I only had eyes for that punching bag.

  Without thinking about it, I sprung myself at it, my body tense as a coil ready to be released. I planted a kick against it so hard that it started to swing on the chain that supported it. I landed, and caught it, throwing my arms around it in a bear hug to pull it to a stop.

  Once it had settled, I began to punch, kick, and elbow it with a vengeance. My hands were unprotected, but if there was any pain in my knuckles hitting the rough fabric, I didn’t notice.

  I kept hitting it over and over and over again. There was something satisfying about each thudding strike against the bag. I could feel it resonating through my limbs as I struck it. Each hit was a visceral feeling of release, a promise of freedom, a wealth of control that I had been sorely lacking.

  I knew why I was upset—I didn’t need to psychoanalyze myself. I was doomed. A dead girl who didn’t have enough sense to lie down and accept it. I had fought and struggled and pushed and survived in The Green, only to have the people of this world find me guilty—just so they could have a face to vilify.

  And those very same people had sent two out of the three most important people in my life to capture me. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hurt the world like it had hurt me. I had believed, foolishly, that if I just told the truth, I would be believed, but nobody cared about the story of a criminal.

  Except for maybe Viggo. Maybe. A nauseating pit in my stomach opened, threatening to swallow me up. If there was just one person in the world who I wanted to believe me the most, it was Viggo. I just wished he would tell me that he did.

  I wished for a lot of things. Wishing was pointless, and so were tears, anger, regret, and shame. I needed to move past that.

  But I couldn’t catch a break either. I had hoped that Ms. Dale would have some knowledge about the mines, but she clearly didn’t. Not that I didn’t put it past her to lie to me, but then why would she lie about something so small?

  I continued to hit, shifting my stance into a purely boxing one. I threw jab after jab at the bag, mixing in hooks and uppercuts when I felt the need to see the bag move from the force of my blows.

  How was I going to accomplish anything? Where was my stupid old woman who was going to guide me on this merry old adventure? Why didn’t anything ever work like the stories did?

  I stopped mid punch, my fist coming to rest on the bag. I took a deep breath, and felt the rage leaving me almost as suddenly as it had appeared. I looked down at my hands—the skin over the knuckles raw and torn, blood welling up from the bigger wounds.

  I shook my head, and took a few steps back. There were small blood marks all over the bag, from where I had been punching. I flexed my hands and rotated my shoulders—all habits I had developed from when I was in defense class—and sat down heavily on a couch, pressing my head into my hands and sucking in a deep breath.

  This wasn’t like the stories—I wasn’t some plucky heroine on a great adventure—I was Violet Bates. A simple nobody who had broken the law, murdered two girls, and then got sent on this mission that had gotten messed up beyond recognition.

  I needed to own my part in everything, and realize that my decisions had consequences from here on out. I knew what I wanted—to be free from all this, and to have my brother returned to me. I had a bartering chip—the egg. And more than that—I had a place to hide—this facility.

  The first step to moving forward was to finish clearing the facility. From there, I would interrogate Ms. Dale again, and find out if she was interested in making an exchange—my brother and safe passage for the egg.

  I wondered how Viggo would react to my plan. I debated not telling him, but the first step to earning back his trust was to be honest in every way that I could. If he didn’t go for it… well, too bad. It wasn’t his decision to make.

  I would have to find a time to tell him. After we finished clearing the facility.

  Breathing in, I stood up and began stretching. The nap I had earlier was barely putting a dent in the exhaustion I was feeling. Not to mention, I was still covered in sweat and grime and whatever else had been building up on my skin and in my hair for the past few days.

  My skin crawled with the thought of all the dirt on me. A shower would make everything right again.

  I turned the hatch and headed upstairs, toward the living quarters.

  I reached it in ten minutes—after taking an apple break in the greenhouse—and immediately began inspecting the rooms. I had found a few things that I was reasonably sure I could fit in, and I laid them out on the bed. I had chosen a different room than the one I had slept in—if only because the fact that I had slept dirty in the bed was gross—and stepped in the shower.

  It was amazing how a simple thing like a shower went unappreciated. I had missed showers. The water was instantly hot as I turned the dial over, and without a second thought, I stepped under the spray of water, letting the scalding hot water pepper my skin. I was mesmerized by the streams of water—more mud—that came off of me and collected at my feet.

  Soaping myself, I exhaled in relief as the water coursed over me, cleansing me of everything. It felt like a weight was being lifted off of me as I scrubbed my skin, turning it red.

  Washing my greasy hair—hair that had not been washed in what felt like eternity—was probably one of the best things that had happened to me in that same eternity.

  There was a certain amount of civility that came from having a shower for the first time in a long time. It was like I ceased being an animal locked in a constant battle over fight and flight reflexes, and started being a higher functioning human.

  As I stepped out of the stall, steam billowing behind me and fogging up the mirror, I felt more whole, like a small part of my dignity had been restored.

  As I entered the bedroom, Viggo was sitting on the bed waiting for me. I almost screamed, I was so surprised to see him t
here. I clutched my towel closer to me, and gaped at him.

  He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his fingers interlaced into a fist that he used to support his chin.

  A flash of irritation flowed over me—I just needed a moment of peace!

  “Get out,” I ordered, stepping around him over to the door. I rested my back against it, and used my free hand to point out the door, further emphasizing my need for him to leave.

  He didn’t react, save to adjust his seat so that he was facing me. His green eyes twinkled in amusement, and I felt the spark of rage from earlier flare up again.

  “Fine,” I spat, reaching over to grab the clothes I had collected from the bed. “I’ll go.”

  His hand moved with the speed of a snake, but he was gentle as he caught my arm. I tugged at him, but he pulled me to him, his strength overcoming my own. Although, to be honest, I didn’t struggle that hard.

  He pulled me into his lap, and I flushed, very aware of how vulnerable I was in this position, wearing nothing but a towel. I pressed my hands against his chest, trying to push away from him, but he held me fast.

  Before I could stop him, he had sunk his hands into the wet tendrils of my hair, holding my head in place.

  I gave a little gasp, and then his lips were pressing against mine urgently. Something snapped in me, and I pressed against him, my free hand wrapping around the back of his neck. I kissed him back hungrily.

  Viggo was careful as he kissed me, holding me only by my hair. Even his kiss was controlled. It was slow and domineering, flooding my senses with electricity that ran from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes. I moaned involuntarily.

  We broke the kiss after a long moment.

  “What was that for?” I breathed.

  His eyes seemed to pierce me. “I wanted your full attention,” he replied, the corner of his mouth turning up.

  I swallowed, clutching the towel tightly, keenly conscious of its meager protection. “You have it,” I replied carefully.