The Gender Secret Page 16

  He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second, before opening them. “I believe you,” he said, his voice somber and sincere.

  I studied his face for a long second—both eager and reluctant to trust him—searching for a clue to his true intention.

  After a pause, he repeated himself. “I believe you,” he breathed across my face, pressing his forehead to mine. He hugged me closer, crushing me into his chest.

  “Really?” I whispered. I hated how hopeful I sounded. It felt like a weakness to want and need Viggo’s trust.

  He nodded, his eyes closed and his face solemn. “Really,” he replied, pressing his lips to mine once more.

  I hesitated again. “Why?”

  Viggo peered down at me, and sighed. “After you stormed out… Ms. Dale said something that was in line with my own suspicions about you.” My stomach clenched in uncertainty as I watched him. “But the more I thought about it, the more I felt like it was turning a blind eye to the truth. Ignoring evidence to make the narrative work. That’s not who I am or who I want to be. You made mistakes, Violet, but I want to believe that you were in over your head, in an impossible situation. I’m choosing to believe that.”

  Tears began pouring down my cheeks. I hadn’t even been aware that they had been forming. The relief I felt in that moment was palpable, like another stone I could stop carrying.

  “Thank you,” I sniffled, scrubbing my cheeks with one hand.

  Viggo smiled a small smile, and disentangled his hands from my hair in order to wipe my tears away. “You’re welcome.” He pressed his lips to my forehead.

  We held each other for a long moment, just taking comfort in the other’s arms. It was exactly what I needed, what I had been searching for. I felt stronger, like I finally didn’t have to shoulder everything on my own. I was afraid of the future, but now it felt like I didn’t have to face it alone.

  25

  Viggo

  Violet had drifted off to sleep again, but I was wide awake. Coming to the decision to believe Violet, believe everything she had told me, had been hard. I'd had to come to terms with things that weren’t exactly comfortable for me.

  Everything I had told her was true. I had no desire to be another pawn in whatever this game was that our two governments were playing. The easiest way to win this game was to stop playing. But it was more than that—forgiving Violet for her part in the bombing had been hard. It was like I had a bitter peach pit in my stomach, slowly dissolving to acid.

  Until I thought about my wife. When she had come to me, covered in blood, she had begged me to believe her. To help her. And while I had done the latter, it had been hard for me to do the former. I blamed her for going out without me. I hadn’t put myself in her shoes.

  It was my biggest regret, one that still haunted me. I didn’t want it to be that way with Violet. For all her faults, and regardless of what the future held, she needed my forgiveness, even if she hadn’t forgiven herself. I also needed to forgive her—I did not want to carry this poison pill of anger toward her anymore.

  The biggest pill to swallow was that by joining Violet, I was essentially exiling myself. I thought of my future plans to move deeper into the mountains, isolating myself further from Patrian life and politics, and realized that while it wasn’t necessarily the way I wanted to do it, I was still doing the same thing, just in a different setting than I originally intended.

  For a fraction of a second, I had considered doing the opposite. I could deliver Violet to King Maxen, get my back pay, and go back up to my home and close the world out. I could spend time on my mountain becoming completely self-sufficient, and all it would cost me was a girl. It was akin to selling my soul, and I despised myself for having that moment of doubt. I could never trade Violet’s life—any woman’s life—for something as selfish as a mountain view and isolation. The price was too high.

  While I didn’t necessarily agree with the politics between Matrus and Patrus, I had come to terms with the flaws of both places a long time ago. Cruelty didn’t have a gender qualifier behind it—it was an ever unraveling human condition, cast out by pride, power, and indifference—and both nations had their fair share of it.

  Yet this small woman curled up against me had reminded me that it was the masses who were cruel, not the individual. I had built a wall up to defend against the cruelties I saw day to day, so that they couldn’t affect me. It was self-preservation, pure and simple, one born from the conviction and death of my wife.

  I had mourned her. And the tragedy of her loss still ran deep inside me. I had spent so much time wondering what I could have done differently, how I could’ve helped her adjust, when the reality was that I loved her, just the way she was. But there was no place that could tolerate us both as individuals and a couple. We were doomed from the start.

  I stroked Violet’s hair before gently extracting myself from her. I hadn’t been able to make my wife feel safe—or even comfortable within Patrus—but I could do something for Violet.

  It was time to go talk with Ms. Dale.

  She was hiding something. As an investigator, I knew that. She was trained to avoid revealing her emotions in any way, but there had been a momentary flash of surprise on her face when she was reading Lee’s letter, and I wanted to know what it was.

  As I climbed the stairs, I contemplated the interrogation techniques I had learned, and completely dismissed them. Ms. Dale had probably undergone training to be immune to that. It was in what she wouldn’t reveal that I would find answers, but it was going to be tricky to do. Odds were that I wouldn’t get anything out of her. I still had to try though.

  Ms. Dale appeared to be sleeping. I watched her for a few minutes running over the brief outline of a plan I had formulated on the way up. It was the only way to proceed, but I still felt a moment of apprehension as I placed my hand on the door.

  I took a moment to accept the possibility that she was all she claimed to be. That she knew nothing, and was only there because of her relationship with Violet in the past.

  I opened up the door and let myself inside.

  Ms. Dale’s eyes were twin slits, and I could see the faintest brown sparkling from them. She opened her eyes fully and sat up, her hands smoothing the thin blanket covering her, before clasping them together.

  “Thought about what I said?” she asked carefully, her face a perfect mask.

  I leaned against the door, studying her. “Not really,” I lied with a little shrug.

  “Don’t be an idiot, Croft,” she said pertly.

  I smirked at her. “Not intending to be one,” I replied. “You don’t know me, Ms. Dale.”

  There was a small twitch, at the corner of her left eye. I wouldn’t have noticed it, if it weren’t for the fact I was watching so closely.

  It took experience and practice to become a good liar, and even then, there were small tells that could give a person away. A trained liar developed perfect control over their face. Ms. Dale had that mastery over her facial muscles, but I had noticed something in our last interaction, and it was something I was hoping to exploit now.

  “Unless you do know me?” I said, sauntering in the room. “Of course, that would be ridiculous. Why would a simple, humble defense teacher know anything about a warden from the other side of the river? There would be no reason for you to know me.”

  She stared back at me, seemingly waiting. I continued to talk, anticipating silence as a ploy from her. “Then again, you might know if you were more than a simple, humble defense teacher. If you were a spy, you would probably know a lot more.”

  There it was—that subtle tightness that pulled her face tight against her skull. Her eyes went flat and hard. I remained calm—her subtle reaction wasn’t necessarily an indicator of anything just yet.

  “You know, Violet is really talented,” I said abruptly, changing the subject.

  Brief flashes of emotion passed over Ms. Dale’s face—surprise and confusion—before disappearing under that careful m
ask once more.

  “How do you mean?” she asked, her voice devoid of interest. Yet she had asked, meaning she was interested. That was a good sign.

  “Well, she was your defense student, right?”

  She gave me a tight nod. It was easy enough to give me that information; after all, it was well-known. “I trained with Violet for years,” she said curtly.

  “Was she one of your more promising students?”

  Her face went flat again, but there was a minuscule tightening. “All of my students show promise in a variety of ways. Violet was no different.”

  “She was able to hold her own against me.”

  Ms. Dale smirked at me, giving into her apparent pride and disdain for me. That was a good sign—it meant she could be broken. “I trained her well.”

  I nodded. “It makes me wonder what your plans were for her had she finished her training.”

  Shrugging, Ms. Dale watched me, her brown eyes glittering. “It would be up to her, really. You see, in Matrus, we allow women to choose their own path.”

  “Yeah,” I retorted. “While allowing your men limited options in professions.”

  “At least our men have professions,” she replied calmly, picking at some invisible lint on her blanket.

  I felt disappointed—I had hoped that going after Matrus would get her irate, or at least irritated, but she was too good for that. It made my belief that she was a spy even more palpable. I decided to call her on it.

  “You’re a spy,” I announced, studying her face.

  She rolled her eyes, presumably in exasperation, but it was all behind that careful mask she wore.

  “You also know something you aren’t saying about that letter.”

  “What letter?”

  I sighed, tapping my fingers on the table next to me. “Don’t play stupid with me, Ms. Dale. It’s insulting to both of us.”

  “Oh, that forgery that Violet tried to present as Lee’s confession?”

  It was my turn to roll my eyes at her. “I think you and I both know that it wasn’t a forgery.” Ms. Dale fell silent. I studied her face, and nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  I turned on my heel, prepared to walk away, when she bit on my bait. “What makes you think it’s not a forgery?”

  I half turned, and shot her a disbelieving look. “You really think that Violet forged it?”

  She paused, and then inclined her head a fraction of an inch. I started laughing, letting the sound fill up the room for several long seconds, before letting it die in heaving gasps.

  I held up my hands. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Dale. Clearly, I was wrong. I mean—if you can’t figure out why it’s the real deal, then I was clearly mistaken. You go back to sleep.”

  “Of course I know why it’s real, you idiot, I—” She paused, her mouth agape, and I felt a supreme sense of satisfaction roll over me. I was going to be smug for the next few days, but I’d earned it.

  I crossed over to the foot of her bed, letting the smile play across my lips. “You recognized something in that letter. Something important.” I pulled it out of my pocket. “It was toward the beginning.” I scanned the first paragraph nonchalantly, while she watched, her face pulled back in that mask. Yet her eyes were glistening, probably in anger for what I had gotten her to confess.

  “I bet it’s one of these names here,” I drawled as I watched her. Again, there was that tightening, like she was barely keeping her skull from leaping out and snapping at me. “One of his accomplices, maybe? Chris Patton? Duncan Friedman? Seb Morrissey? Jacob Venn?” Her face remained blank as I listed the names, and I felt an instant irritation. I scanned the rest of the letter. She had reacted to the names jab, but none of them had inspired anything.

  I froze as I started scanning the letter again. “It’s Desmond, isn’t it?”

  This time, Ms. Dale’s eyes flicked away, starting at a fixed spot on the wall. I paused as I pondered that. Desmond was Lee’s middle name, according to Violet. So why had Ms. Dale reacted to that?

  I stared at her, the question on the tip of my tongue, my mind trying to understand what Ms. Dale was telling me with her silence. I stalled myself, my mind not willing to reveal my ignorance, but it was puzzling. There was no reason for her to react to her own spy’s name. None whatsoever.

  Unless the Desmond in the letter was the name of another person, and it was coincidental that they shared the same name.

  The realization hit me like a ton of bricks, and for a second I felt a rush of elation, until I realized that I still had no idea who the Desmond in the letter was.

  But Ms. Dale did. I studied the older woman while I ran through everything in my head. That meant that Lee wasn’t necessarily crazy, he just happened to be working with someone else whose name was Desmond. It was a coincidence, nothing more, but it had thrown Violet and me completely down the wrong path.

  I wanted to hit myself for being so quick to jump to assumptions. Desmond, whoever he was, was a player in this, and I was betting Ms. Dale knew who he was and what he wanted. I could work with that.

  Placing my hand on the foot board of the bed, I leaned over. I started to say something, when a sound down the hall stopped me.

  Ms. Dale and I exchanged looks as a loud clanging sound came from the room with the airlock. There was a banging sound, and then silence. I backed out into the hallway, pulling my gun and feeling like an idiot for not barricading the airlock door.

  The hand wheel on the hall began to turn but stopped with a clang. Then it moved in the opposite direction, and there was a slight thud as something impacted with the door. I saw the rod I had shoved in the mechanism start to fall.

  Violet flashed in my mind, and without waiting to see who opened the door, I turned and ran, the sound of the rod clattering to the ground masking the sounds of my footsteps.

  26

  Violet

  A hand over my mouth tore me away from the deep sleep I had been enjoying. I opened my eyes, fists clenching to lash out, when I saw Viggo’s face inches from my own. He looked grim, and pressed a finger to his lips. I nodded and he removed his hand.

  I sat up on my elbow, clutching the sheet to me, while he went around the room. He tossed my borrowed pair of pants at me, and began packing up my bag in a hurry. I pulled the pants on under the sheets, then hurried to put my shoes on.

  Standing up, I looked at him. “What is it?” I mouthed.

  He shook his head, his eyes staring at the door that led to the upper level. “We need to move,” he whispered back. He held out the bag to me.

  I took it, and almost fell over at the unexpected weight in there. Pausing to open it, I saw the gleaming silver case of the egg.

  Looking up at Viggo, he shook his head again, and then nodded to the door leading down. “Move,” he commanded.

  I hefted the backpack over my shoulder, and began to move as quickly as possible down the hall. I heard a clang upstairs just as I reached the door. Spinning the hand wheel, I pushed open the door, and stepped through. Viggo followed quickly, closing the door.

  “I can’t barricade the door from this side,” he whispered.

  Nodding, I headed down the stairs, trying to make my footsteps as quiet as possible on the corrugated metal of the stairwell. I could hear something banging from upstairs, and I looked over at Viggo, who shot me a smug grin.

  “I barricaded it. It’ll buy us a little—”

  He cut off as the sound of something screaming filled the air. It took me a second to realize that the sound was the straining of metal on metal.

  “Go,” Viggo urged, gently pushing me back to the door to the next level.

  I went. The door practically flew open under my hand and I stepped through, making my way across the orchard to the next door. Viggo closed the door behind us, tightening the hand wheel. I heard him fiddling with something, but I was too preoccupied with making it to the opposite door and opening it to pay attention.

  The door swung open to the stairs, and
I looked back. “Viggo,” I hissed. “Leave it. We’re wasting time.”

  Viggo took a few steps back to check his work, when something on the other side of the door slammed into it so hard the door frame shuddered.

  He began running toward me, waving me forward. I ran, leaping down the first flight of stairs and landing on the first landing. Viggo had already caught up, his legs tearing down the stairs two or three steps at a time.

  My heart was pounding in my throat. “What did that?” I whispered, flinching. My whisper felt too loud in this small concrete space.

  Viggo shook his head, his hands spinning the next hand wheel. “No idea. I think it’s best not to find out.”

  The door swung open and we both stepped in. Viggo closed the door, and I raced to the couch. Grabbing one of the massive arms, I began to pull it toward the door, straining with effort.

  “Leave it, Violet,” Viggo whispered.

  “It’ll slow whatever it is down,” I insisted, digging my heels into the carpet and dragging it a few feet closer.

  “We should keep moving,” he hissed, heading to the next door.

  “Who do you think it is?” I asked, giving up on the couch and moving next to him.

  He bent over to fiddle with his barricade. He had jammed a piece of iron pipe through the locking mechanism, and was now trying to pull it back out. I twisted the wheel, trying to give him slack, but it was already turned as far as it could go. His fingers were white, and I could see the cords of his muscles flexing as he pulled.

  Gritting his teeth, he planted his feet on the door and began to pull using his whole body. Behind us, I could hear someone struggling with the hand wheel.

  “I did too good a job on the door,” Viggo snarled, gripping the iron pipe tighter.

  I quickly slid my arms around his waist and began to help him pull. Suddenly, there was a bang on the door, similar to the one from the level above.