Predestiny

by Phipps, C. T.

  I looked at her and sighed, hoping she would see that I cared for her, but my girlfriend just wouldn’t let it go. “Damn it, Robbie! Say something!”

  I opened my mouth, struggling to say the words. “I … I can’t tell you.”

  Frustrated, Anna gestured over to Jane. “But you can tell her?”

  Jane stood as still as a rock and simply shook her head, unmoved by Anna’s passion. “He didn’t have to tell me anything.”

  Anna now looked just as offended as she was annoyed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I reached out to gently place a hand on her shoulder. “It means the less you know the safer you’ll be.”

  She angrily shrugged it off. “But I don’t want to be safe!”

  After realizing what she’d done, Anna softened her voice and moved in close to me. “Whatever’s going on with you … we’re in it together. Whether it’s standing against Butterfly or something completely different. But I need you to trust me. I need you to tell me the truth.”

  Her eyes were wide and heavy. I’d never seen them filled with such compassion. If I had ever questioned her love for me before then there was no doubting it now, but that only further justified keeping her in the dark. Especially after today, when so many people died because of me.

  Regardless of how simple they were, it took a tremendous amount of strength to force the next two words from my lips. “I’m sorry.”

  I couldn’t quite read the next expression on Anna’s face. It was a mixture of pain and disappointment that filled my gut with guilt.

  I didn’t get to see it long, though. She only looked at me for an instant before walking past and storming out of the basement.

  With Anna gone, my focus shifted to Reverend Tully. It was a sad and horrifying sight, but I kept myself from looking away. I needed to see him and remind myself how easily that could’ve been my girlfriend.

  And if that wasn’t enough, Jane also had to drive the point home. “You’re doing her a favor.”

  I dropped my chin onto my chest with my back still to her. “Then why doesn’t it feel like it?”

  “Emotions are clouding your judgment,” Jane explained in her cool tone of wisdom. “Cody and Esther are definitely lost without Gunner, but they’re still out there. You’re not in the clear just yet and telling Anna the truth will only put her in danger.”

  She was obviously right, but I was angry and lashed out as I turned around to face her. “Like you told me the truth about the Scorpion ordering his own execution?”

  Although it was barely any, Jane still showed about as much remorse as I assumed she was capable of. “I said I was sorry for that.”

  “And I forgave you, but that doesn’t mean you’re not hiding anything else from me. ‘Protecting me’ just like you think I’m protecting Anna.”

  I didn’t know exactly where my suspicions came from. I guessed they were always there and I just refused to admit them. Jane had been my protector and a source of strength since this sci-fi nightmare began. Now she looked shocked as my accusation caught her completely off guard. “I’m not.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, still riding the anger from my fight with Anna. “It still doesn’t add up.”

  Confusion was now added to the surprise on Jane’s face. “What doesn’t?”

  “You. The Hope Assassins. The Scorpion. And quite frankly, why I’m not already dead.”

  It was a difficult thing to acknowledge, but it was also true. Jane was ordered to kill me and yet here I was, alive and well. It was still hard for me to believe and Jane reiterated the same reason for it as before. “I told you. So that I can steer you towards a better future.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a hint of sarcasm. “But what made you come to that conclusion exactly?”

  Jane opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. It was almost as if she wanted to talk on instinct and just couldn’t come up with an excuse fast enough.

  It was the first time I had seen her speechless and I used the silence to further hammer home my point. “Gunner and the rest of them were insane fanatics. They would’ve jumped off a cliff if the Scorpion told them to. Not you, though. You saw me for five minutes and all of sudden had a change of heart. Seems kind of strange, doesn’t it?”

  Jane’s cheeks flared. She was growing frustrated by my pestering. “I just did, okay?”

  “You expect me to believe that the one person chosen to lead a mission of die-hard zealots decided to rethink her entire life out of nowhere?”

  Jane stiffened her back, trying to regain some semblance of the stoic soldier she’d always been. “I don’t care what you believe.”

  I saw weakness in her, though. Not physically but something else, and I had to see it through to the end. “Come on, Jane. You were the only one on your mission that the Scorpion trusted with his real identity. Why is that?”

  Jane shrugged with an annoyed scowl on her face. “It had to be somebody.”

  “So he chose you?” I asked cynically. “The teenager most likely to betray him?”

  “He didn’t have a choice,” revealed Jane, letting a previously unmentioned detail slip. “I already knew who he was.”

  “How?!” I shouted, demanding to know more.

  Jane defiantly shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?!” I badgered. “I deserve to know the truth!”

  Jane pushed back with an attitude. “Who says?”

  “I do! People are dying and if there’s a chance I could—”

  “Because he’s my father!” Jane interrupted me with the secret she’d been hiding. It exploded out of her as if she always wanted to tell and couldn’t contain it any longer.

  Now she stood in front of me, rapidly panting to catch her breath. Only when she finally calmed down did she repeat herself in a more heartfelt confession. “The Scorpion was my dad, Robbie.”