A Shameless Little Con

by Meli Raine

  “Go, then. I’m done trying to talk sense into you.”

  “I already have more than enough common sense, so quit wasting your time.”

  “You confuse stubbornness with common sense.”

  “And you confuse truth and lies. Leave me alone and stop following me. You make me stand out!” More passersby watch us, eagle-eyed, and paranoia rises in me. I stare back at them hard, moving one step closer to Silas as if this is just a lovers’ spat, nothing to see here, move along folks.

  Except he moves away from me, recoiling.

  “Leave me alone,” I whisper through tears.

  He ignores me, pressing his fingers against his ear, listening, frowning.

  I break into a light jog, slowing down as I see it just makes people look at me more. I take a deep breath and pretend to jolt, grabbing my phone out of my purse as if it had vibrated. Joining the masses, I stare at my phone, acting like I’m reading important business on it.

  Just blending in.

  I look up to see my little silver car, the back rear light cover cracked, the remnants of bumper stickers littering the bumper. I carefully scraped them off right after I was allowed to go home, deeply grateful to my past self for choosing a boring silver car back when I bought my little hybrid. Talk about fitting in here along the California coast. I look like a million other people on the I-5, and that’s a good thing.

  Boring is safe.

  Blending in means survival.

  Something darts from the front of my car. Looks like a bird, but bigger. Weird. As I tilt my head and narrow my eyes to get a better look, two things happen.

  One: a boulder made of muscle and pure sizzle collides with me from behind, my name a breathless growl on Silas’s lips as he slams me to the ground, knocking the wind out of me, making me freeze in pain. I can’t breathe, and as I buck underneath his immobile body, all rolling strength and steel-boned flesh, I look up.

  Two: a wave of heat sears my face as I look at my car, which is now engulfed in flames that shoot ten feet in the air, like someone poured brandy all over it and set it on fire for entertainment.

  Except I’m supposed to be in that car.

  All thoughts fade as my vision pinpoints, something hard on Silas’s chest digging into my shoulder blade. I’d scream if I could, but there’s no air. No air at all as I float off, my body spasming and thrashing under him, trying to breathe so the grey crowding my vision will stop.

  He rolls to the side, arm and leg over me, muttering into his earpiece, words and numbers in code. A great whoosh of air crushes my diaphragm, making me cough, the fire’s glow growing bigger. Silas’s mouth is against my ear, his breath hotter than any burning car, and he whispers:

  “Invisible. Blend in. Right. Doing a great job, Jane.” He huffs. “It’s like you don’t even exist.”

  Chapter 2

  I’m yanked roughly to my feet and half dragged to an SUV that pulls up with a screech, blocking the front entrance to the small strip of quaint little stores, covering a giant No Parking sign. Silas picks me up like I weigh nothing, like I’m a rag doll he can toss into a child’s toy chest. The car door snaps shut and I jerk to the right as we peel out, my body flopping into Silas, face-planting directly into his lap.

  I don’t exist, huh?

  “Get your face off my dick,” he says, lifting me by the arm.

  “Get your dick out of my face,” I shoot back, a thousand percent done with being treated so poorly. “And where do you think you’re taking me?”

  “Somewhere far away from the burning coffin you used to call your car.”

  I sit up and grab the seat belt so hard, it catches, forcing me to be patient as I reel it all the way back in, hear a click, then slowly pull the belt out, securing myself in place. The SUV is roomy, but it feels like we’re in an interrogation cell, stale, humid air filling my senses.

  Except I wish the air were stale. Instead, Silas’s scent dominates. There is something about a man in charge, a tingling mix of aftershave and nerves that makes breathing hard. Not unpleasant. Quite the opposite. I’m so angry.

  I don’t have room in my body to be turned on, too.

  Tamping that emotion down, I turn and look out the back window. We’re already so far away that all I see is a tall line of black smoke rising up, like a puppet’s string leading up to whoever’s in control.

  “My car,” I groan, the sound more like a wail.

  “You’re welcome,” Silas says tersely.

  “I’m what?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’m supposed to thank you? For what?”

  “For stopping you before you got turned into a human Pop-Tart in a Toyota toaster.”

  I gape at him, my hands pressed hard against the tops of my thighs. If I don’t, I might strangle him. “You follow me everywhere. I can’t fade into the woodwork and try to pick up some semblance of a normal life. I have some shadow intelligence agency tracking my every move, my car just got flame roasted, and I’m supposed to be grateful?” The air reeks of burnt gasoline and hair.

  He shrugs. “Wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Not in a million years, Jane. Not in a million years,” he says with a laugh that feels like rusty nails being dragged over sandpaper.

  “You used to be nice,” I spit out, hating my hurt tone.

  “And you used to be decent. Or at least you fooled everyone into thinking you were.”

  “I am decent!”

  He makes that sound again. The one that feels like a knife against my heart. Disgust radiates off him. Maybe that’s what I really smell in the SUV. The scent of my own rejection.

  My phone buzzes again. I ignore it. I’m being monitored by every government agency you can imagine, and my mother’s dead. Most of my texts are from sleazy newspapers offering me money for insider info. For nude pictures. Being falsely accused and turned into the villain in the biggest government scandal since Watergate means people offer you seven figures to take off your clothes.

  If I were as indecent as Silas thinks I am, I’d take the deal.

  As it stands, though, I’m stuck being naked in other ways.

  “Take me home,” I say, but without conviction. I know he’ll tell me no. Besides, where is “home”? My mom’s house is a crime scene. My landlord evicted me from my apartment as soon as the scandal erupted. I’ve been living in safe houses and government-paid-for hotels since all the investigations ended.

  Ended.

  Nothing’s ended. Just the dog-and-pony show for the public. All of the nastiness is still present in my life. Every last pungent drop.

  “We’re taking you somewhere safe.”

  “You mean to Oz?”

  He frowns. “Australia?”

  I snort, the sound coming with a strange lump in my throat that I can’t handle right now. I will not cry. I will not cry.

  I will not cry in front of him.

  “No. The Wonderful World of Oz. You know, that magical safe place that doesn’t exist?”

  “You’re ranting.”

  “I have every right to rant.”

  His eyes take me in, gaze piercing. For once, he’s looking at me. Really looking, as if studying me matters. As if I matter. No one has looked at me like this in six months. For half a year, I’ve been arrested, detained, accused, advised, pitied, hated, and most of all–shamed.

  But I haven’t mattered.

  It feels like I can breathe again when Silas looks at me like this.

  His face is broad and skin clear, eyes the color of a placid Caribbean bay. With wide shoulders and perfect posture, he carries himself with purpose. No movement is wasted. No action is lost.

  At the same time, he is gentle and polite. I cannot judge him by his outer shell. Thick hair, a strong brow, a carefully shaven jaw... none of these tell me a single, solitary detail about Silas’s inner world.

  Turning toward me, his knee brushes against mine, the gesture so intimate, my body warms sudden
ly. I’m already nervous and edgy–who wouldn’t be, after that?

  This is different. I can’t stop staring back.

  “You do have a right to rant. You have lots of rights.”

  “Like what?”

  “You have the right to remain silent,” he starts, one corner of his mouth twisting with a sick cynicism I can’t stomach.

  So I turn away.

  And invoke that very right.

  “Gentian?” Drew Foster’s voice crackles on some sort of communication device. The driver hands Silas a two-way radio, big and bulky, like something from a 1990s television show.

  “Yes, sir?” Silas knows how to use it.

  “Secured?”

  Silas doesn’t bother to give me a glance. “Yes, sir.”

  “Looks like the firebombing of the subject’s car was just some internet trolls who took it from mom’s basement to the real world.”

  The subject? Now I’m the subject?

  I groan. I can’t help it. The sound comes out more emotional than I want. It’s more like a whimper.

  No. I can’t have that. My feelings are the only privacy I have left. I can’t reveal them.

  Silas turns away from me, his muscled body large yet graceful. When he was guarding my friend Lindsay, seven months ago, he always wore a suit. But Lindsay is Senator Harwell Bosworth’s daughter. People expect to see suited bodyguards surrounding her. For me, the men who follow my every move seem to dress in business casual wear.

  Which makes Silas even more attractive, for some reason.

  “Shitlords? Jane’s car was set on fire by shitlords?” Silas’s use of internet-speak for online trolls, vicious commentators who threaten people online for the sake of attention, surprises me. Maybe he knows more than I give him credit for. I’ve been dealing with shitlords online for a very long time.

  “Affirmative,” Drew barks. “Which makes this easier.”

  “Easier,” I mutter. Whatever that means. Nothing about my life has been easy. You know someone’s a hardened former special-ops high-level security person when they refer to any part of a firebombing as easy.

  “Not an inside job?” Silas asks, more as confirmation than inquiry.

  “No. Too messy. If they want to take her out, a public display of pyrotechnics definitely won’t be it,” Drew says.

  The clinical way they’re talking about methods people might use to murder me is fascinating. And terrifying.

  Mostly terrifying.

  “Tracked them down yet?”

  “Close. Looks like your average group of angry online guys who think John, Stellan, and Blaine got a bad rap.”

  I lose the ability to listen after that. A small minority of shitlords on the internet consider Lindsay’s attackers–correction, my attackers, too–to be the victims of a conspiracy designed to bring good men down. The video of Lindsay stabbing Stellan point blank in the crotch has been shown nearly as many times online as the most-watched cat video in internet history.

  And the comments on every copy of it? Don’t read them.

  Don’t. Save yourself the agony.

  My skin is a live wire as the implications of what just happened start to sink in. While fighting with Silas is a perfectly fine way for me to manage my panic, in the long run it won’t stop my body from reacting to the fact that someone just torched my car.

  Seconds before I was in it.

  “Was it a bomb?” I ask, feeling stupid.

  For once, Silas doesn’t treat me like I am. “A timed bomb. Yes.”

  “Why did it go off before I was in the car?”

  “Because shitlords aren’t exactly known for their technical prowess.” He shrugs, a muscle at his temple twitching in anger. “They spend more time perfecting their Photoshop skills on cartoon frogs than on the finer art of explosives.” The planes of his face change as emotion radiates out paradoxically, his controlled demeanor contrasting with the tells his body is giving.

  His anger is directed at them. Not me.

  It’s a nice change.

  “You mean it was a fluke that the bomb went off before I got in the car?”

  “Looks like it.”

  I sag against the window, bile rising in my throat. My hair feels like a wave of stone against my forehead. I push it off, feeling a dry grit in it. I peel whatever’s stuck in my hair out and look at my fingers.

  It’s like dust, but not.

  Silas watches, then frowns. “It’s singed.”

  “Singed?” The word doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

  “Your hair. The ends of it.” He reaches up and touches his own. “Looks like you were closer, so the heat got you and burned the ends.”

  “I was that close?”

  His face goes blank. “Yes.”

  My tongue feels big in my mouth, closing off my throat. I know what it means when security guys go blank.

  It means I was a lot closer to death than I thought.

  The shakes set in, making my knees knock together. Even my long maxidress can’t hide that. My thighs rub together under the long diagonal stripes. I cross my legs and arms, curling up into myself like a potato bug. If I roll into a tiny little ball, can I disappear?

  That’s the part I don’t understand. People don’t want me to exist. If they don’t want me to exist, why hound me? Why talk about me and follow me and torment me? Wouldn’t the path of least resistance be to ignore me into oblivion?

  Which is what Silas appears to be doing right now as he turns away. I get a cold shoulder after a hot car. Perfect.

  Just perfect.

  The driver turns on some music, the sound of 1970s rock filling the small space as we zig and zag our way out of Santa Barbara and into an old neighborhood I don’t know. Silas is murmuring into the walkie-talkie. I reach into my purse, pull out earbuds, shove them into my phone and open a music app.

  I mute it.

  I pretend to zone out.

  Pretending is the cornerstone of civilized society.

  It’s also the only way to survive this mess I’ve lived through for the past year.

  Longer, actually. I’ve been pretending since the night I found Lindsay naked, hog-tied, bruised and bloody, left by our three friends after they raped her. I wasn’t faking my outrage and horror that night. Definitely wasn’t pretending to feel compassion or empathy.

  But from the moment they took her away in an ambulance, I knew I had to shelter my knowledge. Put it deep inside me, in a place no one could ever reach.

  Because knowledge will kill you in politics. When you’re the child of people involved in a high-stakes governance game, you learn that by kindergarten.

  Exhibit A: my burning car.

  “She swears, Drew,” I hear Silas say. “I believe her. I don’t want to, but my gut says yes.”

  I know he isn’t talking about me. My heart wishes he were, but he’s not. My chest starts to cave in, the space where my soul resides a sinkhole. My belly curls, navel stretching back as if it’s trying to touch my tailbone. It makes breathing difficult, but that’s to be expected when I’m trying not to sob.

  A thousand feelings cry out inside me, like people in a large crowd screaming to be heard above the white noise of everyone just being. No single voice makes sense, even when some feelings are louder than others. It’s all crazymaking. As I sit here feeling like I barely escaped becoming a flambéed Jane, my skin wants to peel off me and run off to join the circus.

  People think the hardest part about being shamed is the feeling itself, but it’s not. People think that being in the media spotlight 24/7 is unbearable because of the constant intrusion into your life, but it’s not.

  All of that sucks, yes.

  The single hardest part is being inside your own body, your mind trapped in place, and living second by second without a chance to pause. Think. Breathe.

  Be.

  I fiddle with my phone as Silas continues talking. I pick up a few phrases, like “the senator” and “investigations confirm she�
��s not guilty” and “surveillance shows she’s not on Tor.” I know now that he is talking about me.

  The radio cuts to voices, the tone jarring as the ’70s rock turns to the intro of a famous radio show, one where a host picks a topic and various people do short segments about the topic.

  “Tonight, our focus is on a universally experienced emotion, one that crosses all cultures: shame.”

  Silas’s glance cuts to me. I see him out of the corner of my eye. I do not meet his gaze.

  “Internet shaming, to be specific. The convergence of hyper-modern technology and old-fashioned values makes the topic of shame uniquely fascinating. We all fear being shamed. It’s rooted in our DNA, for to be shamed means to be excommunicated–physically and/or emotionally–from others. It’s the whole point. When someone is called shameless, it’s always an insult, one driven by social horror. To be without shame is to be not quite human.”

  I almost throw up.

  I don’t imagine the choked, derisive sound Silas makes. I pretend to fiddle with my earbuds as if I’m not listening.

  “The internet gives humankind unprecedented access to instant communication with perfect strangers, leaving us with a sense of intimacy that is evolutionarily misplaced. We think we’re closer than we are to people when we Tweet, leave a Facebook comment, send an email. It’s as if technology allows us a shortcut, the brain equating the push of a button to Submit, Send, or Follow with the shake of a hand, the eye contact of introductions, the smile of an understood joke.”

  The skin around Silas’s eyes turns down, his brow lowering as he makes an expression of listening. I feel my breath tickle my hand as I hold the palm toward my mouth, elbow on the SUV’s armrest, turning away from Silas.

  I can’t look at him right now.

  I’m also not sure where we’re going and what’s about to happen to me.

  “Tonight, we’re going to look at three instances of modern-day shaming, and how technology plays a role. First, we’ll look at the most famous scandal in politics–”

  No.

  “–in US history with a report from our correspondent, Prakesh Mahti. Second, we’ll examine the internet campaign against Dr. Roberta Goundin...”