A Shameless Little LIE

by Meli Raine

  It flows down from a mountain, a waterfall of rushing energy, infusing me through osmosis with an enveloping love. Like a shockwave, my body jolts, powered by pure joy. The source of this force eludes me. I don’t care. My skin lights up, transported to a place where even the memory of pain is not allowed.

  Banished by all that is good and whole, clear and unmarred by unfairness or treachery, pain has no home in this wonderland. Animals dart through the woods at the base of the mountains. I am unafraid. I am invincible.

  I am invincible because I am loved here.

  A computer screen appears, a grotesque monster the size of a human being, the screen its head, a human body making up the rest of him. An electronic mouse, the older kind with a cord, snakes out of his ass from behind. The screen changes to a video of me being attacked, naked and vulnerable, the horror movie in front of me. Averting my eyes is impossible. Evasive maneuvers don’t work, the screen in front of me at all times, the monster blocking me from turning away.

  It’s always there.

  It will never, ever not be there.

  Suddenly, the signal dies, all the color distilling down to a single, solitary green dot. The monster falls, the screen cracking, spidering into a thousand tiny shards of glass that reanimate.

  They come for me.

  They come for a bloodletting.

  Before the first one draws blood, I’m protected by a long, homespun skirt, layers weighing me down, my head covered by a thin cotton hat. I reek of body odor, an old, ripe scent that comes from weeks without showering, from clothes that retain the sweat and blood of past days like a physical memory. My arms are wrenched, the pain bearable if not for the betrayal.

  For it is Silas who pulls me toward the pile of sticks with a tall wooden pole at the center. He’s even stronger than usual.

  “All witches must have a warlock, Jane,” Silas says, his voice going deeper, his eyes drawing me in, until I don’t know whether my soul is mine or the devil’s.

  “Caw! Caw!” calls out an onyx crow, the sound rhythmic, maddening, “Caw caw caw...” as it becomes too steady, an electronic sound of panic and terror.

  I wake up to smoke, the dream all over my skin, my scent mixed with an aged woodsmoke odor that won’t go away.

  “JANE!” Someone’s in my apartment, calling for me. I sit up, disoriented, wondering why I’m not burnt.

  Duff’s in my bedroom, with Silas right on his heels. I’m sleeping in a t-shirt and underwear, but I sit up, shocked by their appearance.

  “Get out!” Silas says, shouting over the loud alarm. A second one, interwoven over the other, creates a horrid cacophony, making it hard to think.

  Silas pulls a gun from his waistband and says to Duff, “This could be a set-up.”

  Abandoning all modesty, I climb out of bed and find my pj bottoms, shoving one leg in just as all the lights go off.

  Alarms continue, but the power’s been cut.

  “Gentian!” Duff hisses. The glow of his phone screen lights the room. I finish putting on the pants, then feel on the ground for my shoes, finding only one.

  “Get her out of here. Call for an SUV. This smells like a trap,” Silas barks. Duff acts quickly, moving down the hall in darkness save for his phone’s flashlight. I follow Duff, now smelling smoke, my injured shoulder banging a door jamb. I cry out but don’t stop, my bare toes curling in reaction to the pain.

  Silas says nothing behind me, his hand on the small of my back, gentle but guiding from the rear.

  People pour into the hallway in steady groups, the muttering of the confused crowd like holding a conch up to your ear at the beach. Duff’s in front of me, moving slowly, and Silas is on me, so close. Too close.

  And then I realize what they’re doing.

  This isn’t your standard fire alarm evacuation.

  They are shielding me with their bodies.

  We’re downstairs, the bare grass tickling my feet as we move to a small black car at the end of a narrow sidewalk, my soles on concrete quickly. The lingering strands of my dream make the grass feel erotic. I stuff that emotion down, down, down as I realize it’s happened again.

  I’ve let them take charge.

  Conditioned to obey, I just did what I was told.

  I stop in my tracks so fast, Duff doesn’t realize we have five, even eight feet between us for a few seconds.

  “It’s the small black car there,” Silas says, as if I’m confused.

  As if I don’t know where to go.

  “I know. But I’m staying here.” A firefighter walks by, her pace slower than I’d expect, and as Silas starts to argue with me, I call out, “Do you know what started the fire?”

  “Looks like a kitchen fire on the first floor. Small, contained,” she calls back with a smile. “Just stay outside until we can clear the building and get you back in.”

  I give Silas a smug smile. “See? No internet trolls armed with fire-alarm-pulling skills. Just a boring domestic reason for the fire.”

  “For once, it wasn’t someone trying to kill you,” Silas says cynically.

  “Don’t sound so disappointed.”

  He just glares at me. For the first time, I take a look at him. Pajamas. Inside-out t-shirt. Gun in his pocket, weighing his pajamas down. Like me, I’ll bet he woke from a dead sleep.

  Did he dream my dream? Was he burning me at the stake in his subconscious? Is he the “warlock” in my cryptic message? Was my father’s warning true?

  Gaslighters and sociopaths take truths about themselves and turn them around, accusing you of the very negative attributes they hold. Is Silas a master manipulator?

  Have I been played–body, mind, soul, and heart?

  Duff walks over to us and interrupts, handing me a phone. “It’s Senator Bosworth.”

  “Jane?” He sounds worried. “You need to do whatever Duff and Silas say. We haven’t sourced the fire in your building.” Notice how he doesn’t ask how I am? I’m sure Duff briefed him. Why interact with me on an emotional level when your staff can do it for you?

  “It was a kitchen fire.”

  “That’s what they say, but until we do more research and–”

  I hang up on him.

  “ALL CLEAR, FOLKS! It was just smoke! Fire’s out and you’re fine to go back to sleep,” calls out the same female firefighter I spoke to, clipboard in hand, her fingers cupped around her mouth to shout.

  Like everyone else, I walk to the main doors and join the cattle call to go into my apartment. Duff cuts me off, moving in front of me, Silas behind.

  “You’re being unreasonable,” Silas says in my ear, his breath heavy and intense as he leans forward, his voice coming through gritted teeth.

  “I’m being careful. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I’m being told details about you that don’t pass the sniff test?” I call back over my shoulder.

  “By who?”

  “Oh. Sorry. Can’t tell you that,” I say, smirking to myself. “Confidential.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Actually, no. Someone did warn me. Pretty credibly.” I stop and turn around, looking him in the eye. “Thanks for ending it first. You saved me the trouble.”

  I don’t mean a word I’m saying.

  He can tell. I can tell, though, that my words also hit the bullseye.

  “This isn’t about what we are–were. It’s professional. You’re not safe.”

  “You’re right about that.” I take a step back from him. Were. Ouch.

  “I don’t mean you’re not safe with me.”

  “I do.”

  “Do you really?”

  Do I really? Some part of me screams for him, even now as he challenges me, our bodies in a nebulous place from our broken slumber, the twin stresses of fire and predators making us raw. I don’t really, truly believe he’s trying to hurt me, but the signals inside that my heart and my head send to the rest of me are crossed. Transposed. The mess of confusion inside unsettles me.

  The confusion
itself is the danger.

  We reach the elevators but Duff takes me to the staircase, avoiding the crowd. He’s also avoiding any chance we’ll be trapped in a small space with no way out. Careful calibration of bodies in time and space is his and Silas’s job.

  I’m tired of being one of those bodies.

  My phone rings. It’s probably Harry. I ignore it. Duff’s and Silas’s phones both ring seconds after.

  Now I’m sure it’s Harry.

  “Drew.” Silas taps my shoulder. I ignore him.

  “It’s Drew on my phone. For you.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “He doesn’t care what you want.”

  “And that’s exactly why I don’t want to talk to him, Silas.”

  A gentle but insistent hand on my arm stops me. “You have to talk to him.”

  “No. I don’t. What are you going to do? Pin your phone against my ear and make me listen?”

  I hear Drew shout from the phone, “Is Lindsay giving her lessons? Good grief, Jane. Just come to The Toast today. 7 a.m.” His voice ends abruptly.

  “Message delivered,” Silas says tightly.

  “That doesn’t mean I’ll obey.” I put my hands up like a dog, begging. I stick out my tongue and pant. “Good girl,” I say. “Go fetch the stick. Go to the meeting. Submit to the exam.”

  Fall in love with a guy who can’t trust you.

  We reach our floor. I walk into my apartment. I close the door. I know Silas is out there, deliberating. I have to pretend. Pretend he’s not there.

  This isn’t a game of Candyland, though. I’m not a princess, and we aren’t surrounded by sweetly spun sugar in a fairytale that feeds my imagination. Emotional needs aren’t fantasy. They’re very real. Humans are wired for connection, and I’m down to Lindsay and Lily. That’s it. My only friends are a flower shop girl I click with and the woman the media thinks I betrayed.

  The clocks in my apartment all blink out of sync. My phone says it’s 5:33 a.m. Sunlight shines through the dining area. There’s no way I can fall back asleep.

  I set up the coffee pot. Turn it on. Take a shower. A semblance of normalcy is better than the alternative. If I have to pretend Silas isn’t there, I might as well prop up as many parts of the facade that help me to fit in as possible.

  Two cups of coffee later, I decide to torture myself with my phone. Hundreds of ignored notifications, texts, and emails, already filtered by Drew’s team, do not instill confidence in society’s capacity for compassion.

  Or decency.

  We really haven’t evolved past our baser impulses. Not one iota. Social media makes that abundantly clear.

  Shake it off, I tell myself, searching for Lindsay’s text. I brighten as I think about seeing her again.

  One notification from an online bookstore makes my heart race. I click to the book, a long line of reviews under it. Sorting by “most recent,” I find Lindsay’s very, very coded message.

  The book is about the abuses of patriarchy.

  I laugh, the sound dying in my throat as I read the book review. Five stars, as usual.

  The phallic symbolism discussions alone are illuminating, but understanding how women need to be armed with their own version of phalluses is its greatest contribution to the literature.

  That was Lindsay’s entire review.

  Huh? She wants me to... grow a penis?

  And then I get it. A chill runs through me.

  Phallus.

  Gun.

  I go to the locked box under my bed and pull it out. Opening it feels like unlocking a gate to hell. I do it anyway.

  I pull the gun and the clip out. There’s another layer beneath it. I pull up the insert to find a small holster. It’s designed for something smaller than a shoulder.

  It’s for the thigh.

  All the pieces fall into place. When you don’t know who to trust, you arm yourself. Physically, psychologically, emotionally–it doesn’t matter. You do whatever it takes to feel safe.

  I find a loose, long maxidress. It’s similar to the one I was wearing when my car was firebombed. The thin straps of the thigh holster feel exotic. Almost sexual. The gun rests along my inner thigh, just above the knee. I have a phallus between my legs.

  But this is one I point at the world. Not one that invades me.

  For a long, long time I stand at the window and stare into space until finally my vision goes white. The landscape of the busy city fades to nothing. I am nothing. My life is nothing. All that is left is self-preservation.

  But what self am I preserving?

  Who am I? What’s left of me?

  I shake myself out of it as someone taps on my door. It’s inevitable. Duff will take me to see Drew.

  I acquiesce.

  The car ride to The Toast is uncharacteristically quiet. No Silas, Duff’s being somber, and the radio isn’t on. The gun under my skirt feels so obvious. So blatant. Like the world can see it and thinks I’m an idiot for imagining otherwise. This feeling is familiar. I’ve always felt as if everyone can see my thoughts and feelings, no matter how carefully I hide them. It’s as if the rest of the world has some secret trick for how to be obscure, and I missed that lesson.

  Duff pulls into the lower level of the parking garage next to The Toast. He takes a sharp turn and goes into an area marked “Restricted.”

  Silas is standing right there.

  He looks bigger. Angrier. The suit he’s wearing shows off more muscle and breadth than I remembered. Is that how this is going to work? Every second of pleasure we shared will be seared in my memory, but my understanding of his body will fade over time?

  I have no perspective. No way to compare this experience to any other. He is my first. My one and only.

  And this is killing me.

  Maybe he’s spent the last few days bulking up. When I’m stressed, I drink coffee and go for walks. Maybe when Silas is stressed, he lifts weights. I don’t know.

  What I do know is that the way he looks at me is so different from that night at Alice’s, when she painted and we, well...

  We were we.

  Now we’re Silas and Jane.

  And in his eyes, I’m not even Jane.

  I am the enemy.

  “Go away,” I tell him, seriously starting to wonder if Harry’s warning is true. My skin turns prickly with panic. What if Silas really is my biggest threat? Why would he be here now, in a dark, sheltered space? Have I been lured to my death by Duff and Silas?

  It’s silly. Stupid. Paranoid and bizarre, but the doubt is there. So strong I can taste it, metallic and cloying.

  I press my knees together, the reassuring solidity of the gun ready for me to access at any time if I’m quick enough.

  Duff leads me to an elevator, exchanging a look with Silas that spikes my heart rate. Duff turns around and goes back to the car. I linger, brain racing to find a way out. I need to escape. Screw the 7 a.m. meeting at The Toast.

  I need to flee

  The air feels sinister. Deadly. I can’t explain it. I can only feel it. The elevator appears and Silas motions for me to get in. I bend at the knee, buying time.

  Not enough time.

  All witches have a warlock.

  What does it all mean?

  The doors start to close. As Silas steps forward to stop them, inspiration strikes. I lunge up and pull a fire alarm lever on the wall next to me, the ear-splitting sound so close, the speaker right there. The elevator doors freeze in place, just narrow enough to make Silas pause. He’s too big, so big today. The frozen doors are just enough.

  I run.

  I run as fast as I can, the gun rubbing against my thigh, lumbering up a set of stairs and out into the sunshine. No thought, no mind, no strategy. I realize Duff will be after me, Silas at his heels. I need cover.

  Another parking garage appears. I turn hard and run down the stairs, around and around and around in a spiral that feels like circling the drain until the stairs end and I burst out into a gas-sce
nted level of hell.

  Heart pounding, I find a giant pickup truck with space between it and the wall. I hide.

  I wait.

  Footsteps, loud and clacking, precise and searching. I can’t feel my hands and legs anymore. I’m detaching, nothing but blood that runs through an imaginary body. My head feels like it’s going to float away. I’m dead already, aren’t I?

  That’s how this feels.

  I slide my skirt up, the slip of fabric against my gooseflesh-covered calves a reminder I’m alive. The gun is loaded, safety on.

  Slowly, slowly, I lift the safety.

  Shoot to kill, my range instructors taught me.

  Aim for the heart.

  It’s not so different from love, is it?

  The footsteps sound softer, fading out as the person leaves. The tinny echo of movement in the stairwell lessens. My thighs scream in pain, hamstrings tight, overworked, overwhelmed.

  I stand. The coast is clear. Carefully, I move away from the wall, closer to the ramp up to ground level. I hold the gun in both hands, one palm gripping the base of my other hand and wrist, braced to fire at will.

  A twitch. A scratch. A sound I would never hear under normal circumstances, but this is definitely abnormal. Instinct takes over and I twist, gun at eye level, right index finger on the trigger, sight instantly level.

  As my vision shifts to take in the target while tracking the sight, I come face to face with my pursuer.

  It’s Drew.

  And he’s pointing his gun right at my head.

  Chapter 27

  “Put the gun down now, Jane.”

  “You put the gun down, Drew.”

  “You don’t even know how to shoot.”

  “Try me.” I squint and even the sight. He’s so close I could shoot right into his eye and leave a nice, clean hole. I may have been shaking the first night Silas and I made love.

  But I’m steady as a rock right now.

  My father was wrong. Silas isn’t the inside saboteur.

  It’s Drew.

  “Jesus!” Silas shouts from behind me, his breath heavy, footsteps hard as he finds us.