Fateless (Stateless Book 3)

by Meli Raine

  “Did. He. Rape. You?”

  “It isn't rape, Callum. He thought I was Glen.”

  “He said your name, Kina. He knew it was you all along. Did this sonofabitch touch you, Kina?”

  “You can see that he did.”

  “I mean did he–”

  The elevation disappears, emotion flooding me. My hands shake as I continue to press the pillow into his face, knowing I don't need to, unable to stop.

  “No! No. He didn't rape me. Didn't get a chance to. He said my name, then told me he knew everything about me. Said all the children of Stateless were being destroyed because of me. Then he said something about my mother.” Pawing at her clothes, she gathers them in her arms like she’s clutching a security blanket.

  “Like Glen did?”

  “Yes. My mother is dead, though. Why would they both talk about her like that?”

  “I don't know.”

  Kina looks at the office door. “I can't believe no one has come in here,” she whispers. “You just–we just–”

  “How did the scissors get in his neck?”

  “He was choking me. Whispering all those horrible things about the children. Said Glen had warned him I was tricky. That I worked for the faction trying to bring him down. He started to crush my trachea. I was going blind. He was killing me, Callum, and he knew it. It made him harder.”

  “You sick bastard,” I say to his body. If he weren't already dead, I'd kill him again.

  “I felt him start to enter me, so I grabbed the scissors and I flung my arm back as hard as I could, point toward him. It was a blind hit.”

  “It was a bull’s-eye.”

  “We just killed the president. We just killed my sister. How do we get out of this, Callum? How do we hide this?”

  The main door rattles.

  “Oh, shit,” I say, releasing the pillow over the president's face and running into the bathroom, her skirt and panties in her arms. We close the door just in time, Kina looking away from Glen's slack body.

  Whoever is on the other side of that door says nothing. Not one word. I hear muffled footsteps, then the office door opens again.

  Is it Foster? Duff? Someone else on our side?

  She wiggles into her clothes, the skirt on backwards.

  Tap tap tap.

  Kina stares at me, frozen.

  “We don't have a choice,” I tell her. Slowly, I turn the doorknob and open it a sliver.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, astonished.

  Because Hokes is standing in front of me.

  And the vice president of the United States is looking at us, over his shoulder.

  Hokes opens the door, Glen's dead body obvious.

  “Hmmm,” Alicia Ludame says, lips twisting to one side like she's debating something.

  She looks at the president, on his back, eyes glazed over, mouth slack. A dark spot where his bladder released spreads on the waist band of his pants, which are bunched around his ankles, his body twisted at weird angles. It's the most undignified thing a person could imagine for someone who had so much power.

  Her gaze turns back to Kina, eyes narrowing like she's thinking as she watches her. I'm in a half-attack stance, ready to protect Kina with my body, ready to kill anyone I need to.

  And then the vice president says:

  “Thank you. Both of you. You finally fulfilled your true mission.”

  Chapter 22

  Kina

  “He always did have the worst taste in women. Monica, Anya, Glen–me,” she says with a sneer and a sniff, the tossed-off comment making it hard for me not to vomit. I've seen her on television, an average-looking woman in her early 50s, with perfectly layered auburn hair and strawberry-blonde highlights. Her eyes are almond shaped but bright blue, the wrinkles around them standing out.

  The camera is kind to her skin. Reality, less so.

  “I hope you didn't actually have to have sex with him. He was really bad in bed. Most of them are at this level,” she says coolly. “How are you?”

  How am I?

  How am I?

  The vice president of the United States is calmly taking in the dead bodies of the president–her lover–and my sister, and she's asking about my welfare?

  “I'm–it doesn't matter. What are you doing here? What–” Every cell in me is screaming. Time doesn't seem to matter any more, all the blows and trauma rolling into one giant ball of lead pressing against every sense.

  “She's Stateless,” Callum answers me in a flat, disgusted voice. “Romeo was wrong all along.”

  “You knew this?” I gasp.

  “No. I’m just realizing it now.”

  The air smells like blood and desperation, but Alicia Ludame is cool as a cucumber.

  She turns to Hokes and says, “Fix this.”

  He nods, Callum staring at him with an expression that shows more emotion than I've ever seen him exhibit in front of a Stateless operative.

  She reaches into her pocket and hands me a pill. “Here. You know what to do.”

  “Is that cyanide?” Callum asks.

  “Of course.”

  My eyes bounce from the president to the bathroom floor. “Which one?”

  “Your sister. We have to at least make it look like a crime of passion, and then tie it to Romeo. Make people in mass society think one thing, Stateless another. The more interpretations of what happened here, the better, because then people will just argue. No one will figure out the truth,” she says, looking at me. “Just like you killed Jason,” she says to me, “but you took credit.”

  Steely eyes laser in on Callum.

  “So your idea is… that Glen killed him, maybe in a lover's quarrel and then... committed suicide via cyanide pill?” I’m thinking it out, shoving emotion aside. “You think the press will buy that?”

  “And that she was a double agent for a country yet to be determined,” Ludame adds. Her eyes take me in, top to bottom. “You killed them both and not a drop of blood on you.” I get an admiring head nod.

  Callum frowns as he looks at her, then me, then the pill I’m holding.

  “Here,” Hokes says, offering a gloved hand, palm up. “I'll do it for you.”

  I drop the pill in his hand, so drained I can’t even feel gratitude, then turn to her. “You're part of Stateless. One of the divisions.”

  “Yes. And I'm trying to clean up the mess those other groups have made.”

  “Who is killing the children in the compounds, then? It's not you?”

  “No.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “You shouldn't.”

  “Then–”

  “You've been well trained, Kina. You know how to manipulate. You know how to detect manipulation. Scan me. Elevate and scan me.”

  “I don't want to.”

  One corner of her mouth crooks up. “You sound just like Paula when you say it that way.”

  The mention of my biological mother turns my insides to glue.

  “But you sound more like me.” Tilting her head, she examines me, opening her mouth and then closing it.

  She has something to say.

  “You both do. Or did. Funny how genetics works. A woman can carry her babies for nine months, give birth, and have the children look nothing like her. Some babies resemble their fathers, while others are such a mix you'd never guess, from looking, who the parents are.”

  A cold dread fills me.

  “Paula Moray isn't my mother, is she?”

  A head shake. “No.”

  “Then who? Why was Glen going on about our mother? Saying our mother loved me more, how she...”

  The way Callum keeps looking at the vice president, then me, makes me clap my hands over my mouth.

  Oh, no.

  “It was part of a pilot project,” Ludame says. “For Stateless. There’s no harm in telling you, though we have limited time.”

  I don't move.

  “If I donated my eggs, the leaders could use them in med
ical research they were conducting. I agreed. I never wanted children. All I wanted was to work to make the world a better place. Paula found out and begged me to help her. She'd learned she was infertile. My eggs were her only hope. I did one final, secret round of egg retrieval, but I was caught.”

  “Caught?”

  “By the leaders. And so my eggs were still used and given to Paula, but with strings attached.”

  “What kind of strings?” I ask, hating myself for needing to know.

  “I had no choice whose sperm they used. And one day, the children would be called to Stateless.”

  “And my mother–Paula–knew this?”

  “No.”

  “You are my biological mother?” I ask, needing the clarity.

  She looks at Glen's broken body, Hokes bending over her, obscuring the view. “Yes. And hers.”

  “But we were briefed on you!” I gasp. “You're an only child!”

  “I have no living siblings. That's true,” she says smoothly. “It's more complicated than – ”

  “Who is Kina's biological father?” The way Callum interrupts makes me shiver.

  Because I know.

  Suddenly, I know.

  “Misha. Misha Svetnu,” she says.

  I go numb.

  “He used his sperm for top secret breeding projects. He promised me that the twins would not be pulled into Stateless. That there were other ways to accomplish what needed to be done. That when you were older–eighteen–you could be manipulated into coming into the fold. But then Paula learned the truth at the same time Alice Mogrett was sniffing around.”

  “What does Alice Mogrett have to do with this?” Callum demands.

  “I was placed in Texas. I ran for a local county board and worked my way up to the state Senate. Then the U.S. House, then governor of Texas. Nolan Corning and El Brujo wanted me there, to help with cross-border issues. And Alice Mogrett was investigating what happened to Wyatt.”

  Wyatt.

  At the mention of Callum's birth name, he jolts.

  “Paula had security clearances she should never have gotten. Found out the truth about your father and mother,” she tells him. The word father makes him blink. “She confronted me and I had to tell her everything,” she says now to me. “Until then, I thought you and your sister were safe. But they used you to get to me. And they killed Paula.”

  She tells the story with a slow blink, looking more and more like Glen with each passing second.

  Which means she looks like me. Or I look like her.

  “At least I knew you two were safe. Alive. The training compound was locked down. I was denied access. That was the moment I realized I'd committed myself to a terrible mistake. The ideology unraveled over the years, but I remained inside it all. It's easier to overthrow a bad government from within–that's the core idea behind Stateless. Poison society from the inside. Destabilize it and then conquer.”

  “You did that within the U.S. government and within Stateless itself at the same time,” Callum marvels, his voice filled with a sick admiration I understand completely.

  I feel it, too.

  “Yes.”

  “Svetnu is my father,” I repeat.

  “Indeed. And Glen's, of course. He took to her more than to you.”

  “Was he the one who gave me security access?”

  “No. That was me.”

  “At the compound?” Callum's incredulity is obvious.

  “And here,” she confirms.

  “Did he make me stay at the compound? Turn me into the training body? Did he hate me like Glen hated me?” I demand.

  “I made sure you stayed on the compound, Kina. I'm the reason you were never placed out in The Field.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted you safe. I knew that people would do their best to kill you.”

  “But you sent Glen! And Callum!”

  “And I had you kept at home base.”

  “You had me turned into the training body, too?”

  “No. No. That was someone else's idea.”

  “Whose?”

  “Misha always said you had more potential than Glen. More smarts, too,” she replies with a non-answer.

  “What about you? Did Glen know you were–are–our mother?” That word comes out like I'm hacking up razor blades.

  “Yes. She did.”

  “And you told her you loved me more than her?”

  “I have never talked about love with any Stateless operative. That would be insane.”

  “Then she lied to me.”

  “Or it wasn't a lie. Glen had her own demons, insecurity chief among them.”

  “We just killed Glen, and the president of the United States, and that was our mission?” I ask, voice hoarse. Hokes appears just then, looking to Ludame for his next move.

  “Of course not. We've been watching you for years.” Her eyes narrow as she holds me in her gaze, a mixture of pride, amazement, and something I can't name shining through. “I knew you were devoted to Stateless, and especially the children we were training for the cause. And then, after Romeo died, I saw how you questioned the leadership. Subverted your training without revealing it to them. I hoped that eventually, your true mission would be to climb high enough in the organization to bring down key players who let their egos become bigger than their mission. Your father,” she says roughly to me, the words making the ribs around my heart jolt. “Josephs. Even Glen,” she says with a soft, sad sound. “But the president? We never imagined you were capable of this.”

  She waves her hand toward Harry's dead body.

  “Congratulations. You can retire now. We have a lovely twelve-bedroom group home for you in northern Vermont.”

  “What?”

  “And you–” She looks at Callum. “You're staying with her and the children.”

  “Me?”

  “That's your new assignment.”

  “You think I'm still taking orders from Stateless leaders?”

  “That's an order from your new president.”

  “I only take orders from people with legitimate power.”

  “It doesn't get more legitimate than this, Callum. I'm the elected vice president of the United States. Succession of power is about to happen upon the death of the president.”

  He just stares at her. Hard.

  “What about Marshall Josephs?” he demands, the non sequitur filling my ribs with a chilling shiver.

  A dismissive wave reminds me of Glen. “Don’t worry about him. I have that covered.”

  “Were you working together?” Callum persists.

  She stares back, holding the line.

  So does he.

  Finally, never breaking eye contact, she dips her head down slightly, eyes up, the effect unsettling, and she says:

  “I'm offering you the deal of a lifetime: full support for Kina and the children in a rural group home in northern New England, as long as you live there with them and keep them secure.”

  “And?”

  “And I'll get you out of here. We'll put together a cover story that sets Glen up. No one will ever know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she's my daughter. My blood. And certain people know it. I have to protect my bloodline. It's part of the plan.”

  “Plan?”

  “Madam Vice President?” Hokes says. “We're out of time.”

  “Of course. Take them out the back hallway. Through the kitchen. Don't rush.”

  “I know how to clean up messes, ma'am,” Hokes says blandly.

  “That's why you're here.” She turns her gaze back to me. “I assume you're in?”

  “In?”

  “Your silence for your freedom. And for all those children.”

  “Ma'am,” Hokes says, impatient.

  “Sawyer,” she says softly, moving one step closer. No hug, not even a handshake. No professions of love.

  “Yes?” Am I supposed to say Mom? Mother? How does this work?

  “Be well.”
/>
  And with that, she turns away.

  “This way,” Hokes says, forcing us through the bathroom past Glen. The cyanide pill did its trick, too late to kill her, but not too late to set her up.

  “What just happened, Callum?” I hiss as we follow Hokes.

  “I don't know, but more of it is about to happen, too. We need to hurry before the craziness starts.”

  “Is... is she a good-Stateless or a bad-Stateless operative?”

  “Is there a difference anymore?”

  “We're good!”

  “Yes. We are.”

  “There must be more like us out there.”

  “Probably. But someone's eliminating us. And her promise not to...”

  “You think I should believe her?”

  “I don't think we have much choice. We're still alive. If she wanted, she could have had us killed. Shhhhh.”

  He pulls me into a hallway where men in black suits studiously avoid eye contact.

  Hokes ushers us out to a waiting SUV. We don't ask questions. We do as we're told. The vehicle pulls away, moving slowly past a phalanx of guards, none looking at us.

  Not a single one, even as the gates open and we leave.

  They're all in on it.

  Is there anyone in the president's security detail who isn't?

  We can't stay to find out.

  Because my mother just gave me a new life.

  I'm reborn.

  But at what cost?

  Chapter 23

  Three weeks later

  Callum

  “She's here. They're here,” I tell Kina, who has just come in from a five-mile run and is covered in sweat, eyes wide as the words sink in.

  “I don't know if I'm ready.”

  “You'd better be.” Peering out the window, I see Lindsay, Drew, Silas, and Jane coming up the walk. We're in a large, rambling home in northern Vermont, deep in the mountains and close to the Canadian border. The home, which is fairly modern, was once a small monastery for Buddhists seeking peace.

  A recession made their peace unaffordable. Alicia Ludame's people bought the place, and now we're here, overseeing the cleanup, waiting for social services authorities to begin placing most of the children here. They're in foster homes in Pennsylvania, a limbo that's driving Kina crazy. Philippa and Sela are here with us, which helps a little, but they’re anxious for the little ones, too.