by Mia Hoddell
False Finder
by Mia Hoddell
False Finder
Copyright © 2015 by Mia Hoddell. All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: January 2015
Limitless Publishing, LLC
Kailua, HI 96734
www.limitlesspublishing.com
Formatting: Limitless Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-029-7
ISBN-10: 1-68058-029-9
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
For my family:
Thank you for believing in me, putting up with my random ideas or rants during the writing process, and for helping me reach this point.
I love you all!
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Prologue
10
The number of minutes she was given as a warning.
9
The number of possible exit routes she could take.
8
The number of people who were hunting her.
7
The number of friends she thought she had.
6
The number of hours it took for people to turn on her after finding out the truth.
5
The number of minutes it took for people to reveal their true colours.
4
The number of years she thought they were her friends.
3
The number of times she tried to change their minds before giving up.
2
The number of people it took to spill her secret and sell her out.
1
The number of thoughts inside her mind.
0
The number of minutes she had left.
Chapter 1
Don’t look back.
Just keep moving.
If all else fails, run.
Taking deep, slow breaths she allowed the air to flow in through her nose and out through her mouth, taking her anger and frustration with it as she exited the building. The three lines had quickly become her mantra as she repeated them over and over inside her mind, surprised at how often she was having to use them.
Usually the words had a calming effect so she could control herself, but now they were doing the opposite. They were only just allowing her to hold it together, and instead of the repetitive comfort they usually surrounded her in, they only seemed to enrage her more.
Twitching and turning, she barely managed to restrain herself from turning around to finish what they had started. She wanted to go back. She wanted to make sure that every one of them would keep their mouths shut tighter than Pandora’s Box. She wanted to scream and use violence if necessary, but she wouldn’t. Doing so would be an automatic death sentence in the world she was now living in.
It hurt, but she was not going to give them the satisfaction of showing her anger…or her fear. They would not get the pleasure of watching her fall.
Walk away.
There’s nothing you can do, your secret is out now.
It’s daylight, you’re safe as long as it’s light and you’re around people.
They think you’re Sarah Davis, as long as they don’t figure out Sarah is really Cora Shields it should buy you some time.
The logical side of Cora’s brain chanted ritually, keeping in time with her footsteps as they carried her further away. It was right; at that moment in time there was nothing she could do. Her secret was out, but she hoped her fake identity would be enough of a cover while she figured out her next move.
As every step increased the distance between her and the group of people behind, she felt the tension in her body relaxing. Her muscles loosened slowly and rolling her shoulders she tried to shake off the last of her rage. It was beginning to work, and Cora could feel her breathing levelling out, her heart rate returning to a steady rhythm as she forced her emotions into submission. There was only one that wasn’t complying:
Fear.
* * *
“I always knew she was strange, no one is that defensive and not concealing a secret,” Sam said, leaning back into the sofa in his flat as if his point was clear.
“I just can’t believe she never said anything. I mean think of all the things she could have heard to use against us,” another friend of Cora’s stated, worry creasing her forehead as she tried to remember anything Cora could have overheard which could become incriminating.
The whole atmosphere of the room was tense. Beside the person speaking, everyone else was deathly silent. Awkward pauses arose frequently and aside from Sam’s nonchalant and relaxed posture as he lay back, a mug of coffee in his hand, everyone else was anxious.
Six out of the seven who were huddled around the coffee table were sitting on the edges of their seats, their bodies only just supported as they bounced nervously. If you kicked any of their legs out from underneath them they would have fallen off the chairs, but no one could blame them. In a recovering country fighting for survival, the truth was rarely a means to get anything done and now their options had been taken from them.
“She has to be dealt with. She’s dangerous,” a girl muttered, deep in thought as she chewed her lip. The fake, purple extension in her hair glowed with the morning sunlight filtering through the window as she twisted a ring around her finger.
“If Sarah was dangerous, she would have done something already. She’s not like that,” Misty defended. She was the only person in the room who wasn’t eager to gain revenge for a problem they had created. Instead, her nervous energy was caused by the unpredictability of the guys in front of her and what they were planning.
“She knows too much. We’ve known her for years, think of what she could do if she ever needed to use it,” the girl who was perched on the window ledge stated as she looked down at the people beneath their apartment. At one point the streets would have been filled with rush hour traffic but not anymore. Instead, there were very few cars and people walking at a brisk pace, looking anxiously over their shoulders in paranoid gestures. They travelled from one place to another as quickly as possible, never drawing attention to themselves. You could never be overly careful in the new era. You could never be sure who was tailing you.
“You’re all being ridiculous. She doesn’t hear the truth and she can’t read your mind, so there is no way she knows what you are hiding if you don’t tell her. You’ve known Sarah for a year and except for her temper, she has never done anything to harm you all. Are you really g
oing to sell her out?” Misty said, astonished at their lack of loyalty.
“She’s a liability. We all have secrets that can’t afford to come out. Even you can’t deny that Misty. I will not have my life ruined because of her.”
Heads nodded around Sam as he made his point. “So are we all in agreement? It’s better to turn her in now than risk our futures.”
Once again heads nodded around Sam, all except one anyway. The seat in which Misty had sat was now just an empty space. The only tell-tale sign of where she had gone was the angry slam of the door as it shut behind her.
* * *
Cora’s secret—a secret she had hidden most of her life—had finally come to light among her peers. With it they had the power to ruin her life for good and the nagging feeling that she couldn’t trust everyone was only adding to the pit of despair churning in her stomach.
One simple slip up and everything she had worked for ended. Years of carefully poised perfection were wasted. Cora had learnt to blend in, to make sure she didn’t act in a manner that drew attention to herself, and become someone else…but that was all over.
It was a stupid mistake as well.
Who would have thought playing truth or dare after losing a drinking game was a good idea when you had so much to hide? But that was Cora’s problem: she hadn’t thought at all. At the time it had seemed like fun. Who will believe anything a drunk says? Cora had thought as she took a shot after losing another round in the game of ‘I never.’
Everyone, that’s who.
As the most adventurous of the group she was drunk under the table quicker than they could pour the alcohol in to refill her cup. The others, however, remained sober—or at least could handle the drink better—and when Cora started calling their bluffs during truth or dare all hell broke loose.
Most unskilled liars will crack under pressure if confronted enough and Cora had refused to let them get away with it. Even when drunk it was enough for everyone to begin to think something was wrong. They may have only been trivial lies such as: who slept with whom and who did what with whom to begin with but as the night progressed, Cora became right one hundred per cent of the time. When she had called Sam on a new lie during the game, it seemed too suspicious not to be something bigger. People started to become wary of her and the game.
“I’m a False Finder. I read lies,” Cora had slurred finally when the group ganged up on her, demanding to know how she was performing the trick. The alcohol on her brain had weakened the filter that usually helped her escape situations that threatened her secret.
“I was born with the skill. Some genetic mishap in my DNA. I can detect when you lie. Your voice changes and you glow red. It reminds me of Rudolph’s nose actually.” With the final sentence Cora had curled up in a fit of uncontrollable giggles, clutching her stomach as she rolled off the sofa and hit the floor with a thud.
No one had bothered with her though. Instead they all looked warily at each other, silently daring someone to deny what Cora had said.
No one did.
Cora may have been drunk but they couldn’t come up with another explanation. Of course she could have denied it, blamed the drink, when she woke up the next morning but the pounding headache that was ringing inside her mind once again weakened her usually strong defences.
When they all questioned her, she cracked. She had needed to shut them up and agreeing to whatever they said was the easiest way to do so.
“I’m a False Finder, a human lie detector or whatever you want to call me. It doesn’t matter. I just know when you’re lying,” she had said bitterly as she revealed her true identity for the first time.
The fact that she had known them all for a few years meant she thought she would be able to trust them. She had been reckless and stupid though, and now she was paying the price for it.
Cora had broken her first rule and it was coming back to bite her in the ass.
Rule number one: NEVER under any circumstances, reveal who and what you are, she repeated in her mind, kicking herself over the slip up. There were people out to get her. They wanted to use her and she had remained undetectable for so long because of her ability to keep a level head, keep a secret and lie convincingly. But she knew that was over.
Walking from her flat, after going home to shower and change, she decided to take the long route to her first university lecture. She didn’t care about being late as it was the last place she wanted to be. However, she hoped it would reveal information on what she was up against.
When her eyes fell upon the street in front of her, though, she almost thought about going into hiding again and forgetting the information she needed.
The recession had hit the United Kingdom hard and Cora knew it had been coming—even though she was only a child. She had listened to the politicians lie on the TV, stating that the country was emerging and becoming prosperous again since she was born.
It was all false and simply a ploy to avoid a mass panic. It also kept them in the public’s good graces.
There is only so long you can conceal the economic situation from the public, though. It didn’t take long for the adults to realise the country was drowning and even children started to realise things were not right. When the price of a Freddo chocolate bar increased from ten pence to three pounds, obviously children were going to question what was happening—at least Cora did.
The country was declared bankrupt. There was no one who could bail it out of the enormous debts and with that declaration, the obvious panic arose. A civil war had broken out; families and friends turned on one another in the fight to survive. People wanted a new system, they wanted a new leader; they just couldn’t have predicted what the alternative option would be or what type of person it would take to get the country back on track.
Standing at the divide in the road, Cora surveyed the scenes she had seen every day on her way to university. The streets were almost empty, leaving a clear view of the still boarded up windows on the upper levels of the buildings that lined the streets—a few of the bigger businesses had reopened downstairs, but most remained dark. Buildings that had been caught in the riots still had a charcoal tinge to them from where they had been set alight, and those were the lucky ones. A few had crumbled under the weight of their structure in the fires, leaving only a pile of rubble that had still yet to be removed. Everything about the street showed the effects of the war. It may have ended while Cora was young and could hardly remember it, but the consequences still surrounded everyone, screaming that London was no longer a safe place to live. However, despite all of that, it was not the main reason that caused Cora to doubt her choice of routes.
The war had made way for a new breed of organisation, one London hadn’t seen in years: a criminal empire ruled by one dictator named Rogan Carvelli. It was true he had aided the city’s recovery and that most development was down to him; he had funded businesses, provided for those struggling, and re-opened the universities to keep the peace and make sure he had a future workforce at his disposal. However, all of that came with a price and by agreeing to work for him, people were enslaved into his organisation under the pretences of a better life. It was clear they were better off than most but they had sold their soul the minute they signed a contract. It didn’t matter how good their intentions were to begin with. Now they were all the same: corrupt, in above their heads, and drowning with no way to save themselves.
It was that fact that had Cora standing in the middle of the street, thinking long and hard about which road to take. Rogan had been after her for years. Her deceased mother had stupidly given up the secret of their ability and for that Cora resented her. It had put her on Rogan’s radar ever since and he had stopped at nothing to try and acquire her. Like a new gadget, he tried to add her to his collection and so far she had avoided him successfully. She had managed to hide herself in the middle of his city, carefully blending in.
Of course she had been tracked down and caught before, but there had always been a wa
y for her to escape: money, blackmail, and pure violence. This time though, she had none of those things to save her and she didn’t want to risk being caught again—especially as she was taking such a risk staying at a university he owned. Even with a fake identity registered, it wasn’t the smartest move, but her absence would be noted and it was impossible to leave the city without Rogan knowing. It would draw more attention to her and in a world where everyone was only looking after themselves, hiding in plain sight like nothing was wrong was the only option. She needed information anyway and she’d only find it at the university.
Everyone knew that Rogan paid big money for people like her. It was one of the other reasons she had kept herself so well hidden. Rogan didn’t have to put out notices for people to bring in information. If there was someone special, like Cora, the public was smart enough to know she would be worth a lot. Now that her friends knew, she could only pray to a god she didn’t believe in, that they would value their friendship more than their desire to earn easy money.
She doubted it.
Times were tough and everyone was barely scraping by.
Sod it, if I get caught then I’ll figure a way out of it at the time, Cora thought, choosing the longer route. She needed the time to think as her anger had started to build once more. It was mostly driven by paranoia, as she forced her feet to start moving again, but no one could be too careful.
Wanting time to herself may have been the idea but that didn’t stop her pace from quickening. Not giving herself time to take in the scenery, her calming walk turned into an obsessive event, whereby she spent the entire trip looking over her shoulder in case someone was following her. To Cora, every passer-by was a suspect.
