“She deserves a raise.”
“Buy her something nice for Valentine’s Day and I’m sure she’ll call us even.”
“I’ll do my best to come up with something memorable.”
Derek was in the bathroom washing the blood off his hands when he suggested they go down and grab some dinner. Calista offered to get the food and bring it back up for them.
“No. I’ll come with you.”
She eyed the engineer. “Leave him here?”
“He’s not going anywhere.”
He confirmed that Turnisen was bound and securely gagged. As they exited the room he placed the “Shh. Do not disturb” sign on the door handle.
The engineer still hadn’t shared anything helpful with them. For his sake, Calista wished he would just tell them what they were trying to find out.
She couldn’t help it: she was beginning to wonder if maybe he didn’t know the information Derek was looking for.
It was possible.
If that was the case, she didn’t know how she was going to get what she wanted, what Derek had promised her — the secret to lasting youth.
They took the elevator down to one of the Arête’s four-star restaurants.
But how is this guy Turnisen connected to any of that anyway?
She really didn’t know.
They ordered.
Something was on her mind. She’d spoken with Derek about it before but had never gotten a satisfactory answer.
After their server was gone, Calista said, “I need you to be honest with me.”
“Of course.”
“Why did you choose the name Akinsanya—‘the hero avenges’? Are you the hero?”
“I aspire to be.”
“Who are you trying to avenge?”
“The ultimate enemy. The enemy of us all.”
She pondered that. “Death.”
He looked impressed. “Exactly.”
“That’s why you want to upload your consciousness onto a computer. To live forever.”
“Yes.”
No one lives forever.
Especially not when they cross the avenging hero.
It was one secret she knew.
Yes, they were beholden to each other.
Beholden.
For a moment she thought about secrets, about all that they mean, about the power that they have.
When she first met Derek, she had a secret and he had found it out — she’d killed her best friend.
And he had taught her to kill again.
I know something you don’t know.
A secret I won’t share.
All of that had brought them together in a way that was powerful and intriguing on so many levels.
It reminded her again of that story by Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart. A guilty conscience will drive you mad.
As her teacher had told her when they were studying the tale, “A secret held too close will try to climb to the surface, even if it has to scratch through your sanity to do it.”
Now she said to Derek, “We all want someone to tell our secrets to, but we want one secret, always at least one secret, to keep to ourselves. Because when we are fully known—”
“We are fully vulnerable.”
“Yes. Which is why those who know us best can hurt us the most.”
“That’s a keen observation.”
She watched him sip his water. “Have you been keeping any secrets from me?”
He set down the glass. “Why do you ask?”
“Curiosity.”
“And control?”
“Maybe.”
He evaluated that. “Well, yes, I have kept some things from you.”
“Like?”
He scratched at the side of his chin. “Why are you asking me this now, Calista? As you said a few minutes ago, we all have the desire to keep at least one secret to ourselves, to be known but not fully known.”
“I want to know you fully.”
So that you can control him?
Is that all this is to you?
No.
It suddenly struck her.
Love, intimacy, was not just about the power that you hold over your lover, but about the power that you give up to be loved.
Okay, are you saying you want him to love you?
And then the answer came, blunt and clear and surprising: I want someone to.
Like with Roger Yarborough, the guy she’d picked up the other night for the dry run with Derek. She’d left a message on his mirror for him to go back to his wife. Whether or not he did, she had no idea. But that he would do so, that he would stop lying to her, stop deceiving her — that would be the way for him to show her real love.
No, Calista did not like it that Derek had just admitted that he’d kept things from her.
“What about you?” he asked her. “Have you kept anything from me? Any secrets you haven’t been willing to share? Anything that would help me to know you fully?”
She hesitated slightly. It was kind of weird getting into all this now, but things were coming to a head this week and she was going to get what she wanted — the ability to stay young, desirable, attractive.
“Well?” he said.
“I am more afraid of growing old than I am of dying.”
He was quiet.
“Your turn. Your secret. Is there another woman?”
“No.”
“A man?”
“No.”
“Then what have you been keeping from me?”
He tilted his head slightly, stared at her as if she were a curiosity, a specimen rather than the woman he had been sleeping with for nearly four years.
“I drug you sometimes.”
“What?”
“At night. Before you go to sleep, I drug your drinks so you won’t wake up in the mornings until I’m done with you.”
A flush of uneasiness. “What do you mean, until you’re done with me?”
“Doing as I please with you. While you sleep.”
She stared at him for a long moment.
“There. Now we have everything out in the open.” He reached across the table and offered her his hand. “No more secrets. We can enjoy our meal and no more—”
She pushed her chair back from the table.
“Oh, don’t be like that.” There was that condescension in his voice again, and she hated, hated when people talked to her like that.
She walked around the table.
And slapped him.
He just directed his gaze back at her, the blood already seeping from his lip. He used a finger to dab some away and rubbed it between his fingers but didn’t say a word.
Calista turned and strode away amid the gasps of the people sitting nearby.
He betrayed you! He took advantage of you! He lied to you and he thought it was no big deal!
Oh, she could tell he wasn’t sorry, he wasn’t sorry at all. He thought it was all some sort of game.
All he cared about was himself — about getting these codes from this man up in their room.
Now, that’s where she headed: to Jeremy, who waited helplessly for her, and the one who was avenging death, to return.
The Green Door
There are two more security checkpoints.
The first one goes smoothly.
At the final guard station, a fifteen-foot-high metal fence rimmed with razor wire stretches out of sight in both directions. Jagged, tire-piercing spikes like rental car places use to keep you from stealing cars off their lots rise from a section of paved road in front of us.
Apparently, no one has radioed in that we’re on our way because they’re not expecting us when we arrive.