Chapter 25 #2
I felt the effects right away. The room wavered and distorted. Proportions shifted and warped. The room swelled out, huge like a football field, the bed lost in the middle of it. I had become tiny, doll-like, in that vast space.
Jed’s arm thudded down onto the cover next to my face. It felt like a tree falling.
“Poison?” His voice seemed distorted. Booming, but strangely far away.
I tried to speak. Tried again, and just barely got the words out. “Not poison.”
“Then what? Knock-out stuff? Is someone coming for me?”
I shook my head, but was unable to lift it. “A truth serum,” I whispered.
There was nothing to say but the truth. It was the only thing relevant or useful. Deceit wasn’t worth my limited energy. Everything was put at the service of the truth.
Jed looked outraged. “Truth serum? I never lied to you.”
“You handcuffed me.” Anger gave me the energy to form words. “You tricked me. Staked me out. Left me alone in the dark. You bastard.”
“That was a mistake. A fuck-up. Not a lie.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “Did you set Shane up?”
He turned his head and looked straight into my eyes. “Fuck, no,” he said.
“There were fifteen million dollars deposited into an offshore account that I traced back to you,” I said.
“Not mine,” he said. “A set-up. Frame job.”
“Fifteen million dollars? Just to gaslight us? Give me a break, Jed. That is one expensive prop. I don’t buy it. Don’t insult my intelligence.”
“I’m not.” His eyes burned with intensity.
“I never had a brother. I never had a family that gave a shit about me, not before Shane and Ethan. They were brothers for me. The first family I’d ever had, and I wouldn’t sell them out for fifteen million, or fifteen billion. I’d die for them. Or for you.”
I stared at him, throat quivering. My eyes were wet. Not a great look for a steely-eyed interrogator.
This was my dream version of his confession. I craved these words from him. I’d gone to crazy lengths to force him to prove it, and now, even when he was stoned out of his mind on a huge dose of truth drug, I still didn’t dare believe him.
He squeezed his eyes shut, cursing under his breath. “Jesus, this stuff is intense,” he muttered. “How long do the effects last?”
“No idea,” I admitted. “You held my finger down on the nozzle. I think we both got something like a triple dose. Maybe more.”
“You must really want to punish me.”
“I just needed to know if you’re fucking with me,” I said. “About what happened. The Ready Line massacre.”
“I am not,” he said. “It happened just like I said. I never lied. I tried to withhold some truths, sure, but that’s useless with you.
You’re like a goddamn freight train.” He rolled over onto his side.
“This stuff is debilitating,” he murmured.
“I’m as weak as a kitten. Wouldn’t it be fucking funny if Boer found us right now? ”
I let out a snort of laughter. “About as funny as it would have been if he’d found me while I was cuffed to the headboard.”
Jed’s face contracted. He clapped a hand over his face.
“What, you think that’s funny?” I asked, offended.
“No,” he said, his voice muffled behind his hand. “You’re funny. But that thought is really horrible. Not funny at all.”
“Yup, you got that right,” I agreed. “So tell me what happened, the night of the Ready Line massacre.”
Jed’s eyes went faraway. “It was an ambush. Shane and I were heading back to headquarters. We stopped at a downed tree, and I got out. Someone shot a tranq dart at me. I went down. When I woke up, I was upside down, and my face was stuffed into the exploded airbag of my car. I had been shoved off the bridge. The car was totaled, but I was still in one piece, maybe because the trees slowed me on the way down. I had to die in that car for their frame job to hold water, but the airbag worked too well, and I crawled away before they could get down to me and finish me off.”
“Leaving you the only one still alive,” I said.
“Except for Boer. He must have switched out his DNA in the database, so the charred body was identified as his. You met Boer. You know he’s real.”
“No, Jed,” I told him. “I met a scary, murdering asshole in a mask who hates your guts. He didn’t introduce himself.”
“Fine. So it’s my word against his.” Jed’s voice sounded exhausted. “The difference between us is, he tried to kill you, and I tried to save you. I can’t prove anything. But I won’t stop hunting him until I make him tell me where Shane is.”
He sounded so real, so sincere. But just like always, I wanted this too much to let myself give in to it. He could make a fool of me so easily.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “I just don’t understand. You cuffed me to a bed. How can you call yourself one of the good guys?”
“I don’t call myself anything. I try to do the right thing, but I fuck up all the time.
I’ve let down everyone I care about. I let that piece of shit Boer take Shane, I let him kill Franco and Bill and the others.
I let him set me up like that and shove me off that bridge.
It’s a fluke, that I didn’t die then. Things might have been simpler if I had. ”
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for yourself, Clearwater,” I warned. “You don’t have that luxury.”
“I got Mickey killed,” he said, his voice bleak.
“I got everyone killed, Freya. And then, surprise, here comes Sandee, the mystery babe, mincing around in those high-heeled boots, tits bouncing, painting a huge target on herself. I find out you’re Freya Masters, and I’m like, far-fucking-out.
I thought I’d hit rock bottom, but no. There’s so much more damage I can do.
So much further down I can go. I could get you killed, too.
So I panicked, and tried to pin you down, so I would at least know where you were.
It was stupid, yes. But hey, I never claimed to be a genius. ”
“Oh, shut up,” I snapped. “I’m sick of it.”
“Sick of what?”
“Your ‘I’m just a dumb meathead foot soldier,’ bullshit. Give it up, okay? I don’t want to hear it anymore.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said wryly.
“My track record doesn’t show any great trail of brilliance, Frey.
So this last stunt with the handcuffs wasn’t enough to convince you?
You shouldn’t be here with me in this shitty, insecure hotel room.
You should be in Ethan’s luxury bunker with Holly, guarded by his top-shelf private army of security staff. Where you’d be safe, goddamnit!”
“Yeah,” I said sourly. “Living the dream. Locked in a bank vault. Yay, me.”
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for yourself,” he said. “You don’t have that luxury.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t throw my words back in my face, wise-ass.”
“Why not, if they fit? Come on, Frey. Don’t be a baby. This is an emergency.”
“It’s been in an emergency all my life,” I said. “At some point, I just have to pretend it’s not, and get the hell on with it.”
“I’d feel like shit if you got hurt. I’d do anything to keep you safe. Even if it kills me. Even if it makes you hate me. I’ll pay that price if I have to.”
“Don’t you dare try to spin this into noble heroics,” I snapped. “That’s just self-righteous and annoying.”
“I am in no condition to spin anything,” he said wearily.
“It’s just the dumb, stupid, embarrassing truth.
I’ve spent months in prison, and I have fuck-all to show for it.
All I accomplished was another person that I genuinely cared about killed.
So you made a fool out of me and a whore out of yourself, for nothing. ”
Normally, that would have enraged me, but in this weird crucible of truth-telling, I couldn’t be bothered getting uptight about it. “I wasn’t whoring myself,” I said.
He rolled his head around and tilted his eyebrow. “How do you rationalize that?” he asked. “I’m really stoned, Frey, so keep it simple. Use small words.”
“Stop playing dumb,” I said sharply. “That’s a shitty habit.”
“Coming from Sandee? What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, babe.
Don’t get your back up about it. I don’t judge you for trying to fuck intel out of me.
I might have done the same, in your shoes, if I thought it would help.
I’m just sorry for your sake that there wasn’t anything in there to glean. ”
“I wanted you anyway,” I blurted. “I’ve always wanted you. For years.”
Jed’s mouth fell open. He closed it after a moment, blinking. “Huh?”
“I’m sorry to make this weird for you, but it’s the truth.”
“But I haven’t even seen you since you were a child,” he protested. “I didn’t even recognize you when I saw you as an adult.”
“Adolescent, not child,” I corrected. “Last time I saw you, I was fourteen. More than old enough to have naughty thoughts about the hottest guy I’d ever seen.
I had a raging crush on you. I know I had frizzy hair and zits and a mouth full of metal, but my hormones were doing what they do, Jed.
I know it sounds kinky, but it’s the truth. Since we’re doing truth tonight.”
“Ah, damn,” he murmured. “Weird. Makes me feel like a retroactive perv.”
“Tough titties,” I told him. “Suffer, bitch.”
We stared at each other, and out of nowhere, we both dissolved into laughter and just lay there, snorting and choking helplessly in the blankets together.
“I don’t know about this shit you dosed us with,” Jed said. “Not much of a hardcore interrogation drug, with the two of us rolling around in the bed giggling like idiots. It seems more a recreational drug for a girls-gone-wild slumber party. Next up, pillow fight.”
“Yeah, I think this stuff is experimental, at best,” I agreed. “But me getting toasted right along with you was definitely not part of the plan. I was going to handcuff you to the bed and give you a taste of your own medicine. I was going to interrogate the shit out of you.”
“Yeah?” Jed’s eyes dilated, and a delighted grin spread across his face. “Wow. Cool. Did you have, you know, an outfit? Black latex? Stiletto heels? Red lipstick?”