Until I Die

Chapter 38 The Interview

The Interview

It is the policy of the United States that the American people have a right to know the activities of their government…

As I expected, the two soldiers who survived attacking me were charged as Theo had warned and locked in the stockade. Adam said the story of the man Lucas left dead in the forest had spread throughout headquarters, and he suspected we wouldn’t have any more trouble.

“The dude must have been hit on the head a few too many times,” Adam said with a timid laugh. “Only a fool would come at you knowing Lucas Scott had offed five Blood Colonels for you.”

I considered telling him Lucas’s total body count from protecting me was far higher than that, but the reminder of how many people had tried to kill me in the last year was hard to stomach.

I settled on a weak smile, and Adam had clapped me on the shoulder, commiserating.

Just one week before Lucas was meant to lead his covert ops team to assassinate Commander Haynes, the reporter arrived. The Prime Delegate sent me a summons to meet her at once, and my soul crumpled.

“You don’t have to do this,” Lucas whispered, sensing my dread.

“She’ll find a way to punish us if I don’t.”

His mouth tensed into an angry line, and he didn’t reply.

Adam escorted me through the forest, and I met Williams where she instructed—in a small room near Theo’s office. Her smile when I arrived made my fist itch to find her nose, but I restrained myself.

I wasn’t the only one giving an interview, apparently. Twelve others had volunteered, mostly escapees from imprisonment.

“Before we record anything, he wants to review each of your stories in private,” Williams said. “You’ll be last.”

She extended an arm toward a bench, where a couple of others sat with fidgeting hands and pale faces. I perched in the corner and proceeded to ignore everyone and everything.

My forest served as my pastime.

One by one, the others were called back. They each spent a quarter hour with him, then went on their way, their faces tinged gray as they fled his presence. When it was my turn, I stepped into a small room with a decorative fireplace on one side and a large landscape oil painting on the other.

With a welcoming smile, Williams introduced me to the reporter.

Logan Bergeron, hailing from Toronto, looked like a college girl’s wet dream. He had auburn hair parted roguishly off to one side, enough stubble to seem as if he’d just risen from a busy night in bed, and glasses he kept pushing up his nose when he’d toss a shy smile at the floor.

Charming. Coy. Obnoxiously trustworthy in his tweed jacket and plaid button-up.

I hated that I liked him.

“Sophia’s the one we spoke about,” Williams said.

Logan’s eyes sparked with interest, and he looked at me with a new intensity.

A hunger.

“She’ll tell you the whole thing,” Williams continued, “and we’ll decide which parts are best to share.”

Logan offered me a seat. The three of us settled into chairs arranged in a triangle, and he rested his elbows on his knees.

“My primary goal here is to get the truth out there. The NAO needs to be stopped, both here and abroad, and if we can strengthen the Defiance, we may just be able to do that. Human atrocities tend to rile people up.”

My fingers plucked at the fabric of my pants. “Alright. What do you need from me?”

“The bald truth,” he said.

Williams offered me another smile. “Sophia, why don’t you start your story at the beginning?”

I took a deep breath and told them every tiny detail, unedited and without tact, and in far greater detail than what I told Williams.

How I’d gotten involved in the war in the first place—dragged along by my parents and their friendship with Theodore Harrison.

My bond with Tekqua. The missions that resulted in the deaths of my friends and parents, and subsequently, the destruction of my humanity.

How I’d considered death to escape the pain.

I described the Lucas that didn’t exist, the heartless Blood Colonel who killed at will.

I detailed every reprehensible sin he’d committed, all the innocent lives he’d taken.

As my story evolved—shifting from fear and distrust to embraces and whispered promises of until I die—it became evident I fell in love with my mortal enemy, and a spark appeared in Logan’s eyes.

After showing him the scars on my back, I resettled, and he stared at me for the longest time, chewing on his lip. “You’re right. This is the exposé that will clinch it.”

“Wait. You still think you can use that?” I asked with a laugh.

“Your story is a wartime fairytale, love. People will drool.”

I gave him a hard stare. “The edited version.”

“Well, yes.”

For the next hour, Logan Bergeron and Nia Williams revised my life, removing the ugly bits. They erased my deep bouts of depression, my thoughts of suicide. They extracted Jayden entirely. My relationship with Theo was wholesome and intact.

They changed my entire affair with Lucas.

Except for the kiss we’d shared to keep from being discovered, our physical relationship didn’t start until after he’d saved me from that knife wound.

He didn’t execute anyone during our time together.

The ring I wore symbolized his commitment to me more than his certainty that he’d die, like a wedding ring worn on the wrong finger.

I was never taken to Registration. They didn’t like the idea of Lucas letting me be taken from him. Instead, he happened upon me at poker night. He didn’t plan to kill them, but when he was caught helping me escape, we had to fight for our lives.

He was accepted as a Defiant without issue after that. We found safety with Theodore Harrison’s forces.

They whitewashed my life, and I didn’t care. Nia Williams held our safety in her hands, and I’d say whatever she wanted me to say. That evening, however, lying in Lucas’s arms, I considered the irony. They wanted my story to bring us help, knowing if I told the truth, the world might not give it.

Political manipulation at its finest.

The next morning, I woke early. My only stipulation for filming was that Lucas would be nearby, so when the time came, Isaac escorted us to the main building.

People eyed Lucas, but his novelty appeared to have worn off.

Or perhaps the story of my attack in the woods gave people pause because they stayed far away.

We meandered toward the assigned place—a room in the southwest corner of the building, draped in sheets to hide the unique architecture.

A table had been set up outside with beverages, and several of the interviewees dawdled around it.

Lucas eyed the meager spread with a raised brow. “How thoughtful,” he said dryly.

Spotting me, one of the other interviewees volunteered a smile and handed me a cup of coffee, which I took despite a roiling stomach.

She held out a dish filled with white granules. “Sugar?”

Sugar.

The mug slid from my fingers, ceramic shattering and hot coffee splashing over my legs.

My lungs froze. Heart pounded.

The sandalwood. I could smell it.

You like the way that tastes, sugar?

No.

Just like that, sugar.

Stop!

“Breathe, Sophia!” The words echoed from far away.

Let’s play a little game, sugar.

My hands shook as I touched Lucas’s face, the only clear part of my vision.

“You have to breathe,” he said. “In and out. Come on.”

The room darkened, his face fading from view…

Something soft cushioned me. Voices nearby spoke in low tones, but my eyes stayed resolutely closed.

“…don’t know what she’ll do when we leave.”

“She’s strong. She’ll be fine.” This from Adam.

“Will she be fine if we don’t come back?”

My stomach cramped, and I groaned, blinking my eyes open. Lucas had taken me to one of the common areas near the interview room, now empty. Isaac stood in the doorway, guarding us.

Adam smiled when my eyes opened. “Hey. There she is. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I rasped out.

Lucas sat on a table next to me, elbows on his knees, features harsh. “A single word took you back there. I could see it in your eyes, the terror and pain. You’re going to let a stranger dig into that? Sell it to the world?”

“I can’t even remember most of it.”

“You remember enough.”

I held a hand out. “Help me up.”

He pressed his lips into a thin line and did as I asked.

I took his face in my hands. “I have to do this, just like you have to go on the…mission. We have one chance at both of us surviving, and this is it. Let’s just get through it, okay?”

After a beat, he sighed, and the three of us went back to the interview area.

Just like before, I was the last to be interviewed, and by the time they called my name, the butterflies in my stomach had turned to clawed bats and my insides felt ravaged.

Inside the room, two chairs sat facing each other beneath three blinding lights, and it occurred to me that thousands, maybe millions of people would see this interview, and I hadn’t worn a drop of makeup in years.

I hadn’t even considered what I should wear for such an occasion.

What a stupid thing to care about. The camo pants and black tee would be fine.

Logan invited me to sit. I crossed my legs at the ankles and placed my clenched hands in my lap.

My breath caught in my throat.

His smile went soft.

And it went on for hours. Anytime I stumbled on one of my fabricated answers, Logan would help me until I got it right.

The questions increased in detail as we dove further into my time with Lucas. He teased out the broken elements and made them romantic. Luke’s overprotectiveness became a product of love instead of fear. My attraction to him was less sexual and more fanciful, like a schoolgirl crush.

Logan began to ask specifics of our conversations. He focused on the poignant moments, like the conversation we had about psychological scars or Lucas’s theories regarding the NAO’s hatred. He liked me to quote Lucas’s constant words of advice.

Never believe someone just because they’re saying something you want to hear.

Play the player, not the game.

Never attack in anger. You will always lose.

Look for the details beside the obvious.

Grief is like snow.

Logan glossed over the injuries I’d obtained on that failed rescue mission, choosing to focus on what happened when I woke.

“We argued over my safety,” I said. “He felt the Defiance was unnecessarily placing me in dangerous situations. He made me stay with him until I healed.”

“Did he tell you then that he loved you?” Logan asked.

“No, he never said it. He thought he was going to die, and he didn’t want it to haunt me.”

“What did he say instead?”

I swallowed. “I would ask him to stay with me, and he’d…”

“Yes?”

“He’d say, Until I die.”

Logan smiled.

The interview continued, and I idealized the possessive, desperate months we spent together, lost in sex and eviscerating fear.

He asked about the ring on my finger, and I recited the story I’d been coached to tell.

“And before you left him that day, did you say anything?”

“I asked him to stay with me.”

“What did he say?”

A beat.

“Until I die.”

Logan’s eyes glinted behind his glasses, and he continued on with his questions. They became harder to answer, especially as he asked about the fall of the quarantine house. He wanted me to describe how it felt to fear for my life, to know there was no hope of escape.

“Were you caught?” Logan asked.

“Yes.”

“By who?”

“One of the Blood Colonels,” I said. “Jack Miller.”

“What did he do?”

“He—he hit me until I blacked out.”

“And when you woke? What happened then?”

I blinked several times in silence as his face dissolved in my vision, giving way to things I’d suppressed far back in the nether regions of my mind.

“Don’t worry. You’ll like this.”

“Doesn’t that feel good?”

“Sophia?” came the faraway voice.

I couldn’t breathe.

“What happened when you woke?”

Stars winked into view, and I lurched from the seat, upending the chair. “Where is he?”

I was already stumbling toward the door.

I fumbled with the knob, trying and failing to draw air.

When the door finally wrenched open, I called Lucas’s name, begging for help from the only person I trusted to give it.

He appeared at once, reverent, reminding me how to breathe. I locked into his aquamarine.

“That’s it,” he said. “Breathe.”

I nodded. The world came back into focus by degrees, ebbing and flowing like a tide.

“You want to keep going?” he asked once my breathing calmed.

“No.”

“You don’t have to do this. I’ll take you away right now. I’ll take you anywhere.”

I managed a small smile as the fantasy of us in some cozy cabin far away from here bloomed in my mind. But it was just that…

A fantasy.

“It’s almost finished,” I said.

He dipped closer. “I’m right outside, okay?”

My fist clenched on his shirt. “You’ll stay with me?”

He pressed a kiss to my temple and whispered in my ear, “Until I die.”

Nodding, I took a breath and turned back toward the interview room only to find Logan and the cameraman watching us. Blood rushed to my face, but their expressions were grim.

Logan’s brow wrinkled. “Can you continue?” His curious eyes landed on Lucas, who hardened into the killer as their gazes clashed. Lucas said nothing, but the cold-blooded hatred went unmasked.

Logan paled.

“Let’s just keep going,” I said, pushing Lucas away.

Logan dipped his chin.

I left Lucas in the hallway and shut the door behind me. We re-situated ourselves so Logan could continue with his line of questioning.

“You ready?” he asked, straightening the cards in his hand.

I nodded.

“So what happened when you woke?”

I took a breath. “I don’t remember a lot of it. I try not to think about it.”

He nodded and teased out my answers while my gaze trailed the intricate patterns on the ceiling. I tripped on words like teeth and rope and strangle. Panic opened like a tap, pressure building higher with each question. Before it overflowed, he redirected me.

“How did it feel to be back with Lucas?”

“It felt like…coming home.”

“Were there any particular words you said to each other?”

I hesitated. How many times would I have to say this? “He wanted me to leave him. To save myself. I reminded him that he promised he’d stay with me. That he wasn’t dead yet.”

“What did he say?”

“He still thought he wouldn’t survive. He worried he was putting me in danger.”

“And?”

“And I made him promise again. I couldn’t stand the thought of abandoning him.”

“How did he respond?”

I was silent, staring at Logan.

“What did he say, Sophia?”

“He said… ‘I’ll stay with you. Until I die.’”

His smile broke free, like I’d discovered the answer to a complicated riddle he’d pondered for ages. I prickled all over while conflicting feelings rose inside. Pride at having pleased him battled with an irresistible sense that I’d sold my soul to a devil waving a Defiance flag. An American flag.

But it would be worth it.

If we both lived, it would all be worth it.