“Here we are, six months later, with fewer answers than we had at the beginning and more questions than ever. As the–”

A few beeps from the radio, then a second of silence before a live broadcaster’s voice cuts in.

“We interrupt this scheduled program with a breaking news alert. Jane Borokov narrowly escaped another attempt on her life as a firebomb–”

Click.

“Oh, sure. Now you turn off the radio?” I cry out, incredulous, shooting daggers with my eyes at the driver. “Turn it back on so I can hear!” I demand of him.

“You have enough information. All they’re going to do is spin,” Silas interrupts.

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Then why listen?”

“Because if I don’t know how they’re portraying me, how can I defend myself?”

“You think there’s a way to defend yourself against the media machine?” His turn to be incredulous, the look on his face making me want to smack him.

“Truth is an absolute defense.”

His eye roll is epic.

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, if you thought it through, there might be a completely different angle on every part of this mess? That maybe I’m telling the truth?” I taunt him. That’s how this feels–like nothing but a nasty game. The push-pull of wanting him to treat me like a human being and wanting to lash out and hurt him is infuriating, but it is better than sitting here and taking his negativity like a passive little doormat.

“Of course I have.”

“And you’ve rejected that. Completely.”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re really bad at your job, Silas,” I say, letting all the bitterness and contempt come through my voice.

“You’ve wounded me, Jane.” Turns out he can do contempt, too. Better than I can.

“I mean it. Anyone whose job is to protect people can’t be such an absolutist. It makes you weak. Gives other people an easy shot at you.”

“‘Other people’? Do you mean people like you?”

“No. I mean people like the ones who attacked Lindsay.”

“Right. People like you.”

I shake my head slowly, the waves of panic flowing through me, giving in to them. Letting them come because what choice do I have?

And guess what?

You can feel all of that panic, let the anxiety overwhelm you, nearly black out from the incongruity of being shamed, driving toward an unknown destination where you have no control–

–and still stand up for yourself.

“I have nothing left to lose, Silas. My mom is dead, my reputation’s beyond salvageable, I don’t have a job or a place to live, and everywhere I go someone’s trying to kill me. Even my online world is nothing but garbage and threats from shitlords. So, as a simple thought exercise, can you try? You’re protecting me. Someone assigned you to me. Give me the courtesy of doing your job completely. If I’m stuck with you–and I know I am–I, at least, want you to do your best.”

I’ve struck a nerve.

Finally.

“You think you can tell me how to do my job?”

“Someone needs to. Looks like Drew’s not doing it.”

“Don’t you dare criticize Drew,” he growls, sitting up taller, curling toward me like a predator.

“I absolutely will dare. No one is immune from being analyzed. No one is so perfect that they don’t have flaws. No one is one hundred percent bad or one hundred percent good. We’re all a mixture.”

He smirks. “Like fifty shades of grey?”

“You brought up sex. Not me.”

His eyes flash with a smoldering look, combing up and down my body.

“Who said anything about sex?”

“You did. Mentioning the title of the biggest-selling erotic romance novel in history implies it.”

The tips of his ears turn pink, the only hint that talking about sex is having a physical effect on him. I try so hard not to squirm.

I can’t show him it’s having an effect on me, either.

“How did we get from absolutism to sex?” I say, trying to cut the tension, trying to scramble backwards from the arousal that floods me suddenly. Dormant parts of my mind and body call themselves to attention, making it damn near impossible to hold onto the all the shaking parts of me that were working together just long enough to defend myself.

“I am not an absolutist,” he says, carefully avoiding the second half of my question. “I take in every single detail.” His eyes sure do, looking me over.

“And yet you take all that information, form a judgment, and then religiously follow it.”

“No. In the face of new evidence, I’ll change my approach.”

“I’ve given you new evidence!”

“No, you haven’t, Jane. You’ve protested. You’ve proclaimed. You’ve pleaded and you’ve bitched. You’ve lawyered up and you’ve gone silent. You’ve done everything–everything–but give us new evidence.” He runs a shaking hand over the top of his head, his lips curling with anger, eyes staring ahead, avoiding me.

“I–”

He jolts, digging into his pocket to pull out a phone. Before he turns the screen away from me, I see his backdrop. It’s of a small dark-haired child on a beach, the picture taken from behind, her skirt flying around her legs, the little girl in motion, the blue skies over the green water idyllic.

Does he have a child? Who is the little girl? As Silas reads his screen, his shoulders slump slightly–in defeat.

What the hell is in that text he’s reading?

He leans his elbow against the door, setting the phone face down on his thigh, his expression troubled. I want to ask him if he’s okay. I want to ask him about the little girl. I want to ask him so many questions.

Most of all, I want to ask him to be kind to me.

I need someone to be kind to me.

Anyone.

Because you can live for a very long time in isolation.

But you can’t live among people for very long without needing kindness. It’s as essential as oxygen, as water, as food.

While you might not technically die without kindness, the existence you’re left with is worse than dying.

We turn down a familiar road. I realize I haven’t paid a bit of attention to where we’re going. I can feel Silas pull away from me as he ponders his personal cell phone, frowning. I scoot as far away from him as I can and lean my forehead against the bottom of the cool window glass, sighing.

Firebomb.

Silas saved me.

He’s right.

I should be grateful. I should be grateful because I should be dead right now, by all rights. Dead like my mother.

Dead like John, Stellan, and Blaine.

No, I was never part of their horrible, violent, evil plans. Ever.

Not willingly, at least.

But I am keeping secrets from everyone. I have to. If I tell the truth, then people will die.

Lying is the only way to arrange all the fractured pieces of this strange mess I’m in and feel like there is some semblance of a whole.

Evidence? Silas wants me to produce evidence that will change his mind about me. I have that evidence. Or at least, I did. A long time ago, long before everything exploded.

Here’s the problem: the same evidence that exonerates me, implicates me. After a while, it all blurs together. Who is good? Who is bad? Who has pure motives?

As Silas sighs and puts his phone back in his pocket, the walkie-talkie squawks.

“Get her to The Grove. Bosworth wants to talk to her.”

Silas nods, as if Drew can see him.

Wait a minute. He probably can. I’m sure this vehicle is under surveillance.

Nothing I do isn’t being recorded. Nothing I do isn’t being watched. I cannot pee without assuming someone, somewhere, is documenting and observing, working to find the one tidbit of information that will give them a strategic advantage.

I am nothing but someone’s leverage.

I’m being summoned to The Grove, the home of Senator Harwell Bosworth and his wife, Monica. My mother was the senator’s right-hand woman for decades. She was fired in disgrace for handing their daughter Lindsay off to the same men who gang raped her four years before.

The Grove is the last place on earth I want to visit.

I have no choice, though. No say. If Senator Bosworth, a man who is running for president of the United States, wants an audience with me, he gets it.

Without question.

I can’t prepare myself. I can’t defend myself. The familiar steel-edged butterflies start to stir in my stomach. My mother worked for Harry–I can’t call him that in person, but in my mind, he’s Harry–for so many years. She lived for her job. Gave him her best years, rising up the ranks with him as he went from state office to national prominence. When Harry announced his run for president, she came close to quitting for reasons I never understood.

Behind the scenes, my mother was devoted to Harry’s well-being. Not just his political career, but how he was as a person. As a man.

And in the end, everyone thinks she betrayed him.

Maybe that’s the lesson I need to take from all of this. I glance at Silas, who is a rigid, six-foot line of tension, his fingers absentmindedly twitching, his attention split.

“Everything okay?” I ask, the words out before I can pull them back in. It’s a reflex. I care, apparently. I can’t help it.

The look on his face overwhelms me. His brow is tight over judgmental eyes that are also disconcertingly capable of compassion. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not. And neither are you. But if you need to lie, go ahead.”

“I don’t need your permission, Jane.”

“No, you don’t. I was just offering a little kindness. Whatever’s going on, I hope it gets better. You don’t look happy.”

“What does happiness have to do with anything?”

I laugh, the sound sharper than I intend. “That is an excellent question.” The words turn sour in my mouth.

He stares at me. Hard. I can sense more than anger and contempt toward me. Dehumanizing someone you view as an enemy makes it easier to think of conflict as a chess game. Black and white, the only nuances those that help you strategically. Compassion is the first victim of absolutism.

And if I am anything these days, it’s a victim.

“Well, anyhow,” I say, deciding that I might as well give up on being believed and just be authentic. “I hope it all turns out fine.”

He nods, staring straight ahead. Then he sighs. “It won’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

We ride the rest of the way to The Grove in silence.

A silence that is no longer empty.