“You’re…honey, I’m sorry. Can you please repeat that?”

 

Ever since I was a kid, my mom’s been the same; she just can’t handle surprises. Me turning up with Lacey the other day probably knocked her for six, and now me coming back here and saying these words to her—her brain’s not equipped to deal with this sort of shock. The small, plain silver cross she’s worn around her neck for as long as I can remember shuttles up and down the chain as she worries her fingers over it. Funny how you can really tell someone’s age from their hands. Difficult to hide that kind of aging. I long ago learned to glance down at a Californian woman’s hands before assuming her facial appearance was a true guide to how many years she had on the clock. Not that my mom’s had any work done, of course. But a lot of Californian women have. Especially ones married to doctors. Their husbands all know the best guy at the best practice, who can give them a discount on a little tuck here or little nip there.

 

“I said I found Lexi,” I repeat. As I walked into the house, I tried to think of a way to cushion this, to help it make more sense to them, and yet when it comes down to it, these are the only words that matter. For years now, they’re the words my mother and father have been waiting for someone, anyone, to speak. And now they’re coming from me. I would much rather they came from the police. Or in light of the truth behind my sister’s missing status, from my sister herself. But it turns out she’s too cowardly to do that. To say I’m mad with her wouldn’t even come close to covering what I’m feeling right now. Betrayed. Lied to. Lied about—how the hell could she say those terrible things about me to that guy? But mostly I feel abandoned. For so long this terrible guilt has pressed down on me, robbing me of any positive emotion I might accidentally feel during my everyday life before I remembered the loss of Alexis, and how it seemed as though me moving on, or taking the rare moment to laugh over some stupid joke, felt like I was abandoning her to her suffering. That I should be suffering, too. When in reality, my sister was the one who left me. She left me behind, in the darkest of places, and let me wallow in all of that suffering unnecessarily. And why?

 

Who knows why. I still don’t.

 

My mother pulls so tight on her cross that the fine chain bites into the back of her neck, blanching the skin white. “You’ve found Alexis?” she asks this as though I’ve just claimed I found the lost city of El Dorado and the place is populated by talking flamingos.

 

“Yeah, Mom. I found her. Or rather she found me. Turns out this whole time she’s been sick. She couldn’t remember who she was, where she came from. Nothing.”

 

This is the lie I’ve chosen to tell. The lie that will mean Alexis can maintain her status as the golden child of the Romera household. She doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve me trying to salvage the relationship she shares with my parents. Alexis doesn’t even know I’m constructing the lie, though, and I’m not really doing it for her. I’m doing it for the broken woman sitting on the couch in front of me, who has been paying for out-of-date photos to be printed on the sides of milk cartons for far too long.

 

My mom starts crying. These are the slow, disbelieving tears of a woman who gave up hope a long time ago. “But…how? Sloane, can you please explain to me what you’re talking about?”

 

I’m talking about how your selfish, thoughtless, liar of a daughter didn’t come home the very second she found herself free. In the end she chose a boy over her family.

 

A boy.

 

And where was the justice for the people who took her? There wasn’t any. From what Julio said, as soon as Rebel ‘bought’ my sister, she then repeatedly returned to the villa of her own free will, on purpose, to see the other girls. As if those men hadn’t kidnapped her, taken her off the side of the street and kept her prisoner. As if they didn’t force themselves on her, or force her to do lord knows what to them. I just…I just can’t get my head around that. Around any of it, really.

 

“I don’t know everything, Mom. I’m sorry. I can’t give you every single answer you need.” I sigh, fuming inside my head. Yeah, I can’t give you those answers, because Alexis hasn’t even had the decency to give them to me. My mom is still crying. She’s always been a crier; she cries at the drop of a hat. Startle the woman too badly and she’ll be sobbing for an hour. Dad says it’s a nervous reflex—that she can’t control it—but right now I feel annoyed at her for being so weak. I want to reach across the dining table, grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Shake her really freaking hard ’til her teeth rattle in her head. She sniffs, dabbing at her nose with a balled-up tissue.

 

“When is she coming home? Do you have a contact number for her? I just—I just don’t understand, Sloane. Why? Why isn’t she here?”

 

Yeah, you and me both. Instead of saying anything that might tip my mother off to my ragingly bad mood, I lay on the sickly sweet, calming voice I’ve learned to use with her. “It’s okay. She’ll be here as soon as she can. She’s just taking her time…remembering is all. She’s been living a totally different life for the past two years, y’know?”

 

I am the worst person imaginable. I’m not one for lying at the best of times. That’s probably what drew me to Zeth in the first place, when I should definitely have been running—the fact that I could tell he was honest to a fault. But right now the untruths are pouring out of my mouth easier and faster than water.

 

“I should—I should probably get a room ready for her, then. Oh! Oh, you don’t—” A panicked look flashes across my mother’s face. She reaches across the table, grasping for my hand. “She’s never been here before. We moved while she was gone. You don’t think that will upset her, do you? She might want her old room.”

 

Damn it. I feel like telling her that all Lexi cares about these days are the entourage of hairy bikers she’s been riding around with, marrying, and getting herself shot with. “No, Mom. I don’t think she’ll mind. She’ll understand—”

 

The front door slams, cutting me off. Mom’s eyes, pale blue and still tear filled, grow wide. “Oh, my. That’ll be your father.”

 

“Hello!” Sure enough, Dad’s voice rings out in its over-the-top, cheery fashion from the front porch. The sounds of heavy bags being thrown down and shoes being toed off reach us in the kitchen.

 

“In here,” my mom calls.

 

Shit. I suddenly feel very sick. I thought I was ready for this, but I’m not. Lying to Mom is one thing, but Dad? On the few rare and pointless occasions I tried to lie to him as a teenager, he saw straight through me right away. He makes an appearance in the doorway, smiling, thick grey hair sticking up all over the place. His glasses are perched on the very tip of his nose, where he generally likes to keep them. It drives me mad. His eyes light up as soon as he sees me.

 

“Oh, hey, pumpkin!”

 

Pumpkin. Still, he insists on calling me that. “Hey, Dad.” I’m relieved when I see blonde curls behind him—Lacey. The girl’s cheeks are flushed, a healthy pink tinge to them, and she’s smiling. She seems shy about it, but still…the expression is genuine enough. She’d been stoic when I left her. I’ve been worried about leaving her behind with my folks, but it seems as though the few days she’s been here haven’t done her any harm.

 

“Hi,” she says, giving me a small wave with one hand. I give her a smile back, returning the wave.

 

My mom doesn’t even bother to say hello to either of them; she jumps right in with both feet. “Sloane’s found her sister, Al. She’s found Lexi.” Her voice breaks as she says my sister’s name, and I feel a belated surge of remorse for being angry with her. This is huge for them. Huge. Their daughter has been missing for so long—it’s only natural that she would be emotional.

 

My dad’s face goes sheet white. “What?”

 

Mom starts laughing, smiling through a completely fresh onslaught of tears. “She’s had some kind of amnesia or something. Sloane, tell your father exactly what’s wrong with her.”

 

And this is another tricky part. Not only am I lying to Dad, I’m also trying to pull the wool over his eyes medically. The man has thirty years of doctoring on me. He’s pretty much seen everything, heard of everything. I’ve never had an amnesia patient. I’ve only ever done studies for my Board exams, and that was all theoretical. My dad’s eyes laser in on me, adopting an instantly professional, assessing look. A look that causes me to break out in a cold sweat.

 

“Yeah. She was in a car accident. She got sideswiped by a motorcycle—ironically this is kind of true. A guy on a motorcycle sure as hell does seem to have sideswiped her—and she hit her head pretty hard. She was diagnosed with retrograde amnesia. Been recovering ever since. She had a breakthrough about five days ago and began to remember. She found me at the hospital.”

 

Lies, lies, lies. I can practically hear Dad chanting it in his head as I rattle out my over-rehearsed speech. He wants to believe the best in people, though—that they’re innately honest—and so his brow furrows as he tries to make sense of my story.

 

“But…if she were hit by a car, wouldn’t she have ended up at St. Peter’s? Someone would have seen her. Everyone knew her face. They’d have told me right away. And even if she’d been taken to a different hospital, the police checked every medical provider within a fifty-mile radius. A girl with no memory would have raised a red flag for sure.”

 

Damn him for being so fucking logical. Damn him. I say the only thing I can think of. “She doesn’t really remember much from the accident, Dad. She thinks she was up and walking for a while. Really confused. Apparently a trucker picked her up on the side of the road in New Mexico and took her to see someone. She’d been hitchhiking or something.” At least the New Mexico part is true; she did end up there eventually.

 

Dad considers this, but he looks dubious. Understandably so. Someone with a head injury bad enough to give them amnesia would have found it remarkably difficult to travel across five states before seeking medical attention. There probably would have been a lot of blood.

 

Lacey’s been observing this exchange with a confused look on her face. The girl is a pro, though. She knows when to keep her mouth shut. She moves silently into the room, coming to sit down at the kitchen table beside me. It’s a casual and very familiar movement that says she’s been accepted into the Romera household. My parents are collectors of waifs and strays; it doesn’t take much for that to happen. It just shocks me that Lacey has taken so well to the environment. My dad sits beside my mom and takes her hand, only smiling cautiously when she beams at him through her watery eyes. He’s still hesitant to believe my story, but he’ll pretend he buys it for her sake. For now. I’ll probably get the third degree when he and I are alone. My safest bet is to avoid that at all costs. He turns to me and frowns, eyes narrowing again.

 

“I didn’t see the car out front. Where did you park it?”

 

Oh, holy crap. I completely forgot about the run-down piece of junk that he refuses to replace. He’s had the thing since we were kids. I borrowed it under strict instructions to return it in pristine condition. Ha! Not only am I not going to be able to return it, Julio’s probably had the car compacted by now. Or something equally as destructive. I can imagine the old station wagon being eaten by hungry flames out in the desert somewhere. What the hell am I going to tell him? Think, think, think! “Uh…” Yeah, so far I have nothing. Maybe if I just start talking something believable will fall out of my mouth. “About that, Dad…”

 

Thud, thud, thud.

 

A loud and decisive rapping on the door prevents me from spinning more lies. It’s not a neighborly knock—the kind made by knuckles meeting wood. It’s the kind of thudding made by the side of a balled-up fist. I’ve heard that knocking before, once, when it was incessantly trying to hammer my front door down.

 

Oh, fuck! Seriously?

 

I rocket up out of my seat, nearly sending my chair flying in my haste. “I’ll get it!”

 

But my father, on the other side of the table, is closer and quicker than me. He shoots me a perplexed look. “You don’t live here, pumpkin. It’s probably Jehovah’s Witnesses, anyway. They always show up at this time of day.”

 

It’s not freaking Jehovah’s Witnesses. The man on the other side of that door couldn’t be any further from a Jehovah’s Witness. I really want to shove my pop out of the way and race to the door like I used to when I was a teenager and a boy was picking me up from the house—meeting my dad was one way to put off a prospective boy for life—but I can’t. That would look far too suspicious. And besides, it’s already way too late.

 

Both Mom and Lacey are giving me weird looks. I realize I’m chewing on my thumbnail like a wild animal as I listen to the sound of the door opening and voices talking. I tuck my hands under the table, shrugging hopelessly. Might as well just go with it now. I mean, how bad can this be?

 

I catch sight of the goofy photos of me from when I was a teenager, still growing into my gangly, tall body. A couple from when I just started at college, so excited to be away from home and studying. They’re plastered all over the damn walls, in between the religious images and the framed copies of my degrees. They haven’t even hung any photos of Alexis to take the pressure off—my mom cries every time she sees my sister’s face, so they’ve boxed them up in the attic. It’s a like freaking shrine to me in here; Zeth is gonna have a field day. I almost choke on the laughter that bubbles up inside my throat at that thought. How bad can it be? Really, absolutely, monumentally bad.

 

My father re-enters the room, and I brace myself, waiting to be fixed in his disapproving glare. But…something’s not right. My dad is smiling. He’s actually smiling. “Sloane, I can’t believe you left your friend waiting outside in the car. Poor guy could have been having a cup of tea while we chatted.”

 

Zeth enters the kitchen after my dad and my whole world turns on its axis. He’s lost the leather jacket; he’s wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, pulling tight enough across his chest that you can make out the taut curve and bulge of defined muscle, and he isn’t scowling. In fact, he seems…relaxed? He seems something anyway. Something I haven’t seen on him before. And just as I expected, the first thing he does is take in all of the ridiculous pictures…and he gives me that private, scandalous smirk. He’s gonna have a thing or two to say about this later, I can tell. “Oh, that’s okay Dr. Romera. I was just replying to work emails. I told Sloane to go on ahead,” he says.

 

“Ah, I see. And what is it that you do for work—Zeth, was it? That’s a really interesting name…”

 

In no world was this ever supposed to happen. These two men—one who raised me and took me to church every weekend, the other who recently administered some positively sinful corporal punishment to my behind—were never supposed to meet. It seems as though a black hole will form any moment and suck us all into its vortex, destroying all evidence that this meeting ever took place. Or maybe I’m just wishing that will happen.

 

“I’m in information security. I mostly work with computers. And yeah, I’ve had a few comments about the name. Easier if I let people call me Zee sometimes.”

 

“Information security?” My dad pulls his mouth down, nodding—this is how he looks when he’s surprised or impressed. “I bet that’s interesting work. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Zee.” He holds out a hand and Zeth takes it, not missing a beat.

 

Zee? My dad just called him Zee. I’ve only heard Michael and Lacey call him that before. This is wrong. This is oh so very wrong. And yet…my stomach clenches at the sight of Zeth shaking my dad’s hand. They seem completely at ease. I’m the one nearly snapping off parts of the table in my iron grip.

 

“We should really be going now, I guess. Zeth, didn’t you say we needed to be going right away? Traffic. The traffic’s gonna be horrendous.” It’s like my mouth just vomits the words out in one nervous, high-pitched word-puke onto the kitchen table. Lacey snorts, and my mom gives me her patented that-was-unbelievably-rude,-Sloane look. Raised eyebrows and everything.

 

“Yeah, I did say that,” Zeth says, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans. His voice is so low, it makes the very bones inside my body hum. However, no one else seems to be affected by the rumbling tenor when he speaks. Just me…and maybe my mom. A slight red flush is staining her cheeks. Oh, god, no. Please, please, no. I’m already freaked out enough. I don’t need to be creeped out by my mother’s wandering eyes, too. “Although,” Zeth continues, utterly oblivious to the look of horror developing on my face. “Did I just hear something about a cup of tea?”

 

I could shoot him. Such an act of violence seems totally appropriate, and yet we find ourselves doing something entirely civilized instead. We don’t leave right away. My parents, Lacey, Zeth and I sit around the kitchen table, and my mom pours Lady Grey for us all from an actual teapot like she’s the goddamn Queen of England. Zeth Mayfair’s gigantic hands somehow manage to navigate my parent’s best wedding china without breaking a single thing or spilling a single drop. And I feel like I just dropped acid.

 

This…this just can’t be happening.

 

Things get weirder when Lacey lays her head on Zeth’s shoulder, smiling happily to herself, and my father nearly chokes on his mouthful of tea. He obviously assumed that Zee and I are together, so Lacey laying on the affection must really be throwing him for a loop. I don’t bother explaining. I’d have a hell of a job even trying; I still don’t get what’s going on with their story from Zeth’s side of things. Yeah, Lacey is his sister, but he doesn’t know that. Maybe I should ask him one of these days. Maybe I should actually swallow my pride and forget about the fact that he’ll think I’m jealous long enough to figure out what the hell the deal is with their whole living arrangement.

 

“So, Sloane tells me you guys have found Alexis?” My mother. My poor, poor mother. I know her; I know how her brain works. She doesn’t care what Zeth looks like—how big or tall or scary or tattooed he may be. He could be a convicted serial killer and it wouldn’t matter to her right now. All she cares about is my conniving shit of a little sister.

 

Zeth clears his throat, shooting me a loaded sideways glance. He’s missed the part where I fibbed through my teeth about Lexi, so he has no idea what I’ve told them. “Yeah, well. I met her. Briefly. I’m really just Sloane’s road trip partner.”

 

Nice. The bastard’s just too damn smooth. Shirk all knowledge of the situation with one small, very concise bending of the truth. Zeth, my road trip partner. Zeth, my constant major headache, more like.

 

“Oh, yes. Right. Of course.” My mom takes another sip of her tea. Silence follows after that. The kind of silence that causes physical pain to those it’s inflicted upon. Polite as ever, my mother persists in trying to fill that silence. “And Alexis…she looked…well?” This question is aimed at both of us. Lacey sniffs, stands from the table, glancing around quickly with another contented smile, and then she leaves. Just leaves, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. Why the hell didn’t I think of that? But I can’t leave. God knows what Zeth could say to my parents. Or what they might ask him in my absence. I practically cringe at the thought.

 

“Yeah, last time I saw her she looked…healthy,” Zeth informs her. Another sip of tea. He picks up and bites into the cookie my mom gave him, meeting my gaze and smiling ever so slightly. Who the hell is this imposter, and where the hell has he hidden the body of the terrifying Zeth Mayfair? Because this guy…he is cookies and cream compared to the sharpened steel version of Zeth that I know.

 

I scowl at him, trying to communicate my severe annoyance at him barging in here and scaring the living shit out of me, and he has the audacity to wink in return. Wink! I’m getting suitably hot and bothered about that when he does something even worse. I feel a bump against my leg. Oh, he did not just…but when I feel strong fingers clasp around the top of my knee, I know that he did. He grabs hold of my thigh under the table. I lash out with my foot, intent on kicking some sense into him, but my aim is a little off.

 

“Ow! What on earth!” My father yelps like a kicked dog, reaching down to clasp at his leg. The leg I just booted.

 

“Oh! Sorry, Dad. Muscle spasm,” I explain weakly, grimacing. Zeth’s hand slides farther up my leg. I can’t help it—I shoot him a scandalized look. What the hell is he thinking right now? He’s behaving like an angel above the fine china my mother has laid out for us, but beneath the table he’s his usual self—the devil incarnate. I slide my hand under the table and locate his offending digits, rapidly traveling northwards, heading straight for dangerous territory.

 

Of course he would do this. This is totally him. Come barreling into my parents’ home, pretending like butter wouldn’t melt—information security? Yeah, right!—and all the while he’s trying to pervert me just a little bit more. Because under no circumstances have I ever imagined I would be sitting down to talk with my mother and father while a guy does his best to finger me under the table. I snatch ahold of his hand, grabbing onto the first finger I find, and I bend it sharply, doing my best to cause him pain. It feels like I’ll break the damn thing if I bend it any farther, and yet when I look up at Zeth he’s still smiling mildly, looking as though he doesn’t have a care in the world.

 

With one easy and careless motion, he twists out of my grasp and locks his grip around my wrist, tightening his hold. I do my best to stop myself from yanking my arm free, but it takes serious work. Dad looks a little confused, like he can see there’s something strange going on with me but he can’t for the life of him put his finger on it.

 

“When will Alexis be home, then, Sloane?” he asks.

 

“Soon. Really soon. She just has some things to organize back home. At her new home. It’ll be a couple of weeks maybe?” This news is going to kill them. After waiting so long and then, miracle upon miracles, finding out Alexis is still alive, they’re going to want to see her right away. My mother’s face falls, but my father just nods, as though all this is to be expected. In fact, he looks a little too calm. That doesn’t make much sense, but I have other things on my mind right now—mainly freeing myself from Zeth.

 

I tug on my arm, trying to disentangle myself from his grasp, but he only holds on tighter. Very slowly, he pulls my arm toward himself. He squeezes my wrist, just enough so that I can feel my blood pumping fiercely in each and every single one of my digits, and then he places my hand, palm down, into his lap.

 

My surprise at what I feel there sends my knee smashing up into the table; four sets of teacups rattle against their saucers and Lady Grey spills everywhere. A hard-on. He has the beginnings of a hard-on, and he’s angling his hips upward into my hand, pushing the thing against me as my cheeks suddenly burst into flames.

 

“What on earth is going on with you?” Mom gasps, reaching out to settle the various trembling items on the table.

 

“I’m sorry, I—” I’m trying to tell you about your daughter, and I have a handful of dick. The inappropriateness of the whole situation just makes it seem all the more surreal. What kind of person gets turned on when sitting down to make nice with the parents of the girl they’re fucking? Not only make nice, but to tell them the daughter they’ve suspected dead for so long is actually, in fact, alive? Zeth apparently. I shouldn’t have even bothered posing the question in my mind. Zeth is definitely the kind of guy to get serious kicks out of me squirming around like a fish on a hook. “I’m just fidgety after the long car trip.”

 

My dad’s eyes light up again. “Ah yes, the car. That’s right. Care to explain where you’ve left that?” There’s more interest in his voice now than there was when he’d been speaking about Lexi—something’s officially off about that. Really off.

 

“Yeah, your car. Right. Well—”

 

Zeth shoves his hips up into my hand again, pressing his now rock-solid cock into my still-pinned hand. “Yeah, that’s entirely my fault, Dr. Romera. I wanted to go off-roading and I didn’t want to damage your vehicle. I appreciate a well-maintained car, y’know. And it’s not often you see a station wagon in such pristine condition. That wood paneling…” Zeth puffs out his cheeks, and my dad makes a delighted sound of approval. Little does he know that Zeth isn’t in love with his wood paneling. The truth of the matter is that Zeth hates his freaking car and hates the seventies wood paneling most of all.

 

“Well, I have to say it’s great to meet a fellow car enthusiast! So where did you leave her?”

 

Why the hell is he not questioning me more about Alexis? I want to scream at him for being so callous but I’m too freaking stunned. That damned car. Meanwhile, the lies continue to pour forth from Zeth’s mouth without a hitch.

 

“Back at my parents’ place in San Jacinto. My friend Michael’s going to bring it down for you within the next couple of days. I hope you don’t mind?”

 

“Oh, no, not at all.” My dad beams at Zeth, completely unfazed by the out-and-out falsehood that just popped out of his mouth. Seems as though this has been a morning for them. I’m simply dumbstruck by the idea that I’ve just witnessed Zeth lying, when he said he always told the truth. Always. Like it would be a cardinal sin for him to do otherwise. Not that a man like Zeth would be much bothered with cardinal sins, as far as I’m aware. He’s done much, much worse than lie in the eyes of the church. And society in general. He doesn’t seem too bothered about that.

 

Lacey reappears in the kitchen, her small bag slung over her shoulder, bulging with unevenly shaped objects. She drops it at her feet, exhaling deeply and smiling at the group. “So,” she says. “This has been fun, huh? We should probably go now.”