The Forbidden Trilogy(165)

"Pow-Pow!" She made mock shooting sounds and imagined the coconut blowing up; imagined Robert as he fell to the ground, dying. Yes, she'd do it all again, if she had to. She'd do it to save Luke.

Agent Simmons was a different matter. Robert had been killing her brother, so shooting him had been in direct defense of another life. As far as Lucy knew, Simmons was not a threat to those kids at all.

She's one of the good guys, right?

After what Beleth said, Lucy couldn't be sure. Beleth hadn't been lying when he said IPI was trying to rewrite its past, that they'd been responsible for the original experiments on paranormals. But just because he believed it, didn't actually make it true. The inherent flaw in her power: she could only tell when someone was consciously lying. If they believed something to be true, but were mistaken, her powers were useless.

If IPI really did start all of this, then she'd gone from working for one bad to guy to another. Lucy aimed her gun at the silver IPI logo on her backpack and mock fired. The question burned in her mind: who did she have to kill to save those kids?

Luke groaned loudly, interrupting her thoughts. She shoved her gun back into its holster and resumed eating her coconut.

"Oh God. My head!" He sat up and clutched his skull as if it would fall off without the aid of his hands. "What the hell happened last night? Oh... I had the most amazing dream. Desirai came and showed me Sam's baby. Little Ana was born and so cute!"

Lucy dropped the coconut and took out her knife to stab into the ground, not bothering to hide the irritated edge in her voice. "Yeah, I saw it too. She dream-walked."

"Cool. Wish we could have been there." Luke stumbled toward the fire and sat next to Lucy. "You okay? You seem—"

"I'm fine."

"Right. That sounds all kinds of fine. Even if I didn't know women so well, and know you most of all, I'd cry bullshit on that one." He threw his arm over her shoulder and squeezed. "What's really going on?"

"Seriously? I can't believe you even have to ask after yesterday. What's wrong is you got so drunk last night you passed out. And when I needed you, you weren't there."

"Needed? What do you mean needed me? What happened?"

Lucy stoked the fire and added more branches into it, pulling out of Luke's arms to do so. "You're right. I didn't need you. I saved your sorry ass all by myself."

"Saved? From what? Luce, tell me what the hell's going on."

"Beleth. He showed up last night. And you were passed out drunk, so I couldn't run, or leave or go after him."

"Beleth was here?" Lucy could tell his hangover made thinking hard. "What happened? Where is he now?"

"I fought him off. Kind of. I mean, he's like a machine. I've never fought anyone so... skilled before. He flew off before I could capture him or get help. If you'd been awake, maybe we could have captured him. Maybe we could have actually gotten some answers."

Luke dropped his head and his shoulders slumped. "Damn, Luce, I'm sorry. It was a one-time thing. Won't happen again, I swear. Never again."

She threw another piece of wood into the fire and watched it sizzle, much like the blood boiling in her veins at that moment. "One-time thing? You've been no help since we got here. You've done nothing but mope around feeling sorry for yourself. Do you know what it's been like for me to figure out how to keep us alive, all the while having to deal with your shit?"

"Nah, that's not true." He looked away, unable to meet her angry gaze. "I helped you look for food. We found that moth thing."

"Right, you were so helpful with that. Thanks a bunch, Bro." Lucy stalked off and started packing what food and water they could take with them.

"Where're you going? Why you packing?" Luke didn't get up to help.

Figures. "I know where the IPI base is. It's on the island, on the other side. We'd better get going now so we can cover as much ground as possible before nightfall. You should eat and drink. We'll fill up on water before heading out. I've just been waiting for you to wake up." She threw the last line out there as a jab, and hoped it stuck him somewhere tender.

"Wait, what? How do you know this? I was only out for the night."

She moved around the camp, putting out the fire, picking up her clothes that she'd laid out to dry. "Beleth told me. You'd better start packing. I'm not waiting for you, so hurry up."

"And you believed him? What if he was lying? Sounds like a trap, if you ask me."

"Well, you know what? I didn't ask you, because you were passed out. And in case you'd forgotten, I am a human lie detector. He wasn't lying and it's not a trap. You coming or not?" She wouldn't have really left him, but she hoped he thought she might. She was done with all this crap from him.