The Gender Lie(64)

“Oh, we have a relationship?” I asked with a teasing note in my own voice, and she flushed bright red, her eyes seeking refuge in anything but my gaze.

“I… well…” she mumbled, and I reached over, putting a finger under her chin and forcing her to meet my gaze.

“Relax. I was just teasing. I know we haven’t discussed it yet, but that’s the great thing with us—we don’t have to. We just know.”

She blushed prettily and I pushed back a lock of her hair, feeling inordinately pleased that our talk was going so well, if not a little off the rails.

“So, what else did you talk about?” I asked, nudging her with my shoulder.

Violet’s smile faded and she stood up, shoving her hands into her pockets and looking around. I watched as she crossed the room and turned, pressing her back against a locker.

“Desmond told me her plans for starting this war,” she said finally.

I scooted forward on the bench and rested my elbows on my knees. “And?”

Violet blew out. “She wants to… engineer a war between Patrus and Matrus, and then move in once it’s done.”

I stood up, alarmed. “What, that’s crazy!”

She rocked back and forth on her feet, her gaze on the grey and white tiled floor. “I thought that too… but…”

“What? There’s no but, Violet. She’s planning on murdering people!”

Violet made a frustrated sound. “I know that, Viggo. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Not everything is that black and white.”

I stared at her, surprised. “How can you say that? All those people who would be caught in the middle of...”

“You don’t think I’ve thought of that?” she snapped. “My cousin is in Patrus. My aunt and uncle—my family. People who still cared about me when everyone else thought I was worthless. Believe me, I’m thinking about it.”

I didn’t know about Violet’s family, other than her brother. My own family was nonexistent—my mother had died when I was young, and my father shortly after I finished the academy. We hadn’t been particularly close, and I had been an only child. Still… I had people like Alejandro in my life. He had taken me in, despite my rough edges.

Refocusing on the conversation, I felt a strange sensation, almost like vertigo, that things were spiraling out of control. “I just don’t understand what there is to think about,” I said. “There’s right and then there’s wrong.”

Violet shot me an incredulous look that slowly became jaded. She gave a slow, bitter laugh and shook her head. “They don’t even play by the rules,” she said, pulling her right hand out of her pocket to point at a wall. “Look at what they’ve built. Think about what they’ve done. They know what they’ve done here is wrong. That’s why they’ve tried to bury it!”

“So we bring it to light. Let the people decide.”

“In Matrus. And when the civil war starts, what do you think happens? Patrus steps in and tries to crush all of Matrus. You cannot tell me that is the right play. There are not enough words in the English language to convince me of that.”

I reeled back, quite shocked at her vehemence. “But, Violet… it’s drastic. The loss of life alone would be catastrophic.”

She swallowed, seeming to back down from her outburst and collect herself. She nodded. “It is. But… I don’t really see any other way of bringing down this system. The Liberators number in the hundreds, Viggo. Not thousands. They are a small force who are just actively trying to make things right. To get their government to stop lying and using them and the people they care about. That’s what they’re fighting for. Not to kill people, but to save them.”

I shook my head. My knees were feeling wobbly—strangely more from this conversation than the exertion of the day. “It’s not our fight,” I said, after a pause. “We should just go.”

Violet tsked, crossing her arms. “How can you say that? You just started with the boys, and now you want to abandon them? And where would we go, knowing what we know and having seen what we’ve seen?”

I opened my mouth, and then shut it, uncertain of how to even formulate a response to her questions. They were valid. I certainly did not want to abandon the boys. I also didn’t know where we could go that would be safe. Our options were extremely limited.

But I still didn’t want to condone Desmond’s plan. “I will never agree that starting a war between the two is the right course of action. I may not have a better plan, but this one… Violet, it crosses the line.”