Page 83 of Betray Me
“Nearly two years ago, when you returned after the Queens’ trial.” His eyes meet mine in the broken mirror, and I see the exact moment he reaches the same horrifying conclusion I have. “Oh, God. Belle, what if it wasn’t my idea? What if I only thought it was my plan?”
The hunting lodge suddenly feels like a trap—not the sanctuary we believed, but a carefully constructed stage for whatever The Architect has been orchestrating. How long have we been dancing to someone else’s tune, believing we were making our own choices while instead following a script written years ago?
“The safe house,” I breathe, pieces falling into place with sickening clarity. “Max, how did you know about this lodge? And your family’s cabin? How did you know they would be empty, unmonitored?”
“My father brought me to Vermont once when I was twelve—” He stops mid-sentence, his face going pale. “Belle, what if that wasn’t coincidence? What if he was showing me this place specifically so I’d remember it later?”
The fire crackles and pops, sending shadows dancing across walls that now feel like they’re closing in around us. Every sound could be surveillance equipment. Every shadow could hide observers. The intimate moment we just shared could have been performed for an audience we never knew existed.
“We need to leave,” I say, already reaching for my clothes. “Right now. If this place is compromised—”
“Where can we go? If they can predict our movements, if they’ve been orchestrating this from the beginning—”
“I don’t know.” The admission tastes like ash. “But staying here feels like waiting for the executioner.”
As we dress with frantic efficiency, I can’t stop staring at the mark behind Max’s ear. Such a small thing to carry such enormous implications. How many people bear that symbol without knowing it? How many of us think we’re making independent choices while actually following programming embedded so deeply we mistake it for our own will?
“Belle.” Max catches my hands as I reach for my jacket, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Whatever that mark means, whatever they’ve done to me or made me think I wanted—what I feel for you is real. What just happened between us was real.”
“How do you know?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “If they can manipulate memory, if they can plant motivations so deep you mistake them for your own desires—how does anyone know what’s real?”
For a moment, he doesn’t answer. In the dying firelight, he looks haunted, hollowed out by the weight of questions that don’t have comfortable answers.
“Because real feels different,” he says finally. “Real hurts more, costs more, demands more than the artificial programming done in Munich ever could. And Belle, what I feel for you—it’s the most expensive emotion I’ve ever owned.”
The words should comfort me, but they only highlight how little we really know about ourselves, our motivations, our capacity for genuine choice. As we gather our evidence and prepare to abandon yet another temporary sanctuary, I wonder if we’re victims planning a rebellion or pawns being moved into position for some final, devastating gambit.
Outside, the wind picks up, rattling the hunting lodge like dice in a cosmic cup. Soon we’ll be back on the road, racing toward a confrontation with forces we don’t fully understand, carrying secrets that might be lies and love that might be manufactured.
But as Max’s marked hand closes around mine, as we step out into the darkness beyond our false sanctuary, I realize that, real or artificial, choice or programming, what exists between us is the only weapon we have against the architects of our destruction.
If we’re puppets, then at least we’re puppets who’ve learned to love the strings that bind us to each other.
And maybe, just maybe, that love will be enough to cut us free.
Chapter 29: The Mark
Now
The neon sign of the Pineview Motel flickers against the pre-dawn darkness, casting sickly pink light across the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. Max and I have been walking for six hours through back roads and forest paths, our feet blistered and our clothes damp with morning dew. The hunting lodge feels like a lifetime ago, though we abandoned it less than twelve hours after discovering that symbol behind Max’s ear.
“This place looks like a horror movie set,” I mutter, studying the row of identical doors painted in peeling turquoise. Each unit is separated by thin walls that probably wouldn’t muffle a conversation, let alone anything more intimate.
“It’s perfect,” Max replies, shouldering his backpack as he heads toward the office. “Cash only, no questions asked, and far enough from civilization that no one will bother looking for us here.”
The desk clerk barely glances up from his magazine when Max slides three twenties across the scarred counter—room 211, second floor, overlooking the dumpsters and the interstate beyond. Not exactly the Ritz, but it has two things we need desperately: privacy and anonymity.
The room smells like industrial disinfectant and stale cigarettes, with an undertone of something that might be mold. Two double beds separated by a nightstand, a television that probably hasn’t worked since the Clinton administration, and abathroom with a shower that looks like it could give you tetanus just from looking at it.
“Home sweet home,” Max says, dropping his bag on the bed nearest the window. The mattress sags ominously under the minimal weight.
I move to the window, peering through blinds that have seen better decades at the empty parking lot below. Dawn is breaking over the distant mountains, painting everything in shades of gray and gold that would be beautiful if I weren’t so exhausted, so paranoid, so fucking terrified of what we might have stumbled into.
“We need to establish watch rotations,” I say, forcing my mind into tactical mode. “If they can track us through means we don’t understand, if they’ve been orchestrating our movements from the beginning, then staying alert is our only advantage.”
Max nods, already pulling out his laptop to continue our research. “I’ll take the first shift. You look like you’re about to collapse.”
“I’m fine,” I lie, though my legs feel like water and there’s a persistent tremor in my hands that I can’t seem to control. “Let me take first watch. I’m too wired to sleep anyway.”
