Кирстен Уайт – Perfect Lies (страница 1)
KIERSTEN WHITE
PERFECT LIES
For Noah
My past, present, and future
Table of Contents
Annie: Three and a Half Months Before
Annie: Two and a Half Months Before
Annie: Two and a Half Months Before
Fia: Twenty-eight Hours Before
Annie: Twenty-eight Days Before
ANNIE.
Annie.
Annie.
Annie.
I can’t think about her, not ever. It isn’t safe.
But when I’m asleep, no one can listen to my thoughts. I’m still afraid to sleep—too many ghosts peering creeping condemning. Sometimes though, the good times, I get Annie.
It’s always the same.
Phillip Keane is gone, his webs destroyed, everything smoking and charred in beautiful ruins around me. We’re safe. It’s over.
But my hands are red, they’re still so red I can’t look at them, can’t see them, can’t breathe.
And then Annie is there. She’s too young. I know she doesn’t look like that anymore, but her face is open and innocent and clean. She wraps her hands around mine, so that I can’t see the red anymore. We’re
If I were Annie, I’d know whether this was a real future. All I know is it’s the only one I want, the thing that keeps me going.
I will make that future happen.
SHE DIDN’T KILL ME.
I was ready for the knife. I’d made my peace with whatever Fia needed to do to be okay. But … she didn’t kill me. I try to keep my breathing shallow and hidden, try not to flex my fingers over the phone, though I want to.
Fia didn’t kill me!
She must have come up with something else, some way out of this. I knew she would. I knew she would fix everything, I knew she would find a way to our future.
Two minutes ago I knew she was going to kill me.
After all this time, I can See and know everything, and still know nothing at all.
How long am I going to have to lie on the ground? Is she coming back yet? My hip aches where it rests against the concrete, and people must be staring. I can hear them around me, footsteps, voices. Someone has to have noticed.
I hear the thud of hurried footfalls, then feel someone kneel next to me and let off a string of whispered profanity, soft and sad like a prayer.