KILLING SARAI(54)

“Father wanted you to kill me?”

“Yes,” I say gently.

He starts to pace the floor and then brings his hands up to the top of his head, pushing them roughly over his hair. He looks across at me, his eyes brimmed with tears. I have never once in our lives seen my brother cry. Never. Not even when we were children, or when his mother was killed.

I grind my jaw, forcing my own tears back. I grit my teeth so hard that I feel the pressure in my skull. But I keep a straight face, as much of one as I can manage.

“Then why didn’t you?” he lashes out. “Why am I still alive? Tell me that, Victor.” The first of his tears streams down one cheek and he reaches up instinctively to wipe it away, angry at it for betraying him. “You should’ve killed me!”

“I refused,” I say. “You were the one job I could not carry out, Niklas. And so then Father had only one thing left to do: he was going to do it himself.”

Niklas’ body freezes rigidly, more hurt by this truth than the truth before it. Another tear escapes from his eye, but this time he doesn’t have the mind to wipe it away.

“I killed him,” I finally say. “Father told me that I would have to because it was the only way he wouldn’t finish the job. So I shot him where he stood.”

He can’t look at me. I feel the conflict within him, his mind and heart trying to choose which emotions to feel and which ones to reject: his hurt for what our father did, or his love for his brother, because both are too much to take on at once.

I go on:

“Being Vonnegut’s Number One, I convinced him to spare your life and made him believe that our Father was unhinged, paranoid, and that was why I had to kill him. I told Vonnegut that you were trustworthy and that I wanted a chance to prove that to him and the rest of the Order. I vowed to take full responsibility for you—”

“Full re—,” he glares at me, “full responsibility for me? What, am I a goddamned child? Everything I have done since I was seven-years old, I’ve done for the Order. I am the one of us who always did as I was told, who never questioned Vonnegut’s orders, who has never given him or anyone else reason to question me!” He clenches his hands into fists at his sides. “I have strived to become like you, Victor, to be respected and trusted and showered with the same glory Vonnegut has showered you with since before you were promoted Full Operative! I have done nothing to warrant—”

“You’ve been lying to Vonnegut for me for years, Niklas. What’s not to say that you would turn against me when the time was right? You’ve pretended to be Vonnegut’s trustworthy soldier, his liaison waiting to be promoted Full Operative, all the while lying to him whenever I asked you to.”

“Is that what this is about?!” He points upward and then drops his hand aggressively back at his side. “Have you been testing me all this time?! That’s what you’ve been doing! Isn’t it?!”

“No,” I say. “I would never use you like that, Niklas. I killed our father to save your life. Why would I then risk your life by setting you up?”

He has no answer. He just stares at me confused and hurt and angry and not knowing what to do with any of it. He collapses back into the chair, his legs splayed out into the floor, his upper-body slouched forward resting his forehead in his hand.

“Why are you telling me this now?” he asks, raising his eyes back to me. “What made you decide that today was going to be the day you turned my life upside-down? Did you just wake up this morning and say to yourself: ‘Today I think I’ll mindf*ck my brother because I have nothing better to do’?”

“I felt I owed it to you,” I say. “You should know the truth before you die.”

He looks faintly stunned, as if trying to figure out if he heard me right.

His hand drops away from his forehead and he straightens his back against the chair.

“What do you mean?”

“Niklas,” I get right to it, “I know you told Javier Ruiz where I hid the girl. Where I was with the girl.”

His eyes wrinkle with confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

I walk a couple steps to my right, my hands now behind my back to appear to be resting there. My gun is hidden safely in the back of my pants.

“When you called me while I was on my way back to Tucson, you said that the time of Javier’s last known whereabouts was at three-twelve in the afternoon.” I cock my head to one side. “Why did it take you seven hours to give me this information?”

He still hasn’t flinched. I’m beginning to find his ability to act more effective than I gave him credit for.

He thinks about the question for a moment. “I called you as soon as I found out myself. Victor, you know we don’t always get that kind of information right when it occurs.”

“Maybe so,” I say. “But you and Samantha were the only two people who knew where I was and where I planned to leave the girl.”

He points at me, his expression twisted with disbelief. “But you told me Samantha was the one. You said the girl told you that Samantha got a call….”

“I lied.”

He still hasn’t flinched.

Is he telling the truth?

I raise my gun to him.

Niklas’ eyes widen and he puts out his hands toward me.