Page 35 of Liar's Heart
“I’m far enough away from it now to see it for what it was, but it took a long time for my self-loathing to aim itself at the correct targets—Alec and the Society. I'd been their weapon for a decade, maybe longer, at that point, and just wanted out. I never wanted to be Charon. I could barely swallow being a Ferryman anymore, but Ox helped me see things differently.
“We became close, and Ro and I welcomed him into our fold. Many late-night discussions revealed that none of us were happy with the status quo, but none of us thought we could do anything about it. Ox convinced me that if I ascended to Charon's throne, the three of us could shift the paradigm. We wouldn’t have to blindly follow orders. I would have the status to argue and the muscle to back it up. The three of us spent a lot of time daydreaming about what we wanted the future to look like, and changes we would make if we could. Not surprisingly, a lot of Ox’s were about you.”
I lift my gaze from the countless hidden scars and face my husband. His gray eyes are sad and a little distant, like part of him is with his memories instead of here with me. He givesme a weak smile. “He loved you, Merrick. So fucking much. Everything that he wanted for himself, he wanted with you at his side.”
Tears I didn’t think I had left in me today silently track down my face. They’re caught by my husband’s thumbs, swiping them away as he cups my face in his warm palms. “He talked about you constantly. What you were up to, when he would see you again. How badly he missed you and just wanted to get past this phase of life so he could move on and you two could start your lives together.”
Sniffling, I don’t even attempt to hide the warble in my voice. “He never really talked about you.”
Ender smiles a little at that. “No, I wouldn’t have thought so. I was a coworker turned friend and ally. You were his whole world. Why would he bother bringing me up when you were finally together? And I get it now. When I’m with you, everything else fades into background noise. Some days, I’m surprised I can see anything but you when we’re in the same room. You feel like gravity, baby. My heart can't stop pulling closer to yours.”
We just stare at each other, letting the weight of his confession sink in. I know what he means. I feel it too. But now is the time for coming clean, for seeking absolution from each other. Confessions of a different nature have to wait until we find the other side of this.
Reaching up, I cover one of his hands on my face and give it a gentle squeeze. Acknowledgment, but not derailment. He clears his throat and resumes his story. “We started taking our dreams more seriously, discussing changes we wanted to see made. Ox and I had a different perspective on things compared to Ro since he wasn’t born into this world. In a way, that made it easier for him to accept the bad as the price you pay for the good. It was all part of the choice he made, whether he agreed with it or not.
“But Ox and I never had a choice. Every time our handswere forced one way or another, it felt like shackles clicking a little tighter. Ox wasn’t happy about his whole life being flipped upside down at the whim of some faceless Council. I’d watched my father abuse his position for personal gain my whole life, which is expected, but he used us to do his dirty work for him. A lot of the orders that were given to us weren’t coming from the Council—they were just Alec’s personal hit list. People he should have taken care of discreetly on his own, not handed off to us like it was official business.
“The three of us were already restless, longing for a new world order. But aside from a literal coup, we were at a loss for how to get there. We lacked any real leverage or allies. Most of the potential solutions we came up with ultimately just locked us in further. We seriously weighed killing Alec so I’d ascend, thinking if there was no way out, then at least we could control the position, you know? But we needed to be smart about it. No one would have batted an eye over an execution, but to walk in and start pushing back against the powers that be? We needed to make sure we weren’t setting ourselves up to end up dead in six months. So we started digging, talking to people. Trying to figure out who would support us and who also wanted change. Started looking into Alec’s business more thoroughly—who he was meeting with, where money was going, what kinds of problems I was going to inherit. And what we found…”
His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows, no longer meeting my eye. “Was enough to get Ox killed and keep Alec alive?” I intuit.
He nods solemnly. “Yeah.”
I squeeze the hand still under mine, trying to reassure him. My fingers find his wedding ring and absently stroke it, the warm metal a comforting reminder. “Baby, please tell me,” I softly plead. “I can take it. I’m not some innocent?—”
He flinches. Almost imperceptibly, but I feel him move underneath me before he catches himself.
I can’t fucking stand it.
My hands are on his face in an instant, gently forcing him to look at me. “Whatever you have to say, I need you to say it. I loved Ox. I love you. And if you don't volunteer the information I need to burn the motherfucker who hurt you both, then I'll find it my damn self. So please, baby, just tell me so we can take him out together.”
Merrick’s tone is commanding,her expression so steady that for a moment, I think I must have misheard her. “You just said you love me.” It’s not even a question. I’m so dumbstruck by what my wife just said that I’m just repeating it back to her.
She rolls her eyes. “That would be the part you fixate on.” Literally, the only response I can form to that after blinking several times is “Yes.”
She hums at me.She hums at me. “End, please.”
First baby, then I love you, now End? Unbelievable. “Are you still high?”
It comes out with all of the incredulity I'm feeling right now, which is a significant amount.
She shakes her head. “No. I'm sober as a judge. And meant every word, so don't start in on that next. Now, please finish your story.” I open my mouth, but I’m cut off by a raised hand. “I won't say it again until you finish. Don't start in on that either.”
My jaw snaps shut so acutely there's an audible click when my teeth clash. It feels like I'm finally meeting my wife for the first time. Or rather, the last crucial piece of her she’swithheld from me. And now that I've seen it, now that she's fully let me into the fortress that guards her heart, I see all of her. Her pain and her rage, but also her ferocity, her loyalty. Her passion and kindness and wit and tenacity. She's so different from the ice queen who met me at the altar not so long ago. Knowing that I'm one of the privileged few capable of thawing that frozen exterior is heady.
Merrick tuts at me, eyes narrowing. “You're getting hard again.”
“Sure am,” I say, dazed. I catch myself quickly, shaking my head to dispel the intrusive thoughts that have spurred that reaction. “Ignore it. You're right. We need to see this through.” I clear my throat and recenter my thoughts. This is so much harder to get out than I ever thought it would be. I want her to know, but actually voicing the words, knowing they’re both the source of so much of our pain and the reason we're together, isn’t easy.
But Merrick is right. She's not naive or innocent. This is her world, too, and she's already lived through the fallout. As hard as I find parts of my history to stomach, they're still our unfortunate reality. Something my wife both deserves and needs to know.
“A Ferryman's job, at its most basic level, is to transport souls. Most people think that means carrying out executions per the Council. That's a lot of it, but sometimes the orders were just to bring people in so someone else could mete out justice. Sometimes, they'd request that we also do the more hands-on work once their asset was in place—they just wanted to be present for it—but it wasn't uncommon for the orders to be for drop-off only. We'd assume that the client wanted to handle matters themselves. Sometimes, we were sent to collect wayward family members, young people who had tried to defect from the Society, or bad business dealings that were past the point of forgiveness, the kinds of thingsthat most people would want to handle internally once we brought their asset in.
“The executions were pretty cut and dry. Even the ones that were for bogus reasons were still squared away on paper, and by the time we were handed the order, there wasn't much I could do about it, even if I wanted to. But the asset recovery orders? Those didn't require the same amount of approval or documentation. The three of us started piecing together how many of these we were doing… how they were spaced out. The things that these people were saying when we caught them… You expect people to say anything to try to get out of being brought in, but these people consistently had no idea what was happening. Especially the women, and the targets were overwhelmingly women. We started following up on them. Doing more research into who they were and what their lives looked like. You can guess what we found.”
She nods slowly, mulling over what I'm saying before answering, “Transients. Loners. People who were flight risks. People no one would spend a lot of time looking for if they vanished.”
I nod. “And when we followed up on them after? Almost all of themhadvanished once in the hands of the Society. It’s not hard to guess what was happening.” I study Merrick’s face, pensive but not surprised, like this is new information, but not new knowledge. “Did you know about this?”
