“You know it was only by pure chance that she didn’t killMaeveand dump her out there,” I said, thrusting my good arm toward the vast, sand-covered waste out somewhere behind the mountains. “Would you have justified that, too?”
“Not after I learned she was your sister,” Langer replied quietly.
“Oh, like that’s supposed to make me feel better?” I stepped farther away from the edge. “They wereallsomeone’s sister, or daughter, or friend. But I guess that doesn’t matter if it serves the greater good.”
“Look, kid, I don’t mean to sound callous or uncaring here, but what we were trying to do wasbeyondthe greater good. It was beyond her, or me, or you. It was beyond any of us.”
I crossed my arms, suddenly realizing the desert night breeze was cold. “And you thought I’d be okay with that.”
“Hell, youwereokay with that. You and I bothknowyou were. That’s the whole reason I brought you here. Remember the guy who wanted to play by his own rules? Remember the guy who aimed to serve only science, only logic, only truth, with none of those messy emotional and spiritual ties to fuck it all up? What happened to him?”
I stared down at the cement as I listened to my own stupid, arrogant, childish philosophies get shot back at me like bullets. Of course I remembered.
But things had changed.
Hell, they’d changed justtonight.
“You know, Max, I’d take this opportunity to say you’re just as bad as Resi, but I won’t because you’re not.” I raised my head,blinking evenly at him. “You’re worse because shecan’tcare. Youcan, and you choose not to.”
To my surprise, Langer’s response came immediately. “I don’t choose not to.”
“What?” I was afraid I’d heard wrong. And if I hadn’t, well, this was new.
In fact, as I peered at him closer, I thought the look on his face indicatedhecouldn’t believe what he’d just said.
“I don’t,” he repeated, swallowing. “Choose not to.”
“Are you saying?—”
“Fuck me, kid, you know what I’m saying.”
Another look into Max’s eyes—at those icy blue irises that maybe weren’t as cold as I’d always assumed—and I knew. Though he was talking about me, he was also talking about himself. Max Langer. The man who had scars. Who knew pain. Who’d endured suffering and been forced to watch others suffer in turn. Who understood what his sister didn’t, and who knew that when you were lucky enough to have the brains and the charisma and the money and the power to afford it, how much fucking easier it always was to just stop caring.
Hell, he and I had bothtriedto stop caring. And we’d both failed because despite it all, no matter what we told ourselves, we still cared so goddamn much.
Langer coughed, embarrassed enough not to demand to know what revelation had just crash-landed into my brain. “Anyway, it should be pretty fucking self-evident,” he continued, regaining a bit of his poise. “Given that I’m standing here waiting for you when I could already be eight miles high over the Gulf, on my way to Rio Dulce.”
“Rio Dulce?”
“River town in the jungle. Nice hotels, cheap tacos, good tequila. You get everywhere on a boat or a motorbike. Mayan temples. Monkeys. Toucans. Manatees. It’s where the CentralAmerican elite go on holiday. More importantly, the officials there don’t ask questions of rich gringos with offshore bank accounts who happen to want to stay indefinitely.”
“But they still have slavery.”
“Yeah, and so does everywhere else that’s even remotely livable. But it’s not as ubiquitous there. And anyway, it won’t matter to you because you’re not a slave. You’re the son of said rich gringo.” He looked pointedly at me.
This, of course, would be as good a time as any to accuse Langer of lying. But those days were over. What he’d told me over the phone was as real as the two of us standing here. It hadn’t—as I’d half-convinced myself on the drive over—been my exhausted, throbbing, contused head conjuring up surreal shit out of nothing just to taunt me.
And even though my very body vibrated with the thought of what it meant, I couldn’t let Max know that.
As if there were any way hecouldn’tknow.
“Sorry,Dad,” I said once I regained my voice. “But I already have a family member waiting for me.”
“I know.”
“Then—”
“I’m getting to that, okay? So I put my lawyers on it, and as it turns out, one of those fucking goons ran the car your sister was in off the road shortly after their getaway and?—”
