Perfect Lies by Kiersten White Page A

going to help me.”
    “Why would I help you?” I whisper.
    “James was.”
    “Liar,” I snarl.
    “I didn’t tell him about Casey. Shame, really. You would have liked her. She was my fail-safe, put into action because James broke his promises. We were supposed to build our own army together—him on the inside, me on the outside. Take down his father. Lately, however, I think he likes being daddy’s pet more than he wants revenge. Does that feel familiar to you, Fia? Promises strung out along months, tentative ideas for a future that never seems to get here, no matter how close you keep getting?” He leans forward intently.
    No. No no no. James wouldn’t back out. Rafael is a liar. I can only trust James. If James is wrong, if James is lying to me, then I am wrong and if I am wrong, nothing is ever right again. If I cannot trust myself to love the right person, what can I trust?
    Rafael can see that I’m wavering. He sits back, pulls out his phone as though he can’t be bothered to pay full attention to the conversation. “We have another friend in common. Sweetest girl. She’s like a sane version of you. Goes by Annie.”
    The world drops out from underneath me.
    Annie.
    There’s a rather insistent-bordering-on-panicked tapping; Rafael opens the window and I realize the tapping this time wasn’t in my head. I can’t always tell.
    The man who escorted me here is red-faced. “You okay, sir?”
    Rafael waves a hand dismissively. “Relax. Sofia and I are old friends. Isn’t that right?”
    Rafael’s man has his arm through the window, trying to unlatch the door. I let him, then kick it open, slamming it into his stomach. I pull it back shut, then smash the gun against the side of Rafael’s head.
    “Annie is dead,” I hiss. I hold the gun to his temple. There’s a trickle of blood running down and the barrel disrupts its path. I wonder how the blood would have fallen if I didn’t get in the way. I change things. All the time. I change them to be how I want them to be. “I killed her.”
    Rage is written into the lines of his mouth, but he peels his lips back into a smile. “Here.” He holds out a card between two fingers. “My number. You’ll call.”
    I take the card. His smile grows bigger. He knows he’s won. I lower the gun and shoot the seat directly between his legs. He jumps, slamming himself into the corner of the seat, cursing me in fluid Italian. The scent of gunpowder assails my nose and I breathe in deeply, letting it settle in my sinuses.
    I climb out of the car, pointing the gun at the men outside. “It’s okay!” Rafael shouts, and they lower their guns. I turn and walk down the alley.
    “You need me,” Rafael yells after me. “You’ll call. James betrayed us all. But you and I still want the same thing.”
    I throw the gun in a trash can, my fist clenched around his card. “I don’t know what I want,” I whisper, and it’s true.

ANNIE
Six Weeks Before

    I THROW A PUNCH. I MIGHT AS WELL THROW IT AWAY, because as usual it sails wildly through the air, connecting with nothing. “Do I look as stupid as I feel? Because I really can’t imagine how that’s possible.”
    Cole doesn’t answer, but I hear a muffled laugh.
    “Fia is the one who got trained to fight. For rather obvious reasons they didn’t bother with me.”
    “I’m very familiar with how Fia fights.”
    I smirk. “I’m so glad one of us kicked your butt.”
    “I didn’t say that.” He sounds decidedly grumpy.
    “Didn’t have to. Fia’s got perfect instincts. Never hesitates. Operates on pure impulse. Blah, blah, blah.” I throw my arms in the air and then sit, defeated, on the floor next to the wall. If Fia were here, I wouldn’t need to learn how to fight.
    It was supposed to be the two of us, hiding, on the run. We would have made a good team. Wouldn’t we? Or would she have felt like she used to feel, like she had to take care of me all the time? Maybe if she were around, I wouldn’t mind. I