Perry's Killer Playlist Part 17

Gobi just kept glaring at me. Her silence was a void, like no other silence in the world. It seemed to collapse inward, sucking all other sound into it, like the aural equivalent of a black hole. For a long moment we just sat there, facing each other like the last two people in Switzerland.

"Is nothing," she murmured.

"Bulls.h.i.t."

"Is epilepsy."

"Bulls.h.i.t."

"Who tells you these things? Kaya?" She snapped a glance back in the direction that we'd come. "They lie."

"Gobi, I saw the images of your brain."

"And of course medical pictures cannot ever be altered. Images doctored. Different names put on."

"If they're lying, then why were you working for them?"

She stared at the window, and I felt my heart race harder, like a gallon jug glugging out its contents into the hole at the bottom of my chest. I didn't realize until that moment how much I'd been hoping for another explanation, any explanation, hoping for anything besides what Nolan alleged to be true. Partly because I'd already decided that Gobi was the only way that I was going to save my family, but also because Gobi was Gobi. She was twenty-four years old. She belonged in the world-if not my world, than at least some version of it, somewhere.

"Look," I said. "I know that guy Nolan promised you the operation if you took care of Armitage and Monash and Paula. He told me all about it."

"Is not for you to worry."

"Oh, okay, I'll just stop. I'll just switch off my worrier." I reached for her hand, and she jerked away as if I'd given her a shock. "You know what, if you can't stand me so much, why the h.e.l.l did you even bother coming back for me?"

"You would not survive five minutes on your own."

I felt a quick sting of anger. "Yeah, well, meet me in a year from now and we'll see who's doing better."

She stiffened, drawing in a sharp breath, then exhaled with a little shudder and looked at me. The shadows across her face made it hard to see her expression, but her eyes gleamed around the rims in the light of the dashboard.

"Look, I'm sorry," I said. "That was harsh. I didn't mean it to come out like that."

"You are doctor, Perry, yes? Go to medical school?"

"No."

"But you are genius, yes? Smart American boy, you can see everything, you know what is right for everybody else?"

"Gobi-"

"You want to worry about someone, worry about yourself, falling in love with some rich girl who would sleep with your father to get what she wanted."

"Don't even go there."

She spat out something, a curse in Lithuanian that didn't require any translation. "Just drive."

I took my hands off the wheel. "Forget it."

"What?"

"I'm trying to help you," I snapped. "Don't you get that? I'm the only one that you can actually trust."

Gobi glared at me. For a second I couldn't tell if she was going to take a swing at me or shove me out of the car. Then her chin trembled and her whole expression quivered and she started to laugh.

I stared at her. "Now what?"

"I forgot how funny you are when you get mad." She wrinkled up her forehead, lowering her voice, transforming it into an annoyingly accurate imitation of mine. "I am trying to help you, don't you get that? I am only one that you can actually trust."

"Okay, first of all, I don't sound like that-"

"I will just turn my worrier off."

"You're not funny."

"Don't go there."

"You're insane."

"You're insane."

I glared at her smirking back at me, then changed my own voice into a stiffly accented version of English.

"Is not for you to worry about," I said.

She tilted her head slightly to one side. "Is that supposed to be me?"

"I am Gobi," I intoned. "I am G.o.ddess of Fire. I kill everything."

She shoved me. "Shut up, stupid a.s.s. That is not how I talk."

"No more Perry Stormaire bool-s.h.i.t."

"Your essay is all wrong," she said. "All the talking that I do in your writing is wrong."

I looked at her. "You read my essay?"

Gobi nodded. "Of course I read. On the Internet."

"What did you think, aside from your dialogue?"

"It was-all right." She looked up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Some good parts."

"Yeah, like what?"

"Like... when we kissed in that coffee house in Brooklyn. And when we danced together at the hotel on Central Park. Those parts I like."

"You mean before you pulled that knife on me?"

"You liked it."

"Oh, I liked it?"

"Yes, I think-yes."

I reached out to her again, put my hand up along her temple, and this time she let me keep it there. I could feel the blood pumping in her veins, and tried not to think about what else was going on in there, growing inside her skull, but when her eyes flicked to me, I knew she'd already picked up my thoughts.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

She hesitated, and when she spoke again her voice was low and soft, not much more than a whisper. "At first, you know, it was not so terrible. Even when I was training with Erich for the first time, three years ago? There was headaches at night, yes, and sometimes..."-she opened her mouth, mimed throwing up-"in morning, you know? Then later came the shaking, the..."

"The seizures."

"Yes." She moved her head up and down, almost too slowly to be a nod. "When I first came to live with you and your family. Neurologists, the first ones, they had said yes, is temporal lobe epilepsy, gave me medicine? But I think even then they knew. Because of before."

"Your other cancer."

She nodded, unconsciously touching the thin white scar on her throat, then reaching up to her head. "But is worse, this."

"When did you know for sure?"

"About the tumor?" She paused. "After that night in New York. That man back there, Nolan. Approached me at the airport in Amsterdam. Told me what they wanted. They did blood work and MRI, and told me I could have surgery, if I..."

"If you did what they wanted."

She nodded.

"And you believed them."

She looked at me. "What choice?"

The question hung between us, a riddle without an answer, maddening in its simplicity. We sat there in the darkness for what felt like eons, and I looked out at the road in front of us. It was absolutely silent. When I turned to face her again, I realized that she'd never stopped looking at me.

"How did you get out of that helicopter, anyway?"

"I jumped."

"You jumped."

"Yes."

"Out of a helicopter."

An edge of impatience now: "I am the one with the brain damage, Perry. Are you an idiot?"

"What, like with a parachute?"

Sigh. "After liftoff I went for the gun. Was not so difficult in enclosed s.p.a.ce." She shrugged. "Pilot took a bullet in the head. Paula and her father and me... all grabbed parachutes. They got away before I could kill them."

"Or they could kill you."

She smiled wryly. "They still thought that I will work for them as an a.s.sa.s.sin, if they get me to a surgeon and take care of this." She touched her head. "But I will stay with Kaya's offer."

"You can't trust Kaya either."

"Perry, you must promise me."

"What?"

"Because of what is in my head, I sometimes... lose myself. Become confused. I know this is true. Erich told me that when you and I were in Switzerland-"

"Forget about it."

"If that ever happens, and I-I put you in harm's way, you must promise you will end it cleanly."

"What," I said. "You mean, break up with you?"

"Shut up." She punched me. "I am serious."

"Ouch! s.h.i.t!"

"Your family was very kind to me when I was in America, Perry. They gave me a home, a safe place to stay so that I could finish what I had to do." She looked at me slowly and I realized that she had already made up her mind. "Do you want them back?"

"My family? You know I do."

"We cannot go to police." She opened her coat and I saw the gun that she'd taken from Paula on the helicopter, a nine-millimeter Glock semi-automatic. "Not now."

"No," I said.

"What would you be willing to do?"

"Whatever it takes."

"Do you remember how it was for us in New York that night?"

I nodded.

"And you are ready to go to war again?"

"If we have to."

Gobi took out the sheet of paper, unfolded it, and told me what she had in mind. When she finished talking, the silence came back, filling the car again, and this time the quiet felt right and easy between us and I knew it was there to stay. I took in a breath and let it out, and eased my foot back on the gas, following the road through the forest of the night.

39. "I Am the Highway"