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“They used THAT photo!?”
There was a perfectly respectable company picture they could have used. They could have used one from the DMV. But they’d chosen instead to trawl social media and find a picture she had been tagged in by someone who was absolutely not her friend. She was holding a cheap cocktail and wearing a dress she had ordered from the Internet which had looked incredible on the website, but turned out to have been manufactured in a facility designed for the sole purpose of making gullible people look silly. It was not a good look, especially as she was half falling out of the right cup of her dress.
“I would say you have bigger concerns than the image they used to call you not only an embezzler, but a traitor to the nation, and I suppose by default, a loose woman.”
“What?”
“Scroll down and read the article.”
She did as she was told, and was further horrified. Every line of the article was less accurate than the one before it.
“Nobody expects the secretary…They think I’m a secretary?”
“They won’t print facts. They’ll print a narrative.”
“Secretary Sophie Pierce not only embezzled hundreds of thousands from her employer, she also padded her ill-gotten gains by selling secrets from Apex’s research division to foreign governments… Is there fucking anything they're not going to accuse me of?” She looked up from the print, wild. “I want to set this straight. I want to talk to the media.”
“That’s not a good idea. It’s also not going to happen. Besides the heavily encrypted satellite connection, there are no other avenues of communication on my island. You need to disappear, Sophie. And you have. I’m showing you this article so you understand how much the deck is stacked against you.” His eyes narrowed with the intensity of his message.
“Yeah. I’m getting that. Christo must have gone to every news outlet as soon as we left the building and accused me of literally every crime he could think of. He can’t get away with it.”
“He can, and he will. Christo is not beholden to the same standards and rules of the common woman and man.”
“Common.” She wrinkled her nose. “You talk like a sixteenth century lord. People aren’t common anymore, and…”
“I’m sure whatever you’re about to rant about equality is adorable, but it’s wrong, and you know it. There are multiple stratas of society. Until recently, you occupied a very privileged one. Now you exist in a new realm, one where you have none of the protections of the law. You are a target, and Christo will seek to destroy you.”
“You’re not going to let him though… right?”
He smiled, but she did not feel reassured.
“You are right about one thing. Christo must have pulled all the strings in his little marionette show,” Alex mused, with what might have been an admiring tone. “There’s some suggestion you’re a Russian spy.”
“They say that about almost everyone though, don't they?”
“They do,” Alex confirmed. “Still, you don’t want them saying it about you. It’s a hard label to shake.”
“Miss Pierce is not known to have any associates, or family, or friends… oh, come on!”
“You are something of a lone wolf.”
That was a complimentary way of saying she had no friends. “I've been working my ass off since college. I haven’t had time to hang out with people. But I had some office friends.”
“You had work acquaintances who have most likely already been fired simply for knowing you.”
“You mean Sandy's lost her job!?”
“The entire fifth floor was terminated immediately. Collateral damage.”
“That’s harsh.”
“The world is a harsh place.”
“Yeah. So. What now? I just sit here on your island, get old, and die?”
“You begin a new life. You find new meaning, and in time, you may possibly be able to return to the world you once knew. It is possible to shed one identity and assume another. Like a snake, you may find yourself even more beautiful…”
“Usually people use the butterfly in that sort of analogy.”
“I suppose I find a snake more relatable,” he smirked. “And I do not think you are a butterfly, Sophie. They are ephemeral creatures, easily killed by frosts or curious collectors, pinned to boards where their beauty is preserved forever. Snakes present a much more vital challenge. As you do.”
“The snake and the shark,” she smiled. “What a pair we make.”
Then she blushed, realizing how familiar she sounded. She couldn’t presume she meant anything to Alex. More likely she was an amusement, and a pawn in some plan he was yet to reveal — if he ever bothered to tell her at all.
“There are snakes on the island,” Alex said, gazing out the window. “And sharks in the water. We are represented well in our environment here, I think.”
“It might be the most beautiful place on the entire planet. A new kind of Eden. Except you’re not Adam. You’re God in his garden.”
