Page 5 of Rogue’s Mark

I watch Mara's face while I say this, the same way I watched Alice's, looking for a reaction, something, anything, that’ll keep me from going insane.

Mara doesn't move for a second. Then she exhales, slow and careful, and I know from that exhale she's going to go easy on me. She’ll handle this the way she handles me when I need to be talked down from the ledge, not by agreeing but not by dismissing me, either.

"Vi," she says.

"I know," I say. "It sounds whackadoodle."

She shakes her head slowly. "Well, I’m thinking maybe...” She hesitates like she wants to make sure I’m really listening. “I’m thinking maybe the man used the wrong verb tense and you want to believe him more than anything in the world.”

Fair.

And yet.

"Maybe I do want to believe him, Mara, who wouldn’t? But this guy, Fischer, he doesn't make mistakes like that. His words are careful and measured. I mean, you see how he sucked you in, making you think he was your friend and all."

She rubs her hand over her face. “Don’t remind me. I feel like a chump. But look. Everyone misspeaks, everyone says one word when they mean another from time to time. You’re banking on one little thing he said that might mean nothing at all. In fact, it probably does mean nothing at all. I’m sorry, Vi.”

My eyes start to fill with tears and Mara reaches for my hand.

“Honey, look. Tommy or Fischer or whatever the hell is name is, was cornered tonight. He was rattled. His brain was running in twelve directions. He knew he was fucked and has no idea what comes next. Life in the Rot is not kind, especially to someone who’s a deceitful asshole. And who knows what the guys are going to do with him, ya know? He’s probably shitting his pants right now."

I let her grasp my fingers. "But Mara, he wasn't scared,” I insist. “He was—okay, maybe he was a little shaken. But he's not careless. He spent years hiding inside this place with a fake name. You don't do that and then just say the wrong thing."

"Vi." Mara says my name the way she's been saying it since we were kids. The version that means I love you but get your head out of your ass. "Your dad has been gone for years. If he were alive—" She stops, then starts again. "If he were alive, he would have found a way to reach you. Okay? He would have found a way. He was your father. He loved you more than anything and would have crawled through glass to let you know he was breathing."

I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

She squeezes my hand. "Think about it, Vi," she says. "Really think about it. You lost everything after he disappeared. You lost your home, your money, your friends." She doesn't look away when she says that last part, doesn’t flinch from her own role in that fact. "You were alone for a long time. You were struggling. If your father was out there, anywhere, alive and knowing what you were going through, do you honestly believe he would have stayed silent? That he would have let you suffer the way you have?"

I don't answer.

Because the answer is no. My father would not have done that. My father, who called me every Sunday morning without fail, who showed up at my apartment unannounced with groceries when he thought I sounded tired on the phone, who had to tell me about periods and stuff like that because my mother was not around—that man would not have let me think he was dead if he wasn't.

He wouldn't have. He couldn't have.

"You're right," I say, slumping down in my chair.

Fuck.

"I know I'm right," Mara says kindly. "Fischer slipped. It happens. And Alice —" She pauses, thinking it through. "Alice knew your father. She cared about him. She's been carrying his documents for God knows how long, waiting to hand them to someone who could do something with them. Of course she talks about him like he's still present. Of course. That's what people do with the ones they've lost. They use the wrong tense because in their heads, in the way they carry them, they're never fully past tense."

I wish she weren’t so damn logical.

"She wasn't surprised though," I say, and I hate that I'm obsessing over her words, unable to let go. "When I told her, her face didn't move."

"Alice's face never moves."

She has a point. In all the months I've known Alice, I have never seen that woman react to anything with more than a slow blink. The entire city could be on fire and she'd stand there with her hands flat against her thighs waiting to assess the situation.

"Yeah," I say. "I guess."

Mara watches me. "You okay?"

I shrug. "It was just that, for a minute there, I thought maybe—" I stop. "Never mind. It was nothing. I was reaching. Being crazy."

"You're allowed to be crazy. It’s not breaking any rules or hurting anyone," she says. "Someone drops a hint and your brain goes there automatically. That's not crazy."

I lean back in my chair and tip my head toward the ceiling. The plaster up there is water-stained in overlapping circles, layers of old damage from something that flooded above us at some point. I've stared at it enough times to have it memorized.