Vicarious (36 page)

“I will be, once you leave,” I lie.

I will never be all right again.

“Your phone is ringing. It's Andy. Do you want me to bring it to you?”

“Tell him I'll call him back once I figure out if I've slept with him or not.” The words shoot out like spikes.

“Look. I know what we did to you might be unforgivable.” Jesse sounds like he's crying. I've never seen him cry—not even when he talked about his dead army friends. “This isn't enough, it's not even a start, but I'm sorry. I am so goddamn sorry.”

I look down at my bloody knuckles. “Me too,” I whisper. I clear my throat. “Just leave, Jesse. Please. If you care about me at all.”

There is a long beat of silence and then I hear the front door open and close. I strip out of my clothes and get into the shower. Hot water courses down over my body, igniting pain in the cuts on my fingers. Jesse's blood washes from my hands, staining the water beneath my feet a dull pink.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours, before it occurs to me that there's one major piece of information still missing from Jesse's little scenario of me being Rose being me: Who the hell was the guy who broke into the penthouse? Who got
stabbed
as part of this charade?

 

CHAPTER 40

When
the hot water finally runs cold, I crawl from the shower to my bed, my eyes avoiding the bloodstains on the carpet. Jesse's blood mixed with some unknown stranger's.

Reaching out for my phone, I see that I have two texts. The first is from Andy:

I set up a meeting with your boss. Thanks for hooking us up.

Second text. From Gideon. Two words:

Call me.

Reluctantly, I dial his number. I should be angry. I should want to scream at him like I did Jesse. But once I do, I'll be completely alone in the world.

I'm scared.

“I'm on the way home,” he says. “If you'll allow it, I can help you make sense of this. Or else you can just attack me like you did Jesse.”

My hands are still throbbing from the punches I threw. “He told you?”

“Yes. He's worried about you. It's not like you to hurt someone who isn't fighting back.”

“It's not like he didn't deserve it.”

“You don't think you overreacted?” Gideon asks. “Jesse would never have touched you if he knew about your condition. I'm the one who lied to you for years. I made Jesse lie too. I'm the one you should blame, but I suppose I'm not as easy of a target.”

“Maybe,” I mumble. After six years of living in America and watching children disrespect their elders, that still feels odd to me. I've been inappropriate to Gideon several times since Rose disappeared, but there's no way I could bring myself to physically strike him outside of our sparring matches. Plus, Gideon risked everything to save me. Technically he risked everything to save my sister—I was just a collateral beneficiary. But he took care of me after Rose was gone. And he taught me to be strong.

It's hard to hate someone who has given me everything that I have.

“The cab is pulling up to the building right now. I'll be up in a minute,” he says. “Perhaps you could put on some tea?” The call disconnects.

I head into the kitchen and dig through the cabinets for the teapot.

And then I stop. Gideon may have saved me, he may be the closest thing I have to a father, but he lied to me and kidnapped me and
drugged
me. I don't have to make him tea.

A few minutes later, the front door swings open. Wordlessly, Gideon slips out of his loafers. I take a seat on the sofa. He sits in a chair across from me.

“How was your flight?” I ask.

“Fine.”

We stare at each other for a few seconds. I resist the urge to look away. I'm not used to making this much eye contact with him outside of our sparring matches. I feel as if I should let him speak first, but he seems more interested in listening.

“So it's true?” I start. “My sister died three years ago but I blocked it out and you concocted an elaborate scheme to make me accept her death?”

Gideon nods.

My lower lip trembles. “You said we were family.” I think of that day with the red dresses, of how happy all of us were. “Family is all I have ever had in this world. You should have told me the truth.”

He studies me with his dark eyes. “When we first arrived here, the doctors at the hospital told you Rose was dead. You refused to believe it. You threatened to hurt people. You threatened to hurt
yourself.
The nurses sedated you, and when you woke up, it was like you'd reset. You were back to believing Rose was alive, and you were calm. The psychiatrist who cared for you said there was no reason to force the truth on you at that moment. He prescribed you sedatives and referred you to an outpatient therapist.” He pauses. “Dr. Abrams experimented with medications, but regardless of what she tried, you still saw your sister. She said she would work with you and help you deal with your past, but that when it came to your sister you were going to have to remember and accept the truth at your own pace. So I learned to embrace your reality.”

“Rose has clothes, oppa. Furniture,” I say sharply. “She had a phone. That's a bit more than playing along with some girl's imaginary sister, don't you think?”

He nods. “Some of those things I had bought before we moved. Some of them you bought for her yourself. You asked why we were never together, so I told you we broke up. After that, what started out as the guest bedroom slowly became Rose's room. The phone was just another way to keep an eye on you—who you were calling, where you were going. But you're right. I did a bit more than merely indulge your fantasies. It's just that whenever something felt off in your reality, it would upset you. I hated seeing you upset.”

“Clearly you got over that,” I say through clenched teeth.

“Do you remember why you quit vising?”

I shake my head. “I never vised, except a couple of times with you. I'm really sensitive to overlay. You know that.”

“No, that's just something your mind has convinced your body to believe. You used to go to sleep and then I would catch you out late or up early in the morning as Rose, using the beta tech to make ViSEs of just walking around the city. That's when I first realized you weren't just seeing her, that you were
being
her too. You were agoraphobic, but somehow as Rose you were able to go outside. And then as Winter you would play the recordings. I knew it wasn't normal, but it seemed therapeutic. I felt like you were helping yourself heal.”

“So then why did I quit?”

“You started to figure things out. I suspect because of the scar on your hand. I tried to tell you the truth again but you didn't want to know who was really making the recordings.” He pauses again. “I still have some of them somewhere, if you want to see. You went out a lot that first December to record the holiday decorations.”

Another memory flashes back. Me lying on my bed, blankets pulled up to my chin, a ViSE headset secured to my head. Christmas lights, snowflakes, shiny decorations. Gideon is right. The department store windows were one of the first things that made me want to leave the penthouse.

“I remember,” I say. “I can't remember her giving me the recordings, but I remember playing them.”

“Believing Rose was alive seemed to strengthen you.” Gideon's eyes get misty. “In a strange way, it helped me too. I would listen to you talk to her and I could almost hear her again. I couldn't bring myself to try to take your sister away from you when you were happy.”

“Until now.”

“Yes. I knew this other part of you had started doing things you wouldn't choose to do. And then I realized what a fool I'd been not to stop it earlier. I feared you would become unstable again if I told you the truth, or that you would hate me. I'm a coward, and I'm selfish. I had already lost your sister. I didn't want to lose you too.”

“Are you really worried about losing me?” I ask quietly. “Or am I just the last piece of her you have left?”

Gideon rubs the bridge of his nose. “You cannot imagine what it's like to leave your whole life behind to start over somewhere else as a twenty-seven-year-old man with a teenager. And yes, having you close felt like hanging on to her—I won't deny that. But I've grown to love you, Winter. You are your own person—not a piece of her.”

“And yet you used the fact I was dissociating to send me out to record your sexual ViSEs.” I can't keep the bitterness from creeping in. “How could you do that to me? How could you treat me like a whore knowing everything my sister and I went through?”

“I never assigned you anything like that,” he says. “You—your alter—did those things on her own. The behavior seemed like harmless acting out until after I saw what happened with Jesse. After that, I knew I had to do something before she put you at further risk.”

“Sleeping with strangers is harmless acting out, but sleeping with a guy who cares about me is dangerous?”

“I never saw you be that … intimate with anyone else, or I assure you I would have taken action sooner,” Gideon says. “I had Baz looking out for you, making sure things didn't get out of hand while you were recording at clubs.”

“Why would you even let me leave the house if I was so far gone?”

He shrugs helplessly. “Was I supposed to imprison you? I tried to make you strong in every way that I could. You seemed to be functioning well. I thought maybe your actions at clubs were your way of taking back control from men after they hurt you.”

It's the same explanation I gave Jesse a few days ago, but somehow it doesn't feel adequate now that I know
I
was the one doing it.

“Did you pay Jesse to watch me? Like you did Baz?”

“No. Jesse spends time with you because he cares deeply for you.”

My cheeks go red as I think about exactly how deeply Jesse cares. “Jesse and me … How did you know about that anyway?” I ask sharply.

“The penthouse is wired with cameras,” Gideon admits.

“Oppa!” I inhale a sharp breath. I glance furtively around the room, wondering where the hidden lenses are. “How could you?”

“Not the bathrooms or the bedrooms,” he says quickly. “Just the common areas. For security purposes.” He drops his chin. “I'm sorry. I know you feel adrift, like I severed your lifeline. But you're not the girl I brought here from Los Angeles. You're strong, Winter. You don't need Rose to survive anymore.”

“So you decided to take her away from me. To kill her.”

I'm still here.

Gideon lifts his head. “I was trying to orient you to reality in the least painful way possible.”

“Well, you failed.”

“Did I? You haven't hallucinated Rose in almost a week, have you?” His voice takes on a sharp edge.

“But I'm still
being
her. Who do you think saved me during the shark dive? Who stabbed the intruder in my bedroom?” I lift a hand to my throat. “Did you really hire someone to come attack me while you were gone?”

Silence. Gideon's eyes fall to the level of my bruised neck. He clears his throat. “That was not part of the plan. Initially, I thought perhaps the event was a hallucination and that your alter somehow procured a gun without your knowing. But I reviewed the security footage and clearly saw the intruder approach you in the hallway and force you inside the penthouse. I fear it might have been someone who works for Kyung.”

“But why would Kyung—” I pause. There is only one explanation that makes sense. “
You
worked for him, right? At UsuMed? That how you and Rose ended up…”

Gideon clears his throat. “Kyung was one of the UsuMed executives above me, yes.”

“And it wasn't just us you stole, was it? There would be no reason for him to seek you out so long after we left if you hadn't taken something more valuable. Was it money? I always wondered where you got the money to buy the building and open Escape.”

“It wasn't money,” Gideon says. “I developed a number of drug prototypes for UsuMed, which I was paid handsomely for. In addition my father passed away shortly before I left Korea. He willed most of his estate to me.”

“What then?” I ask.

Gideon dips his chin again. “I stole the neurochemical coding sequences for the editor. But it was
my
research that discovered them. UsuMed paid me to map the chemical sequences for different degrees of analgesia and relaxation in order to develop new types of painkillers. I saw the wealth of possibilities and kept going.” He turns his lighter over in his hands and flicks the lid open and closed again.

“And then what?”

“I developed a procedure to map all of the afferent pathways—fear, excitement, heat, cold, all of the senses. The headsets and editor are mine, but Kyung thinks the ViSE technology should be his.” Gideon sighs. “I've been in L.A., trying to reason with him. I offered to pay him for the information I took, but he wants the tech. I told him it had been stolen, but I'm uncertain if he believed me.”

“So what's going to happen?”

“I don't know.”

We sit in silence for a few moments. Gideon's lower lip trembles. He blinks hard and then looks away. Something about the emotion angers me. I'm the one who should be crying here, not him.

“I still don't understand how you could try to trick me into thinking my sister had been
murdered
! How could you pretend to grieve with me? You sat next to me and cried and it was all fake. Do you know how cruel that is?”

“She
was
murdered,” Gideon snaps. “And it wasn't fake. It was three years' worth of pain that I let out all at once. Do you think it was easy for me to relive her death alongside you? Every moment of your agony was like a sword slicing into old wounds.” He's practically yelling, something he never does.