The Gender Lie by Bella Forrest
Several boys nodded, and Cody once again backed off.
I suppressed a smile.
“Now, the last rule just builds on the other two—talk about it. Whatever emotion you are feeling in the moment, you have to try to describe it, and explain what made you feel that way. It will help you identify the things that make you angry or scared, and then help you face them on your own terms.”
Silence fell upon the group as the boys considered Viggo’s words. One of the boys, Matthew, asked nervously, “Do you really think we can do it?”
I bit my lip, seeing the raw, naked hope in his eyes as he stared at Viggo.
“Shut up, Matthew,” Cody hissed, rising to his feet. “Of course we can’t—he’s just setting us up to fail. Besides—he’s not so tough. Watch!”
I was leaping to my feet when the boy took three running steps and jumped into the air, his fist drawn back to strike. Fear exploded in my chest—Viggo was barely out of the hospital and in no condition to fight an enhanced boy.
Except, as I looked at Viggo, my heart pounding hard, I saw that he was calm and collected. He watched the boy flying through the air toward him, and then moved a few feet to the side. The boy slammed hard into the sand, and Viggo moved swiftly again, reaching out to grab him by the wrist and yank it out from under him. The boy, unbalanced by Viggo’s quick move, fell face first into the sand with a small sound, and Viggo moved over to him, placing a knee in the middle of his back, holding him firmly in place.
Viggo turned to the others, his expression calm and even. “Part of your training will include martial arts. I know that you are stronger and faster than most people, but without these classes, you’ll never be able to control it, and that will get you or someone you care about hurt.”
“What if we… break the rules?” Tim asked.
“Good question,” Viggo said, backing off from Cody and helping the boy to his feet. “I want you to understand that I don’t expect perfection starting out. That being said, if you break the rules three times, you’ll be suspended from the program indefinitely, and have to be part of the last group to go through. The choice is yours.” He turned to Cody who was now eyeing him warily. “Thank you for the demonstration, Cody. I appreciate your help.”
At this, Cody looked confused, and I grinned, settling myself back down on the floor.
That move with Cody was ingenious. Viggo had undermined the boy’s power by acting like it had been planned while simultaneously allowing him to save face among his peers. I watched as Cody trudged back, the other boys congratulating him on helping Viggo, and my smile grew wider.
Whatever Viggo was doing, so far it seemed to be working. I watched as he organized the boys into teams, explaining that their first task was to get the ball in the middle of the room. They weren’t allowed to touch anyone else except their own team members, and they had to race to be the first one to touch it. They also weren’t allowed to use the same technique twice.
I listened intently as Viggo continued talking to the boys. He had designed several tasks that required teamwork and problem-solving. After this, it was a lesson, followed by another task, followed by another lesson.
I stood up, prepared to go over to congratulate him on a good start, when I spotted Desmond striding toward me, looking like she wanted to talk.
“What a remarkable start your man has had with these boys,” she announced as she arrived.
I nodded, feeling immensely proud of Viggo. “How long have you been watching?” I asked.
“Since the beginning, but I was tucked off in one of the side rooms. I didn’t want to interfere. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from this idea, but so far, I am impressed. The potential for it… is really quite remarkable.” There was a note of praise in her voice, and something else—something I couldn’t quite place.
“Does that mean you’re going to hold off on the Benuxupane for now?”
Desmond hesitated. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to tell you—I discovered a stockpile of Benuxupane. It’s in the same area that you raided for Viggo’s cure. I’ve authorized a team to go after it.”
“Oh… Isn’t that risky? It’s only been a few weeks since the facility was hit… hell, we blew up a warehouse. Wouldn’t security be increased?”
Desmond held up a hand. “I’ve considered this, of course, and I think the team can pull it off.”
“But Viggo and his program—”
“Will continue, uninterrupted,” Desmond said and I wondered if she could appreciate the irony of her interrupting me with that statement. “And just for your edification, I spoke with Mr. Croft and told him his month started today… I wanted to tell you about the Benuxupane because of what happened after we implemented the other pills. I figured you would want to be informed. But until I am sure that Mr. Croft’s program is effective and can be replicated and sustained, I need to have a backup plan in place. I want you to know that I am rooting for your friend’s method to work. I don’t like the idea of exposing the boys to another experimental drug if I don’t have to.”
I found it interesting that she shared similar concerns about the Benuxupane as Viggo did.
I turned my gaze back to the boys. “So… uh, how goes the war effort?” I asked, only half-joking.
Desmond gave me a look from the corner of her eye and then leaned back with a contemplative expression. “I know you think we can’t do this, Violet,” she said.
I saw no point in denying it—it was what I thought. “Of course I don’t. We’re so few, and Matrus is too massive. Not to mention, if you start something in Matrus, it won’t be too long before Patrus finds a way to join the fight—probably with the goal of claiming Matrus as its own. I know things are bad now… but could you imagine if Patrus was in charge of everything?”
Desmond laughed. “Violet,” she said. “First of all, I appreciate that you are now saying ‘we’ as opposed to ‘you.’ That’s a very positive step, in my mind, that you consider yourself a part of us. But also… that is such a harsh approach to starting a war, and haphazard. You need to look at the bigger picture.”
I stared at her—that was the big picture, as far as I was concerned. “What do you mean?” I asked.
Desmond leaned closer to me, sliding her hands into her pockets. “Imagine you are a mouse. You’re walking around, doing mouse things, when you freeze. You realize that in your wanderings, you’ve stumbled into a clearing, where a massive snake is looking at you like you’re lunch. And then you hear a noise behind you, and you realize another massive snake is looking at you like it wants to eat you, too. What do you do?”
I tilted my gaze up to the roof, trying to puzzle through Desmond’s scenario. She liked it when people figured things out for themselves, but this time, I didn’t have any idea what she was getting at. After a minute, I gave up.
“I don’t know—what do you do?”
Desmond stood to her full height. “You get the two snakes to fight each other,” she announced. “And once they are embroiled in a war, you find your other mouse friends to watch and wait. It doesn’t matter who wins, because once one is gone and the other one is wounded, you and your mice friends can swoop in and kill the last snake.”
With that, she smiled and walked away.
I was frozen, watching her back, her words playing havoc on my mind. It didn’t take much to understand what she was getting at—she was planning on forcing a conflict between Matrus and Patrus, and then moving in afterward to claim what was left.
I felt conflicted. On the one hand, it was a cruel move, one that would leave innocent people caught in the middle. On the other hand… Desmond had demonstrated to me several times the tough calls a leader had to make for the good of her people. As I stared out at the boys, her words weighed heavily on me—which people were the right people to back? Those that lived blindly in the system, accepting it as divine scripture, or the people who had suffered at the hands of the very same system?
I spent a long time w
27
Viggo
I was just coming out of the shower in the locker room to the side of the playground when Violet came in. I was wearing nothing but a towel, but for once, Violet didn’t pay any notice, which only indicated her current state of mind. She was upset.
She had stayed with me all day, watching me with the boys. I had also noticed Desmond and her chatting a few minutes after my icebreaker lesson, their heads bent in a private conversation. Afterward, Violet had seemed… preoccupied. I had to repeat orders several times, seeing as I still hadn’t gotten the chance to ask Ms. Dale to help me. Desmond wouldn’t allow her to come to me—if I wanted Ms. Dale’s help, I had to go to her.
Violet would call me paranoid, but I still had my suspicions about Desmond, and her reticence to allow Ms. Dale out was troublesome. I was also worried that Violet was beginning to buy into what Desmond was telling her. Desmond had obviously earned some measure of Violet’s respect in the past month, but it was… disconcerting. I still didn’t know exactly what she stood for.
Violet sat down on a bench with her back to me, folding her hands and resting her elbows on her knees. Her gaze was fixated on the floor. Although her talk with Desmond had happened hours ago, I could still see the aftermath in her posture. There was an inner turmoil raging within her.
Sensing this was my chance to discover what was going on, I sat down next to her. She turned her head to face me, a small and hopeful smile lighting up her eyes for a few brief seconds before bleeding back into the darkness she was battling.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” she murmured.
“I, uh, saw you and Desmond earlier,” I commented.
Violet released a sigh and nodded. “She was impressed with your first day,” she said. “I was too, for the record.”
I couldn’t miss the pride in her eyes. “It was a good day,” I agreed.
“What you did with Cody was genius,” she added.
I shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do. The kid is strong though.”
Her expression morphed to concern. “Are you hurt? I hope you didn’t overexert yourself.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Relax. I didn’t hurt myself. It’s just hard not being in fighting form. If that kid had been smarter…” I trailed off, not needing to remind myself that working with these boys came with risk.
Violet leaned into me, resting her head against my shoulder. “Good,” she said. “Did you remember to do those exercises this morning?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, mother.”
Violet gave me a shove with her shoulder, forcing a laugh out of me.
“I mean, yes, dear,” I said.
She smiled ruefully, before crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out at me. I was still amazed by her ability to turn the most unladylike actions into adorable mannerisms.
She gently pushed me back and looked deep into my eyes. “Speaking of parenthood… I have to say, I never saw you as the fatherly type, but…”
I froze, a small tremor of alarm rolling through me that was purely an instinctual reflex, one shared by most men when women started throwing words around like children and father.
Violet, being Violet, didn’t miss the flash of panic on my face and broke out giggling. “I wasn’t trying to imply that,” she gasped. “We’re not even in a position in our relationship to discuss that.”
“Oh, we have a relationship?” I asked with a teasing note in my own voice, and she flushed bright red, her eyes seeking refuge in anything but my gaze.
“I… well…” she mumbled, and I reached over, putting a finger under her chin and forcing her to meet my gaze.
“Relax. I was just teasing. I know we haven’t discussed it yet, but that’s the great thing with us—we don’t have to. We just know.”
She blushed prettily and I pushed back a lock of her hair, feeling inordinately pleased that our talk was going so well, if not a little off the rails.
“So, what else did you talk about?” I asked, nudging her with my shoulder.
Violet’s smile faded and she stood up, shoving her hands into her pockets and looking around. I watched as she crossed the room and turned, pressing her back against a locker.
“Desmond told me her plans for starting this war,” she said finally.
I scooted forward on the bench and rested my elbows on my knees. “And?”
Violet blew out. “She wants to… engineer a war between Patrus and Matrus, and then move in once it’s done.”
I stood up, alarmed. “What, that’s crazy!”
She rocked back and forth on her feet, her gaze on the grey and white tiled floor. “I thought that too… but…”
“What? There’s no but, Violet. She’s planning on murdering people!”
Violet made a frustrated sound. “I know that, Viggo. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Not everything is that black and white.”
I stared at her, surprised. “How can you say that? All those people who would be caught in the middle of...”
“You don’t think I’ve thought of that?” she snapped. “My cousin is in Patrus. My aunt and uncle—my family. People who still cared about me when everyone else thought I was worthless. Believe me, I’m thinking about it.”
I didn’t know about Violet’s family, other than her brother. My own family was nonexistent—my mother had died when I was young, and my father shortly after I finished the academy. We hadn’t been particularly close, and I had been an only child. Still… I had people like Alejandro in my life. He had taken me in, despite my rough edges.
Refocusing on the conversation, I felt a strange sensation, almost like vertigo, that things were spiraling out of control. “I just don’t understand what there is to think about,” I said. “There’s right and then there’s wrong.”
Violet shot me an incredulous look that slowly became jaded. She gave a slow, bitter laugh and shook her head. “They don’t even play by the rules,” she said, pulling her right hand out of her pocket to point at a wall. “Look at what they’ve built. Think about what they’ve done. They know what they’ve done here is wrong. That’s why they’ve tried to bury it!”
“So we bring it to light. Let the people decide.”
“In Matrus. And when the civil war starts, what do you think happens? Patrus steps in and tries to crush all of Matrus. You cannot tell me that is the right play. There are not enough words in the English language to convince me of that.”
I reeled back, quite shocked at her vehemence. “But, Violet… it’s drastic. The loss of life alone would be catastrophic.”
She swallowed, seeming to back down from her outburst and collect herself. She nodded. “It is. But… I don’t really see any other way of bringing down this system. The Liberators number in the hundreds, Viggo. Not thousands. They are a small force who are just actively trying to make things right. To get their government to stop lying and using them and the people they care about. That’s what they’re fighting for. Not to kill people, but to save them.”
I shook my head. My knees were feeling wobbly—strangely more from this conversation than the exertion of the day. “It’s not our fight,” I said, after a pause. “We should just go.”
Violet tsked, crossing her arms. “How can you say that? You just started with the boys, and now you want to abandon them? And where would we go, knowing what we know and having seen what we’ve seen?”
I opened my mouth, and then shut it, uncertain of how to even formulate a response to her questions. They were valid. I certainly did not want to abandon the boys. I also didn’t know where we could go that would be safe. Our options were extremely limited.
But I still didn’t want to condone Desmond’s plan. “I will never agree that starting a war between the two is the right course of action. I may not have a better plan, but this one…
Violet gave a sad toss of her head, her jaw tight. “Maybe it does,” she said. “But they crossed the line first.”
With that, she pushed herself off the locker and headed for the door. “I’ll bring supper to our room,” she murmured as she stepped out. Not looking back, she closed the door between us.
I watched her go, and then shook my head and placed my face in my hands, feeling lost and confused.
After a few minutes, I remembered I was on the verge of being late to meet with Ms. Dale. I doubted Desmond would be understanding of my tardiness. It wouldn’t surprise me if she just flat out refused to let me see her if I wasn’t punctual.
I dressed slowly, not by choice, but by the sheer fact that I was still struggling to do simple actions in any timely manner. It only added to my frustration, however, and I reminded myself that I needed to take it slow. It was hard, though—I couldn’t believe what Violet had been saying.
I gingerly pushed myself off the bench, using my arms to help me get into a standing position. I took slow, careful steps to the door and threw it open, moving slowly but deliberately to the stairs.
As I walked, I kept my head down and avoided eye contact with everyone. People must have sensed my mood, because I was aware that there seemed to be a five-foot bubble around me that was keeping people out of my way.
Which was good; solitude suited my current mood. That wasn’t entirely accurate, as there was one person I wanted to talk to more than anything. But seeing as she and I were in the middle of an argument, I would have to settle for the next best thing.
Or worse, depending on my point of view.
My footsteps were quiet on the catwalk as I slowly moved down the aisle, leaning heavily on the rail for support. I had to stop more than a few times to catch my breath and rest my legs, but slowly and surely, I kept going. At this time of night, the catwalks were mostly deserted, which I was grateful for.