The shower turns on while I order coffee and breakfast. “You can do a steak?” I ask. Blue’s ears perk forward. He knows it’s for him. “Good, yes, very rare. And scrambled eggs.” Blue cocks his head. “Those are for me,” I tell him. “Sorry, no, I was talking to someone else. Also, if you have yogurt.”
I hang up and stand, stretching my fingertips toward the ceiling and then bending over to touch the floor. My bulging stomach stops my progress before my palms are flat on the ground. My son stirs, stretching, pushing against my skin. What a strange sensation…that feels so natural.
Our breakfast arrives on a rolling table and we eat in silence. “You have a flight today?” Petra asks once the dishes are pushed away and only our coffee is left. Blue settles on the bed again and begins to snore, his belly full of steak…and a roll.
“Yes, private to London, commercial to Fiji, and then private again.”
She nods. “I will meet Lenox today, I have a train.” Petra turns her wrist so that she can see the face of her watch. “In two hours.”
“What about your apartment?”
“It will be cleaned up before we return and the door repaired.”
“The police don’t need to speak with you?”
“No,” she says, her tone indicating the conversation is over.
My phone beeps and I turn to where it lies face down on the night stand. Dread pools in my stomach. Good news isn’t really a me thing. Petra takes her bag and heads to the bathroom to dress. Blue’s nose nudges my elbow and he whines, asking what’s wrong.
I put an arm around his neck and scratch his chest. He leans heavily against my side, releasing a long appreciative sigh. With my other hand I pick up the phone. A message from my mother. Oh, great. Just what I need.
Unlocking the phone reveals the text. Hi honey, hope you’re doing well. I miss you. How is the baby? How is Robert? Where are you?
She doesn’t know about Rida…it must not be in the news. My mind stutters. She was murdered by a US soldier…on purpose according to what Petra told me. Wouldn’t the whole point of killing her be to silence her—publicly expose her humanity through her mortality?
Because that plan has never backfired before…anyone over at the Pentagon heard the term martyr? Maybe they don’t want her to become more of a symbol than she already was. It’s possible that they plan to keep her death quiet and make it look like she abandoned her cause.
Seems unlikely to work…
Petra comes out of the bathroom as I’m opening my news app. “There is nothing about Rida’s death in the news,” I say.
“Huh?” Petra says, sounding curious rather than confused.
“Nothing about a shootout at all,” I say as I scroll. “You’d think that a gun battle in a sleepy Cote d’Azur town, at a church no less, would make the news—even if the deceased was not yet identified as the famous Her prophet.”
“Yes.” Petra smiles at me. “Except, as we well know, changing reality is an easy matter.”
I laugh. “Do we know that?”
Petra’s eyes narrow as she inspects me. She’s changed into indigo jeans so fitted they are almost like a second skin. Her blouse is black with red, lurid blooms patterned across it. She’s left the second button unhooked, exposing cleavage, and a gold chain. Her lips are the same dangerous red as the flowers and a black pencil line across her eyelids gives her the air of a cat. Petra manages to look sexy, tough, and wholly disinterested in anyone else’s problems.
It’s rare I compare myself to other women, that I look at them and think anything along the lines of I wish…but with Petra, I have this sense, this something…I want to be her when I grow up. Smart, dangerous, well-dressed, worldly, so fucking together it seems impossible that anything could break her apart.
“You don’t know?” Petra says.
“That reality is easy to change?” My voice is laced with humor. “No, I don’t know that.”
“Yes, that explains your suffering.” Petra turns away toward her bed, placing her Louis Vuitton backpack on it and opening the top.
“My suffering? What do you mean?”
“You are stuck,” she says, her accent making it sound like an insult…and maybe it is. “Sydney,” she turns back to me, her expression verging on exasperated. “Lies are easy to tell and even easier to believe. Humans see what they want to see, confirmation of what they already believe. That is why manipulation is so easy.”
“I know that,” I say, defensively. “I understand that most people only see what aligns with their perspectives. But isn’t that what makes reality so hard to change?”
Petra shakes her head. “There will be many narratives about Rida’s death, each tailored for a particular audience. Most people won’t even hear of it or care, totally consumed by their own survival and pleasures. Those who do care will believe whichever version lands in their lap.” Her smile broadens slightly. “Or, to be more precise, on their phones. They won’t seek out a different truth because they have chosen their sources—they believe whatever comes from them. And this is reasonable. We cannot sift through every piece of information to determine its validity. We must have shortcuts, counting on those we trust to do the sifting and vetting for us.”
I close my news app, feeling somehow guilty about it.
“So, those who want to believe she was slain by an elite group of US forces will, and those who want to believe her own followers shot her in the back, will.” Petra shrugs, as if the actual facts don’t matter. As if only the story does.
I can’t even get angry about it. Petra’s right. It’s a truth I’ve known and used for a long time. My unique place in the universe—ordinary girl turned infamous avenger—makes it oddly easy for me to hide. I don’t fit into any category people can understand easily—so they don’t see me. It’s as if I can make myself invisible. People don’t want to see a killer who looks like me in their midst…so they don’t see me.
Blue shifts to a better position and settles his chin onto my leg. I play with one of his ears. “So far there is no story about her death—from any source,” I say. “My mom texted. If she knew Rida was dead, she would have mentioned it. I guess Zerzan has her plans.”
“She may act as if the prophet is still alive.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me, but of course it made sense…Rida always wore a burka in her videos. The vast majority of the world didn’t know her true identity. Why not just set someone else up behind the camera and keep going?
“So then wouldn’t the American operatives who killed her want her death known about…I mean, didn’t they kill her to shut the prophet up?”
Petra closes her bag and slings it over her shoulder. “I do not know why they did it. Maybe you should ask your friends.”
I cough a laugh. “You think I should call up Declan Doyle and ask him why he led a mission to kill a prophet?”
Petra smiles, her red lips spreading into an almost evil grin. “A game of cat and mouse is more fun if you are the cat,” she says before looking at her watch again. “I must go.”
I stand up, dislodging Blue. He leaps off the bed to stand by my side. “Thank you,” I say, my arms suddenly feeling very awkward. I want to hug her, but I don’t think she’s the type…
