What Happened in Strasbourg

Chapter twenty five: The truth

I slumped into the front seat of my mom's car, my hair itching with sweat and my heart still pounding hard in my chest.
"How was it?" my mom asked, her voice only just above a whisper. I turned my body away from her and stared out the window.

"How do you think? Dad hates me."

"He doesn't hate you, he's just a little mad right now."

"Did you know too? Were you in on the murder-for-hire plot the whole time and LIED to me when I asked you what really happened?"

"I... well, I've been so scared. Scared of Scott, scared of Landry, even scared of you. I wanted to tell you for the longest time but just couldn't," she said. "I think it's about time that I came clean, don't you?"

"You don't need to tell me anything else," I sighed. "I know everything already."

My mom frowned and shook her head. I was surprised when she turned the car off course from home, instead stopping in an empty parking lot. I squinted out past the tall street lights swarming with moths and saw that she'd taken me back to a riverside park, one I used to go to all the time when I was younger. Come to think of it, it was the only place left standing in the town, aside from my house, that I knew I'd miss once I moved.
"Follow me," my mom said. She led me across the wet grass to a metal bench that looked out on the empty playground, the rusting swings sang a squeaky song along with the crickets in the soft breeze. The river shone in the moonlight, and even from here I could see Irina's giant yacht, asleep in the water.

"It's beautiful here, isn't it?" my mom said. I realized she had taken off the mask she wore almost everywhere outside our home. "Night is the only time I feel safe to go wherever I want. No crowds, no coughing joggers or screaming kids with runny noses getting their dirty fingers all over everything." She sighed and held my hand in hers.

"I... well, I'm so sorry for everything. I'm so sorry we're moving to Houston, that Scott treats you the way he does. And that none of us treated you like we should've. We did something terrible... when we were younger, and both completely won over by Landry..."

She clenched her hand into a fist and covered her mouth with it. "I was so stupid. Why did I have to be so stupid? I promise you I didn't mean to do anything to hurt anyone. I just... didn't think it all through."

"Mom?"

I tried not to flinch away as she reached out and touched the scar on my throat.

"Do you know how you got that?"

"Yeah, I do."

My mom shifted positions, getting as far away as possible from me on the bench like she thought I'd lash out at her any moment. "No, you don't. We lied to you about that. And so many other things that I'll never be able to forgive myself for. I don't think you'll believe me if I tell the truth now."

"Yes, I will."

"It's a very long story," she said, taking a trembling breath. "And in order for you to understand everything, we have to go back to the early 2020s. Scott and I met online, on Tik Tok, right when the vaccine rollout started," she forced a laugh. "I was his alt girl, his Midari Kinnie... He was my doomer cat boy... Life was good. As good as it could've been for cooped up e-kids like us. We always talked about what life would be like once the pandemic was over. But when that time really did come, when the pandemic was un-declared, we were just disappointed. Life felt the same, like it would never get much better. The new presidential administration promised to save the country, but the economy was reeling and everybody's trust in the government was gone. Scott and I got in so much debt from college. We needed cash, and even more, something to trust and hold onto. A new version of the American dream -- something made just for Gen Zers who'd had their lives stunted by the lockdown and needed to get their act together. When Acheron came along, we were put under its spell right away. I was too nervous to make many friends and connections in my new job as a graphic designer... but Scott was a natural social climber, on his way to the top. And one day, eight years ago, when he'd been working in middle management for a few years, he came home -- we were living in Houston at that time -- and he told me. 'Amanda, listen to this! Paul Landry promised me a promotion. He said that if I put aside a few years doing an important task at the Acheron headquarters in England, that I'll get to come back to Houston as an executive.'"

I saw the look in my mom's eyes and felt cold all over. "What was it?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. "What was the job he had to do?"

My mom clenched her teeth. "To deal with the... fallout of this stupid idea of Landry's that went a lot farther than he ever expected it would." She put her hands over her mouth again. "What happened to the Morozovs in Strasbourg wasn't caused by fentanyl, and I hate that I ever said that. It was... well you probably already learned on Trench... But, did you know that they only expected Mr. Morozov to show up to that summit in Strasbourg? They didn't count on his family being there. So when they got poisoned with the nerve agent too, Acheron was in big trouble. Katya, his wife, died, but somehow his daughter Liza did not. Once she had lived through three days in a medically induced coma, they knew it was likely she'd be able to pull through completely. Landry knew that he couldn't let her go back to Russia with her aunt. She might catch on and bring her to a hospital to find traces of the poison in her system. Landry was getting scared of what he had done and started back pedaling. He wanted the whole story, the whole scandal, to be swept under the rug, or at best, blamed on Russia. Irina Morozova was told her niece, Liza, was being airlifted to London for specialized treatment, but she never came back. For all Irina knew Liza had died in the UK... But instead she made a full recovery -- as full of a recovery as someone poisoned with a nerve agent can make. Now Liza needed someone to take care of her. A new family who would make sure that she never got wind of her old identity. It was this family's job to treat her as well as they possibly could --"

The world slipped in and out of reality, one moment being uncanny, perfectly in focus like a cgi movie, the next blurry and far off. I couldn't breathe right, every breath got stuck in my lungs. I was dying. I was being hit by a rush of uncontrolled time, I could feel the world move under me.

"You didn't get an infection when you were five," my mom said. "You.. you were poisoned when you were seven... And I'm so, so sorry I lied for that long. I wanted to leave Scott a long time ago, but I just couldn't. I didn't want to leave you with only him to take care of you. When they brought you to us, you knew how to do nothing. Nerve agents wreck your memory, even your muscle memory. You couldn't walk, eat, or speak in any language. And you didn't deserve to live that, you deserved to get better. You deserved all the love in the world."

"I HATE YOU!" I sobbed. "IF YOU REALLY LOVED ME YOU WOULD'VE TOLD ME BEFORE— OR DONE SOMETHING! WHY DID YOU JUST... LET HIM? YOU KNOW WHAT? I WISH I'D DIED WITH MY REAL PARENTS! WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST LET ME DIE TOO?"

She wrapped her arms around me, hugged me so tight I couldn't pull away even though I tried.

"I know," she said. "I know I should've done something differently, and done it a lot sooner, but I always thought the part of my life when I could make a difference was over. I was too scared of all the consequences, and I knew there wasn't a single thing I could ever say to make Acheron, or Scott, change. So I became the type of person I used to get in fights with on Twitter -- the type of person who was so complacent and brainwashed that they were willing to explain away murders and value law and order above what's really right... But then I saw how far you were willing to go to learn the truth about Acheron -- I don't think you meant it, but you really inspired me to change how --"

"Let go of me -- leave me alone. I hate you, and I hate dad -- Scott -- whatever he is -- He's not even my real dad -- Let me go. I don't want to inspire ANYBODY."

"You can hate me," she said. I could still hear the tears in her voice. "You can hate me as much as you want, for as long as you want, and I won't care at all. Because I hate myself too, I always have. But I love you. And I told you all this because I love you too much for you to keep on living in the dark, trying to find sketchy answers in sketchy places, being tricked by everyone around you... It wasn't right..."

"You're not telling the truth are you?" I said. "You're my mom. You're my real mom. Stop lying."

"I wish there was something else I could say, but I really have nothing else to tell you. You know everything there is to know." She wiped tears from her cheeks and looked me in the eyes.

"You're not Gracie Howard. You're Liza Morozova."