Conflict of Interest: A Naturals Fanfiction

Road Trip

I stared at the boy for a full minute before my mind processed the girl's words and I turned back to her. "What do you mean, figured it out?" I asked, recalling her last words to me. "What was there to figure out?"

They both watched me as I put the pieces together. "You're my new foster family," I concluded, thinking back to how I had first met them and the kinds of questions they'd asked.

"Ding ding ding! Folks, we have a winner!" Asian girl announced.

"You spoiled it Lia," the brown-haired boy complained. I cataloged the information away for future reference. Not just the name, but the boy's sentence.

He liked playing games. I hadn't yet decided why.

"Don't blame me that I overestimated her," Lia replied flippantly, walking away from us and toward baggage claim. "Come on April, let's get your stuff."

"Actually, I don't have any bags. I mean, I'm carrying all my stuff," I said weakly as she turned to look at me.

"If you don't have any bags, then what could you have possibly bargained for in return for coming to a place like this? For choosing a life like ours?"

Don't let them know I don't know what she's talking about, or she'll keep her mouth shut. "Unlike you," I accused, hoping I had discerned the situation correctly, "I had no choice but to come here."

Lia snorted. "And you think I did? I was forced here. I had no say, and do you think I like it? Cause if you do, you've got another thing coming."

I glanced at the boy who was watching Lia walk away, her boots stomping against the floor. "Don't mind Lia," he said. "She's prickly and hates the world, but don't feel offended. She acts like that to everyone." I raised an eyebrow. His statement wasn't the whole truth. He amended himself, "she's like that to everyone she doesn't know, and even when you do know her, she can be a thorn in your side. So don't take it personally."

He started walking after Lia, and I had no choice but to follow him.

"Did you have the choice to come? Or were you forced, just like she was?"

"I didn't get to choose. But I wasn't forced either." He looked over at me and must have seen something on my face, because he elaborated, "I had no choice, but I had no complaints." After a long pause, he asked, "how come you're here? Since it wasn't through bribery, and you looked semi-happy at your job, if not bored, then why did you decide to come here?"

"You want to hear a secret?" I asked. "I actually don't know." A trade for a trade. "But," I continued before he  could say something else, "everyone else will find out soon enough anyways, and then you won't have to worry about keeping it a secret."

"I'm great at keeping secrets." He shot me a sly grin.

"So am I."

"Not as good as you might think."

***

We exchanged no more words, even as we caught up to Lia and later when we got into the boy's car. No one knows my secrets, I assured myself. But something was off.  Something I couldn't quite place, and I couldn't help feeling like I did when I was ten, when my mother told me she had a secret to tell.

"I have a secret," she would tell me. "Can you guess it?"

"Mom, I don't know your secret! How can I? You never give me any hints," I complained, giggling as my mom drove us to meet up with my dad. The move had happened only a couple weeks ago, and we were going to meet my dad at his new job to get lunch together.

"Well, today you're going to learn my secret," my mom whispered, glancing over at me. "This is when your life is going to change. You're going to take after your dad and me, and you will never have to grow up the way we did."

***

The car coming to a sudden stop jolted me out of the memory. "What the-" I started, flying forward to look at the road from the backseat of the car. "What just happened? Are you trying to get us killed?" I asked, and then, "never mind, that was a stupid question."

Brown-haired boy burst out laughing, but Lia, stone-faced as could be, turned to me and deadpanned, "We just hit a six-year-old riding his bike."

My eyes widened, not because I believed it was true, but because it sounded so true when she said it that if I hadn't known it would be impossible for them not to be jumping out of the car already, I would have believed it.

And maybe I'm being just a little egotistical, but it scared me that I couldn't distinguish the lie.

"Worried, confused, surprised, and a little upset," the boy said. I looked at him, my eyes narrowing.

First the liar, and now him?

I realized that, for the first time since I had left my parents, I was outmatched.

I leaned back in my seat. "Please, by all means, let's go run over all the little kids," I said, gesturing at the road. "Go ahead."

I watched at he started driving again, paying closer attention to him, lining it up with what I had already discerned. Of course he was risky. Of course he speeds. Of course-

"Let's play twenty questions," Lia suggested, clapping her hands together and looking from me to our chauffeur.

I opened my mouth to protest, not wanting them to learn anything about me they didn't already know, but then shut it again. I can gain the upper hand. Ask them some questions that might be valuable.

"Fine," I decided, and I registered the shock in both their faces. "But I get to ask first." Since neither of them disagreed, I looked at the boy in the rear view mirror, making eye contact with him before asking, "What's your name?"

"Seriously, that's your question?" Lia asked, at the same time he responded, "It's Michael." Michael. Gift from God. It made sense.

He practically acted like he was a gift to the world anyway.

"Okay April," Michael said, turning the question back around, "Were you in a relationship before you left?" The question surprised me. I had already determined that he and Lia were in a relationship, at least at some point in the last month, by the way their bodies almost leaned toward each other. By the jealous look Lia sent my way.

"No, I've never had a boyfriend," I admitted, refusing to let myself care about the information I'd just lost, and, although I wanted to turn the question back around, I knew it wasn't fair. "Lia, how do you lie so well? I mean, I've never met someone who can lie as well a you can."

"Thank you," Lia said, a smile stretching across her lips. Michael shot her a warning look as she continued, "you know, I'm here exactly for that reason. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you-"

"We're part of this special program in the FBI," Michael told me, interrupting Lia.

She stuck out her lower lip and started twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "Michael," she whined, "I wanted to tell her."

"So did I."

"Briggs said to wait for us to tell her until after she settled in."

"Well, if she was going to hear it from one of us, it was going to be me."

"And why's that?"

"Because then she'd know it's not a lie!"

I watched the two of them fight, my mind only focusing on one word. FBI.

What was I getting myself in to?