Stay alive, I thought doubtfully. Survive. To do that I would have to convince the world I was Olivia Archer. One part of me thought, How hard could it be? Olivia shopped and brunched and chaired a bevy of balls and charities, and—at night, when no one was looking—ran an illegal website. I could probably just skip that part.
But what about the harder part of being Olivia? Could I really allow myself to be that soft without seeing myself as weak? That vulnerable without thinking like a victim? That agreeable without believing I was a pushover? It wasn’t the things Olivia did that gave me pause. It was her utter defenselessness.
I pursed my lips and watched Olivia pout across from me. So that’s how she does it, I thought, and smiled. Her mouth—my mouth, actually, since it’d been the same—curved upward, looking devastatingly seductive in that heart-shaped face. I lifted my eyes to Micah, who was watching, waiting as I decided.
“You did a very good job, Micah.”
He took the compliment for what it was, a concession, and an acceptance of my situation. A grin bloomed in reply. “Thank you, Olivia,” he said.
Olivia.
Me. Olivia. I took a deep breath, then released it slowly, until my body felt emptied of air. Perhaps this way, through me, Olivia could still live. I rather liked that idea. It was the least I could do for her…and the only thing now. At least it made me feel less helpless, and that was something. As for the rest, I’d just have to figure it out as I went along. “You may send my father in.”
Micah held out a hand and gently helped me to my feet so that we stood eye-to-eye for a moment. “Yes,” he finally said, “I think you’re quite up for a visit now. A miraculous recovery, really. Your father will be so pleased.”
Then it’d be the first time I’d ever pleased him, I thought sourly, but that wasn’t what I said to Micah. It wasn’t what he was waiting to hear. It wasn’t, I thought, what Olivia would say.
“I’m so glad,” I said, trying for sincerity.
Micah helped me back into bed, then turned immediately to the door. I think he was afraid I would change my mind. “I’ll be right back.”
So I leaned back and waited. I tried to tell myself every superhero led a dual existence. Look at Superman and Clark Kent. And Wonder Woman was a kindly secretary when she wasn’t lassoing bad guys with a truth-inducing rope. There were others, I was sure, and it made me wonder how many of these stories, these fictions, were pure figments of some comic book writer’s imagination…and how many had leaked through this thin webbing of reality that separated the Tulpa’s world from our own. My own dual existence, this channeling of my dead sister as a cover in the real world, certainly had a fabled air.
I was Joanna, who was dead.
I was Olivia, who was also dead.
And I was also my mother, who had risked her life in ways I had yet to put together so that I might be safe. But if that were true, then I was also him. The man, the Tulpa; an entity so evil he had once both destroyed me and simultaneously kept me alive.
“I will kill you.” The words hollowed out the hospital room. And that’s how I recognized the Tulpa in me. But I liked the sound of that oath, and I swore it again. “I will kill you for what you did to my sister. And for my mother.” And for what was left of myself.
And with that pledge still lingering in the air, I leaned back and waited for the man who both was and wasn’t my father to enter the room. When he finally did, I looked up and smiled sweetly.
11
They buried me on a cold, blustery January day. I watched the live coverage on the local news from the bed of my enforced convalescence, while a makeup artist dutifully applied the pallor of the sick to my healthy complexion. It had to be Olivia lying in that casket, cold in my place, though I hadn’t asked and neither Micah nor Warren had said. The anchor’s voice-over seemed obscenely cheerful to me as he followed the procession of Nevada politicians, Stripside entertainers, and business associates of Xavier’s flocking to pay their respects to a woman most had never met. It was big news, even in this transient and jaded city. I had to admit, it was like some overwrought adolescent fantasy, being able to watch people mourn my passing, to hear how very much I’d be missed.
Mostly, though, it was just a sad procession of acquaintances detouring through the graveyard on their way to drinks that night, and then on to the rest of their lives. Scattered among them, however, were the few people who’d truly known and loved me. Asaf, who would be quoted in the following day’s paper as demanding a full-scale investigation into whether more than one person was responsible for my death. He grieved for me, and I for him.
Then there was an old friend I’d only seen a handful of times since high school, but who had such enormous tears streaming down her face, it made me want to lunge for the phone to tell her I was all right. Or at least alive. I was also surprised to see Olivia’s friend, Cher, looking lovely as she stood graveside, and not a little alone.
Then there was Xavier. He stood a bit apart from everyone else, appearing dignified if a little bored at the whole affair, and the sound bite accompanying a close-up of my casket was of him saying how grateful he was that I’d saved Olivia’s life. “She sacrificed herself for her sister, and this is what gave her death, and therefore her life, true meaning.”
I felt no anger over the words. He had clutched me in his arms the day before, thinking I was Olivia, shedding tears as real as he was capable of producing. As useless and distracted a father as he’d been to me, at least he’d loved Olivia, and I was gratified she’d had that much.
Then another man appeared. Lean in silhouette, he flanked Xavier’s left shoulder, his empty blue eyes snaking this way and that.
“Ajax.” I leaned forward on my hospital bed, squinting at the image. Looking skeptical, and dangerous in an ebony trench coat, he turned his attention to the camera, nose twitching. “You bastard.”
“Do you mind, ma’am?” The makeup artist, some girl named Raine, raised a pierced brow, sponge in hand. She’d been dabbing until circles appeared beneath my eyes, and creating fading bruises on my cheekbones for Xavier’s visit later that evening. I’m sure she wondered why, but I knew Micah was paying her enough not to ask. I ignored her, and turned my attention back to Ajax. He was gazing to the left, the wind lifting the hair from the nape of his neck as he sucked in a big mouthful of it.
“I’m right here, you rat-fucking bastard,” I said, and my breath caught when he turned and looked directly at the camera. A look of such hatred passed over his face I thought for a moment he’d heard me. Then his eyes fired like torches and a knowing smile jerked at one corner of his mouth. The same smile he’d shown me at dinner when he claimed he was going to kill me.
But he hadn’t heard me, and despite the look, he hadn’t seen me either. I knew, because just then he turned and stepped from the frame to reveal exactly what—who—had caught his interest.
“Oh, God.” I had to put a hand to my mouth to prevent the wail that threatened to rise from my chest. “God. Ben.”
He wept openly, shamelessly, tears running over his cheeks, his mouth contorted in pain. He shook off the consoling arm of one of his colleagues, and there were more than a few, all in uniform and looking awkward around their comfortless friend. Ben, I thought, who had kissed me so passionately I’d forgotten about danger. Ben, whom I’d safely left behind to go to Olivia’s.
Ben. Who thought he’d lost me yet again.
Now I was weeping, and Raine had silently retreated, uncertain what she should do next. In my searing horror and grief over Olivia, in the consuming fury that had impelled me to take another person’s life, and in my shock at finding myself with a whole new identity, I had utterly forgotten Ben.