The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)

This was an obvious barb, one designed to get my defenses up, but I wasn’t in the mood to play. Turning, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Tell me about the boys,” I replied.

Desmond gave me a kind smile. “Are you still going on about that? My, my… it’s like you people have nothing to do!” I shrugged and turned to leave, but her voice stopped me yet again. “Are you not visiting me because I shot you?”

“You missed,” I lied, and she gave me a knowing look.

“Tut, tut, Violet dear. Don’t waste your lies on something as absurd as that. You are such a capable liar. I really did have high hopes for you.”

“Then you shouldn’t have set up my friend,” I replied tartly, thinking of Owen and the bomb she’d had him carry into Matrus.

Desmond laughed at that, and shook her head. “You mean the friend who led you into a trap with me? Pray tell, where is Owen? Did you have the guts to execute him in the basement?”

I bit back my response, realizing with my last one I had fallen into Desmond’s trap. “Tell me about the boys, or I—”

“Violet?” Jay cut me off, and I turned as the young man sprinted into the room. “What happened with Cody?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Jay?” Desmond’s voice held a slender note of hope, making me turn back to her.

Jay looked over, and seemed to realize where he was. He blinked at her and then looked away. “I shouldn’t be in here,” he mumbled, making for the door.

“I did not raise you to be a coward, Jason Alexander Bertrand!” Her voice rose to a shout, and Jay froze in place, his shoulders cringing forward. I saw Tim enter the doorway, an alarmed expression on his face, but I ignored him.

“Don’t talk to him that way,” I hissed at her. “Or I’ll make Tabitha’s little torture chamber look like something out of a fairytale.”

“You think you can intimidate me?” Desmond scoffed, her eyes crinkling with amusement. “I’m a mother. Can you even imagine what I sacrificed for him? The lengths I went to in order to get him into that program? And what? He wants to sulk about it?” She tsked in that way all mothers seemed to have, the one that universally told offspring everywhere that they were a disappointment. After a moment, she added a small shake of her head. “I gave him inhuman strength. I did what any good mother should and would do—I gave him a tool that is going to help him succeed and thrive. So you don’t get to sit there on your high horse and tell me how I can and cannot talk to my son.”

Oh dear God, was Desmond being genuine? If I ignored the angry bite that was directed at me, I found I felt a strange surge of empathy. It urged me to believe in the sorrowful cadence of her voice, the soft remorse, regret, and disappointment painting a picture, not of a monster, but just a woman willing to do anything for her son. Her actions may have been twisted and deplorable, but was it possible that she had been doing what she thought was right for her sons?

The thought left me feeling uncertain, and agitated. Especially since it seemed to take a toll on Jay. He seemed to… curl into himself a little. His shoulders rounded and hunched, his nose dropping down to point at the floor.

“C’mon,” I said as I pressed my hand on his shoulder, gently nudging him out of the room. Closing the door, I saw Owen sitting with Cody at the table. He tossed something at me when I met his gaze, and I reached out to grab the keys Owen must’ve gotten back from Cody. I reached out for them, but Tim’s hand snaked out and got them first, and he went back and locked Desmond’s prison door.

Moving to let him do the job, I stepped closer to Jay, placing a hand on his cheek. “Are you okay?”

Jay hesitated. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“That’s understandable. She… She really shouldn’t have said those things to you.”

He shrugged, his eyes drifting away for a second. “I don’t feel like I have a mother,” he said hollowly. “Sometimes I don’t even feel like I have a family.”

“Brother.” Tim’s hand touched his own chest as he spoke, his fingertips tapping lightly against his sternum. Then he reached out and touched my shoulder. “Sister.”

I smiled, playfully bumping his hand with my shoulder. “He’s right. We’re your family now, like it or not. If you’ll still have us.”

Jay gave a halfhearted smile. “Of course I will,” he said, and then sucked a deep breath in, pushing his melancholy aside. “I mean—I shouldn’t have said that last part, about feeling like I don’t have a family. You already are. I was just… not thinking.” Some of his sadness still lingered, and on impulse, I pulled him into a hug. Tim draped his arms over both of us, and we just stood there, holding each other tightly.

From behind us, there was a choked sound, and I turned to see Owen standing behind us, his eyes tearing up. “Excuse me,” he said stiffly, and walked out. Cody watched him go, and then swiveled around to look at us.

I took a step forward, realizing that our little session had triggered Owen’s grief, but Jay stopped me. “I got this,” he said, looking even better than before. “And I’ll be okay… after some time. Tim and I will make sure he’s okay.”

I hesitated, but then nodded. He was right. Things between Owen and me were still too tense. There was an awkwardness, a void of space between us filled with things left unsaid. A part of me wondered if they should continue to be unspoken.

“Thanks,” I said. “I gotta check in with Cody anyway.”

Jay flashed me a thumbs-up and then headed out the door. Tim was already waiting for him by the doorframe, twitching impatiently. I watched them go, then moved over and dropped down into the seat next to Cody.

He stared at me warily, and then fidgeted. “You said you wouldn’t be mad,” he reminded me, tugging at his shirt sleeves.

“I’m not mad,” I replied patiently. “But I am worried about what you and Desmond talked about.”

“We didn’t talk about much,” he said defensively, and I sighed.

“Cody, I want to believe you, but we both know you don’t want to be here. You could be lying.”

Cody looked away, and then frowned. “Viggo said something the other day. He said that I’m entitled to my feelings. Do you feel that way?”

I chewed on my lip, wondering if this was a distraction technique, or if there was a point to this. I wasn’t sure which it could be, but decided to let it play out. “I do,” I informed him.

“I thought so.” Cody shifted in his seat. “It made me think about a lot of things, you know. About how Desmond gives us the medicine, but it doesn’t make us feel anything, and it made me wonder if… if she would like me without the medicine.”

“Is that why you went to see her?”