The Gender Lie (The Gender Game #3) by Bella Forrest (ebook reader for laptop TXT) 📗

interrupting them and risking antagonizing Thomas further, or being patient and seeing what the plan was.

I decided on the latter, and busied myself like the others with cleaning the clothes that we had brought in and then taking a shower.

Hours later, after examining every angle, we had come up with a rudimentary plan. More than that, though, I began to be more understanding of Thomas’ weird mannerisms. A part of that, I admitted, was because Owen was right—he had a keen strategic mind that worked far better than the five other minds in the room. He had a knack for seeing the angle, and his ability to process numbers in his head was fantastic—he’d pitched and thrown away dozens of ideas, all based on some hidden formula for success that was buried in the recesses of his brain.

The other reason was because I began to notice how he looked at Owen from the corner of his eye. There was something hidden behind his gaze, an affection that I recognized on an instinctual level: Thomas was deferring to Owen for everything. He only listened attentively to him, focusing solely on Owen and his ideas.

Suddenly, a lot of his mannerisms clicked in my mind. He was a beta. Betas were males who were less aggressive, and tended to defer to whomever they felt their alpha was. Only betas were allowed in Matrus, alphas being considered too dangerous. But in Patrus, being a beta was not a good thing. They were bullied and beaten by alphas. Some elected to undergo a re-education program, but many of the subjects committed suicide during the process, unable to cope with their own existence.

I wasn’t sure whether Thomas had undergone the re-education program, but it was clear that he had suffered a lot at the hands of the alphas, given his jumpy nature and childlike malevolence. It made me feel sorry for the smaller man, or at the very least, sympathetic. No wonder he had joined up with the Liberators—he had a grudge the size of both countries toward Patrus.

Looking around the table, I realized that we all did. Maybe not directly, but if I looked at it through the lens of a Liberator, then both countries had done one thing or another to harm their people. And, if I was honest, I had a grudge against them too—not just for myself, but for every male and female they had wronged over the years with their tyrannical dictates and legislations.

9

Violet

Even though I knew that waiting was the longest part of any mission from my experience with Lee, this wait was really getting to me. I waited three whole days for Owen to announce that we were ready and if he hadn’t told us the time had come for action on that third day, I felt I would have gone off the hinges on the fourth.

I understood, in part, the delay. There was specialized equipment that needed to be ordered from trusted sources. Then that equipment had to be moved, which took time and planning. If any of it was discovered on a routine spot inspection by the wardens, then it would be seized and the people we had hired to help us would be tracked down, questioned, and potentially executed.

I also understood Owen’s insistence that I remain underground at all times. I hated it, but I understood it. Each minute topside represented a risk of me getting discovered or caught. One slip-up and I would jeopardize everything that we were hoping to accomplish on the mission.

Still, none of that helped me to deal with the claustrophobic feelings of being trapped down in the small space of Thomas’ lair. I tried to remind myself that I had just lived for over two weeks underground in The Green’s facility, but it didn’t help. For one thing, that facility was much larger. I wasn’t constantly having to step around someone or over something to get from point A to point B.

Calling Thomas’ home a hole in the wall would be a fair comparison. The two rooms that were off to the side of the main one were cramped, with even tinier bathrooms to bathe in. Amber and I got more space in the second room, seeing as only the two of us shared it. Owen, Quinn, Solomon, and occasionally Thomas shared the room on the other side, and it was an equal size.

There were no beds to sleep on, so we made nests on the floor—similar to what Tim had done in my room in the facility—and curled up on the unforgiving concrete. It was cold, hard, and unyielding, and I hadn’t slept well since we arrived.

Every morning after we woke, Owen would hand us our assignments. While everyone else received assignments that would send them topside—like going to see the weapons supplier or finding someone who could secure night vision goggles—I was always given the same duty: Stay with Thomas and make sure he had everything he needed.

Even though I had come to understand Thomas, that didn’t mean I necessarily liked him. Pitied, yes—but the man was hard to read, and even harder to get along with. After a few tries at being social, I had given up and busied myself studying the plans or cleaning my weapon.

I tried to work out, but Thomas complained about me doing sit-ups and push-ups in the main room, then in any of the side rooms. He said the repetitive motion made him nauseous.

I didn’t argue with him—there was ultimately no point. It was his place. I considered, briefly, moving my daily exercise outside, but the smell coming from the sewer alone was enough to dissuade me.

So, when Owen breezed in one day after meeting with his transportation guy, saying that the last piece of what we needed had fallen into his hands, I could’ve kissed him—that was how eager I was to get out of this hole and finally get what Viggo needed.

We waited an hour