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

had kept me busy—so busy in fact, that more and more Liberators were coming to me to see if I needed help. They seemed like good people, so I had agreed and shown them the ropes.

As for the boys—they seemed… determined. A lot of the initial excitement was gone, but there was a fire in their eyes when they did the exercises. A hungry desire that manifested itself during class. They were attentive—far more than any child should be—but I had just attributed it to their genetic modifications.

“The boys have seemed… eager lately.”

“No, Viggo. They’re thirsty. For blood.”

I paused, and then broke out in a laugh. Ms. Dale stared at me with a mixture of irritation, impatience and incredulity. “I’m sorry,” I said, once the laughter had subsided, “but that is really melodramatic.”

Ms. Dale huffed in annoyance. “Did you know Desmond has been meeting with the boys in the training program?”

The smile dropped from my face as if someone had turned off a switch.

“What?”

“I guess they didn’t mention it to you,” she said, a smug smile playing on her lips.

I had to hand it to her, she was quite good at gloating. Well, that was fair—I had spent the majority of my time with her gloating. However, if she was keeping information from me out of spite, then that was a whole other story.

“No. They did not. Care to fill me in?”

“Desmond has been spending time with the boys in the evenings and before breakfast. She knows all their names and has even given some of them gifts. She goes on walks with them, and encourages them to tell her all about what they are learning.”

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“I got tipped off the other night… By Henrik of all people.”

I suppressed a smile at that bit of information. “Interesting. And you’re sure nothing’s going on between you?”

“Be serious, Viggo,” she hissed. I watched her reach into her pocket and pull out a folded piece of paper. “She’s giving them this to read,” she said, thrusting out the paper.

I grabbed the piece of paper from her hand and gingerly unfolded it. It was a pamphlet, written in noticeably basic language. I read the first line, blinked, and re-read it.

“The Patrus/Matrus Threat?” I said, meeting her gaze.

“It’s propaganda. Bad propaganda. It paints both nations as bigots.”

I winced. “Well… it’s not exactly a lie,” I said slowly.

Ms. Dale’s face darkened. “Viggo, it’s fear-mongering. I thought you were trying to actively avoid that.”

I nodded, considering the implications of what she was saying. I tried to follow Desmond’s logic, searching for some rational explanation as to why she was doing this. It seemed strange that she wouldn’t run it by me first. After all, she had seemed very positive at the onset, even offering to send more help in her electronic messages.

I considered that maybe she was wanting to do it to spend time with them and do her part to help out the program. But that didn’t explain why she would keep it secret, or why she would feel the need to make something like the pamphlet to back up her assertions.

The only thing I could think of was that she was trying to somehow influence their loyalty, but even that was a bit of a stretch. The boys spent almost all of their waking hours with me and Ms. Dale—I doubted their loyalty could be bought for something as simple as candy and a few pamphlets supporting anti-nationalist propaganda.

Could it?

No, there was no way it would work. I knew my boys; they couldn’t be influenced so easily. There was something else going on, something we just weren’t seeing.

“I want to say she’s buying their loyalty,” I announced finally. “But I can’t see how she could be. The boys can’t be bought with treats. We must be missing something.”

“You’re right—I know we’re missing something; I just wish I knew what. She always was a clever one… always came at a problem sideways.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, I touched on it before, but Desmond used to inspire fanaticism. She’s good at it. Do you remember… oh… thirty-some odd years ago? It was a bit before your time, but the bombing of the Patrian grain silo?”

“Yes.” My father had told me about that day when I was younger. Nearly seventy-five men and women had died from the resulting fires—it had burned down nearly a third of the reserve supplies as well as over a dozen homes and warehouses in the district. Putting it out had taken three days. No one ever claimed credit for it, but at the heart of every rumor, the insinuation was that the Porteque gang was responsible.

“Desmond arranged the whole affair, and she manipulated those men from the Porteque gang from inside their operation. She inserted herself as one of their ‘obedient’ women and married one of the men. Then she whispered to him—who knows what—about how women needed to find their place just like she had. She had those men worshipping her—in their own way—and convinced them that destroying the grain silo was the only way to get the government’s attention. Three men killed themselves bombing that place, and Desmond disappeared into the night, damage done.”

“So… you think she’s after the boys, trying to win them over to later use them in her war efforts.”

She shot me a glance of confirmation. “I trust those boys, but Desmond is insidious—always thinking, planning, scheming. She’s been worming her way in since she saw the success of your program… I’m worried about the boys. They’re vulnerable, and Desmond is reminding them of who got them to where they are and who will continue to help them. And… I’m guessing our names are not being mentioned.”

I rose abruptly to my feet and moved to the door.

“Where are you going?” Ms. Dale asked.

“I’m going to go track Desmond down and talk to her,” I announced.

“Viggo, you can’t! If you tip your hand too soon, then she’ll use whatever she has to