Read Online Persona by Genevieve Valentine - Free Book Online

see?” she asked. A trap, she thought. It’s a trap. Hakan.
    But the assistant’s eyes gleamed, and she said, “Everything.”
    Recruitment, Suyana realized. She was an official Face now; people would be trying to recruit her to their side if they thought she could do them any good. This might not be a cause that would live long. She didn’t think she could do much good to anybody, but there was no knowing that until she tried to do anything at all.
    She looked at the sharp line of the river against the tangle of the forest, felt like she was standing somewhere higher, somewhere dry where nothing touched her.
    Here, she thought as if from far away; here and no farther.
    Suyana said, “Yes.”
    Ã—  ×  ×  ×  ×  ×  ×
    They made cards out of one of the shots she took. Suyana looked angry—too angry, said the state secretary who looked at it—but it showed up in Profile magazine and they called her “Sultry Suyana,” and that must have been enough to please the Confederation. She didn’t have to reshoot until the next year. That was in a studio. They’d put her into the same background, they said, so there was no need for her to go home.
    The photographer shook her hand, told her it was an honor; he said, “I loved the exotic-sexy thing you were doing, let’s see that again.”
    Ã—  ×  ×  ×  ×  ×  ×
    As she stepped out of the water from the first picture she ever took, Hakan asked her a question in Quechua. She looked up at him and couldn’t answer; she didn’t know what he was saying.
    That’s how it happens. They fill you with the things they want from you, and you can’t hold on.

8
    Of the things Daniel had ever suspected Suyana Sapaki of being, while he made guesses about Magnus and her intelligence and her plans and her taste, being a mole for an ecoterrorist organization had not fucking been one.
    He kept his hands open at his sides. The last thing he wanted was to give them an excuse to pat him down. The camera card was burning a hole in his pocket.
    â€œYou all right?” Suyana asked.
    It could have been gloating—maybe it would be, later—but right now she had a stone face on, and her mouth was tight, and he knew the real question was: Are you going to betray me and do something stupid?
    She’d given him fair warning. In some distant part of his mind, he rewound to the door of Café de Troyes and wished her good luck and walked across the bridge and into the night. Maybe he stole another camera and set his sights on a Face who was less trouble. Why hadn’t he done that?
    Because this story could change countries. Because it would be the making of him.
    Because in the hospital she’d looked at him and, just for a second, had been happier to see him than anyone had ever been.
    â€œMostly,” he said.
    She looked at him a moment longer, and he could see her doubts multiplying.
    Then the woman (he’d forgotten her code name, he needed to pull himself together and start playing this game) was showing them to a bedroom with one bed, and a sturdy desk piled high with paper and pens and glossy magazines. It had a distinctly penitential feeling, and only Suyana’s calm kept him from panicking when the woman closed the door behind them. He held his breath, listened for anything that sounded like a bolt sliding shut.
    â€œWe’re not prisoners,” Suyana said. “This door only locks from the inside.”
    He wasn’t sure which was less comforting: that she’d read his mind, or that she’d been looking for locks.
    She sat heavily on the bed, leaned her good shoulder on the wall, breathed out as she closed her eyes. It was deep and low, and more than just a respite from running with wounds. It was the sound of someone resting for the first time in a long time. What was your life