"There was something about her face though," he declares. "I thought she was lovely alive. It seemed a shame to watch the life drain from such a pretty face."
He downplays the words, but he cannot hide his true emotion. Not this time. It is clear that River disobeyed his orders long before he ever knew me.
He was a traitor before I ever trusted him. And not only to me.
"You let her live?" I question.
"I let her live," he confesses. "I thought I could fool them. I have always been smarter than most of them."
That much, he does believe.
"It worked, for a while," he says. "I kept her hidden for four years. And I got careless. I thought I could not be touched. That I could do no wrong. They believed I was doing so well. I had made progress with you after all."
I glare at him again. Recalling those initial conversations we used to have. And it is abundantly clear to me now why they paired me with River.
He was sly. He was cunning. And he was so easily able to convince me he was nothing more than a boy. Just like me. A boy who I related to. One who I trusted.
"Before you get angry," River interrupts my thoughts, "Just know this, Javi. My friendship with you was real and sincere. That was not a lie."
"Everything you have told me is a lie," I sneer.
"Not that," he insists. "You were the only friend I had. They made me kill all my others."
I do not feel bad for him. Even when he goes on. Because it doesn't matter. Nothing he says matters anymore. I do not care about this girl or his plight. I only care about his reasons for bringing me here. For keeping me here.
"This story is boring me," I tell him. "If you have a point, River, get to it."
He nods. Retrieves another apple from his pocket and tosses it between his hands.
"They were watching me," he says. "Surreal, I know. It's the agency. But you get comfortable. You get it in your head that you are not the one they don't trust. That you are one of them. You do everything they ask of you. Why would they need to watch you?"
"So they found the girl," I say.
"They found the girl."
He turns away so that I cannot see the emotion on his face. Emotion that is rare for River. I thought he was a sociopath, and I did not judge him for it.
All those times he told me I was weak with Bella, I thought he was right. But I judge him for this because he is the one who is weak now. I tell him as much, but he ignores me.
"When they discovered her, they decided to make an example of me," he says. "They put her into the program. The assassins program."
They turned her into a killer.
Before he even tells me, I know how this story will end. The agency is predictable, at least in this one respect.
"She will come for you," I say.
"She will," he agrees. "And she will try to kill me. They've turned her against me."
"Then she was weak too," I observe.
This time, it is River who sneers in my direction.
"As weak as your Isabella?"
"My Bella has more strength in her little finger than you will ever possess.”
"You should hope so," he tells me. "Since you have abandoned her."