"A girl," I scoff. "You are lying."
This has to be the agency's doing. There must be more to this than what I can see.
River turns to me. Discards the apple core onto the ground. His eyes narrow and sharp.
"It's the truth.”
"The truth is that you are a coward and a liar.”
River is unfazed by my accusations now, and determination has strengthened his resolve as he continues.
"The program. I was a part of it too."
And now he has my attention. I look up at him. I still don't want to believe him. He is a traitor. A liar. He is no friend of mine.
But then he recites his thirteen-digit code number. The same numbers we all had. The numbers we were assigned upon entrance into the program.
It can't be true.
"I would have known," I tell him. "You were the same age."
"Yes, but I was in a different sector. And they started me earlier."
"How early?" I press.
"Nine."
I shake my head.
River ignores my doubt and goes on to explain.
"I graduated from the program with top marks. Killed three men before the age of ten. I was quite proud of myself."
"Until they sent you to the asylum because you had imagined it all.”
He ignores my jab and continues on to his point.
"My first assignment was easy," he says. "Just a man. I do not even remember his face, to be honest. They all blend together after a while. Even the second and the third. I didn't care to know them, or what they had done to earn their deaths. I believed what the agency told me. I followed my orders. I earned my stripes."
He paces again. Looks at me again.
"But then there was the girl."
And now it is me who has tired of his dramatics.
"What girl?"
"She was just a girl," he makes a point to say, as though he hasn't told me three times already.
"There was nothing special about her, really. She was nice to look at as most girls are. She had a pretty face. I thought she would look very pretty when she was dead, and I told her I wouldn't ruin her face because I intended to take her heart."
I think of my Bella. My beautiful Bella. So many times, I had imagined her dead myself. I had imagined how good I thought it would feel to see her that way. Until I tasted her. And she poisoned me. I could not have it any other way.
Before River even admits it, I can tell that he has been poisoned too.
"Those were my instructions," he says. "Cut out her heart. It should have been quite easy. None of the others were difficult."
He struggles with acknowledging his defeat. River has always been too proud. Too arrogant.