He shrugs a little bit. It's late and it's been a very, very long day and right now he's not in the mood to be subtle. "Too late to back out now. Might as well make it convincing."

"Convincing enough for the job. That's it. That's all this can be."

Why the hell does it sound so flat when it comes out of her mouth?

She tries again. "This wasnt anything more than that, Carter. Don't be a fool and think otherwise."

There. Good. The hard edge in her voice has returned. 

Maybe it's the sheer shock of everything that's happened, maybe it's Usmaan's dodgy smuggled whisky finally burning through, maybe it's the way the moonlight plays off her skin, but he finds that he will not, cannot, play this game right now. 

"Bull-fucking-shit."

He was there. When you're around Raina you can almost start to believe in her soft slippery upside-down spin on the world, but then you step outside and look into her eyes and it was all just simple all along. She kissed him. She wasn't pretending. Either time.

Fuck it. Fuck this. Fuck all the lies.

"You can keep on running and lying I guess. Maybe all your life, God knows you're good at it. But the real world's gonna catch you up at the end. You wanna spend your whole life never doing anything for real? There's fuckin' teenage virgins lived more life than you, Raina, 'cause they meant it, all of it."

Her laugh is wickedly sharp and stings, because whatever is about to come out of her mouth will slice him open.

"This coming from the boy whose position in the government he owes to his father? The same one that sold him to be a science experiment?" Her laugh is mocking.

"I would much rather tell my own lies than have them told for me. That's all this world is, Carter. One deception for another."