"They were training us to be enforcers and leaders," I said. "Muscle and brain. People who could blend in, who looked clean, who had the discipline and skills to do what needed to be done without asking questions."
This was the hard part.
The part I'd never told anyone outside the nine.
"They made me kill a man on my sixteenth birthday," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
Mila didn't flinch. Didn't let go.
"They called it a present. A rite of passage. Brought me to a warehouse outside the city. There was a man tied to a chair. Beaten. Bloodied. Crying."
My jaw clenched.
"I don't know who he was. Never asked. But I think about him. Pray for his soul sometimes."
I paused.
"Maybe I'm praying for my own. I don't know."
I forced myself to keep going.
"That was the beginning of the darkest chapter. After that, they knew I'd crossed a line I couldn't uncross. And it only got worse from there."
I described the missions. The violence. The way they'd slowly eroded any sense of morality we had left until all that remained was survival and loyalty.
Silence stretched between us. I waited for her to say something. To let go of my hand. To tell me she couldn't do this.
Instead, she surprised me.
"How did you get out?" she asked, her voice steady.
A grim smile tugged at my mouth.
"The nine of us used what we'd learned against them," I said. "Turned their own training back on the people who'd created us."
I described the planning. The way we'd spent our senior year gathering evidence, mapping every iteration of staff comings and goings, coordinating with the one cop in town who wasn't on their payroll.
"There was supposed to be a big celebration after graduation," I said. "An initiation ceremony. But one of our brothers found out what it really was."
I met her eyes.
"It was going to be permanent. Once you were in, you were in for life. No walking away. No second chances."
I described graduation night. The precision. The violence.
"We killed the headmaster," I said bluntly. "The sadistic prick behind it all. Burned the files we could find in his office. Saved some—the ones that implicated other people—and gave them anonymously to the FBI."
Mila's expression didn't change.
"There were other things we did that don't matter now," I continued. "But when we left St. Paul's and enlisted—Army, Marines, Navy—we did it to serve our country. To prove we were good men. To put distance between who we'd been forced to become and who we wanted to be."
I paused.
"Our minds were clear. Our hearts were full. We were looking toward the future. Finally."
My voice dropped.
"Only, I know now that there was never really closure. Not the good kind. I never dealt with the debris that trauma left in me. The spikes and thorns. The rage. Probably the same for the others."
