I sit up, the blanket slipping off my shoulders. I let it pool on the chair and face him, letting the cold prickle the skin on my arms.
Briar’s jaw is tight, but not from anger. He’s just bracing for something.
“I’m not good at this,” he says. “The talking part. But you want to know, so I’ll tell you.”
He pulls up the sleeve on his right arm, reveals a line of scars in a geometric pattern—perfect little dots, like a row of stars burned into the skin. “First year, we slept in wire bunks. Foundry made you sleep on metal so your body would learn to ache. You only got a mattress if you broke someone else’s spirit in training.”
He rolls up the sleeve further, shows a bite mark, barely visible unless you know what you’re looking for. “Brooks gave me this one. First time I ever fought back. He told me that pain was a gift, and he was right. It made me stop wishing for comfort. Made me wish for survival.”
He lowers his arm, leans forward. “The Director—he was supposed to break us. Make us into assets that would do anything, kill anyone, never question the order. Brooks believed in the program, but he didn’t like waste. He liked watching people reach their limit, just to see if they’d snap back. I always did.”
I don’t know what to say. I want to reach for him, but the look on his face makes me think he’d break my fingers if I tried.
He continues, eyes locked on mine. “Most of the kids in those folders? They’re dead now. Or worse—dead inside. I was only alive because they wanted me to prove the system worked.”
I find my voice. “But you weren’t like the others.”
He shakes his head. “No one is like the others. That’s the trick. They tell you you’re a monster, but all they want is for you to be useful. The second you’re not, you disappear.”
He glances at the photo on the wall. “When I aged out, they assigned me to the Ministry of Design. I thought I was free, but it was just another test.”
He stands, walks to the window, looks out at the snow. “You want to know the secret? No matter how hard you fight, the program never leaves you. Even now, I can’t sleep right, and I can’t relax unless I know exactly who’s in the house, what doors are locked, how many bullets are in the gun.”
He turns back, eyes not as hard as before. “That’s why I don’t understand why the fuck you’re the one I want to save. My whole life has been one death after another. Psychological warfare, extracting information. Rewriting history. And yet...”
The silence is huge. I let it stretch, let it fill every gap the last few days have torn in me.
“I saw the note,” I say, softly. “The one you wrote to Brooks.”
He nods, and for a second he looks ten years younger. “I meant it. I would have killed myself if he hadn’t given me an out. Sometimes I think I’m still supposed to. Brooks is bothangel and demon and he gave me the wisdom to discern which is needed where.”
I process this. “Did you ever think about running?”
He smiles, grim. “All the time. But where would I go? I’m not a person. I’m an asset with a barcode tattooed on my fucking soul.”
He walks back to the desk, stands over me. “You’re not like me,” he says.
I shake my head. “No, I’m worse. I always thought the world had rules, that if I followed them, I’d be safe. You knew the rules were a lie, and you survived anyway.”
He sits on the edge of the desk, looks at his hands. “I can’t be good. I can only protect you.”
I want to tell him I don’t need protecting, but it’s a lie. He knows it, and I know it.
Instead, I say, “I don’t want good. I want the truth.”
He looks up, and in his eyes I see the flicker of something that could be hope, if either of us believed in that shit.
The conversation ends there, not with resolution, but with a truce. He leaves the office, and I clean up the papers, the photos, put everything back the way it was.
I spend the rest of the night in the library, reading until my eyes go dry. When I finally come up for air, the house is quiet, the only sound the wind against the glass.
I walk the halls, thinking about Briar in his bed, alone. I want to join him, to wrap my arms around his chest and tell him it’s okay, but I don’t.
Instead, I go back to my own room, strip off the sweater, and stare at the scars on my own wrists, the ones I never talk about, not even to myself.
The next night is when everything changes.
We’re on the balcony. The snow is still falling, heavy and relentless, and Briar is nursing a glass of whiskey.
