"Jace?"
"Mm."
"Tell me something. Something real."
I consider the request. Search through memories I've spent years compartmentalizing, looking for something I can offer.
"I had a dog once," I say. "Before the Foundry. When I was six or seven."
Elliot's hand stills on my chest. "What happened to it?"
"They took it away. Part of the conditioning process. Teaching us not to form attachments." I pause. "I don't remember its name. I don't remember a lot from before. But I remember the way it felt when they came for it. This... hole in my chest."
"I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago."
"That doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt."
I think about this. About the hole I've carried without examining. About the way it felt when Webb took Elliot—that same carved-out sensation, magnified a thousandfold.
"No," I agree. "It doesn't."
Elliot shifts, propping himself up on one elbow to look at me properly.
"Tell me something else."
"What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything. I want to know who you were before they made you into this."
I search my memory. The pre-Foundry years are hazy, deliberately obscured by conditioning designed to sever connections to the past. But fragments remain, buried deep.
"I liked to count things," I say slowly. "Even as a child. My mother used to joke that I'd count the stars if she let me stay up late enough."
"Your mother." Elliot's voice is careful. "Do you remember her?"
"Pieces. Her voice, sometimes. The way she smelled—something floral, I think. Lavender, maybe." I close my eyes, reaching for more. "She used to sing to me. I don't remember the songs. Just that they made me feel safe."
"What happened to her?"
"I don't know. When they took us to the Foundry, they said our parents had given us up. That we were better off being shapedinto something useful." I open my eyes, stare at the ceiling. "I never questioned it. By the time I was old enough to wonder, questioning wasn't something I did anymore."
Elliot is quiet for a long moment. Then he settles back down against my chest, his arm tightening around me.
"Maybe we can find out," he says. "After. When this is over. Maybe we can find out what really happened."
"Maybe."
"Would you want to know?"
I consider the question. The honest answer is complicated.
"I don't know," I admit. "Knowing might change things. Might make me angrier. Might make me weaker. The Foundry taught us that the past is a liability."
"The Foundry taught you a lot of things that turned out to be wrong."
That's true. I'm learning just how much of what I believed was programming rather than truth.
