"So everything," he says slowly. "Everything they told us. The orphanage. The recruitment. The story about Marcus finding us, saving us, giving us purpose. All of it was a lie."
"Yes."
"We were never saved. We were never chosen. We were built. Like guns. Like knives." His voice rises. "Like fucking furniture."
"Yes."
He's on his feet suddenly, moving toward me, and for a moment I think he's going to hit me. Instead, he stops inches away, his green-gray eyes boring into mine.
"And you're just now telling us this?"
"I was trying to protect you."
"Protect us?" He laughs, harsh and bitter. "From what? The truth? You think the truth is worse than spending thirty years believing a lie?"
"I think the truth is worse than you know." I hold his gaze. "I think the truth is that we were designed to be incapable of emotion, incapable of connection, incapable of anything that might make us hesitate when the time came to kill. And somewhere along the way, that design failed. We became more than they intended. But knowing that doesn't change what we were made to be."
"It changes everything."
"Does it?" I gesture at the room. At Jace by the window with Elliot's hand on his arm. At Jonah watching from the couch, quiet and attentive. "You're still you, Jinx. I'm still me. We're still brothers. However we got here, whatever they designed us to be, we can choose to be something else."
Jinx is quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, the tension drains from his shoulders.
"I hate it when you're right," he mutters.
"I know."
"This doesn't mean I'm not pissed at you."
"I know that too."
He turns away, running a hand through his wild hair. "So what's the plan? We can't just walk into the Ministry and start making accusations. The Custodians will bury us before we get two words out."
"We don't go to the Ministry." I move to the coffee table, to the documents spread across its surface. "We go directly to the source. The Geneva facility. It's the oldest, the source of it all. If we can expose what's happening there, the rest will fall."
"Expose how?" Jace asks, turning from the window. His face is still tight, but he's back in operational mode. The Reaper, looking at angles. "The Custodians control media, law enforcement, government. Any leak gets contained before it spreads."
"Then we don't leak it. We tear it down." I pull up the facility schematics on my tablet. "We go in. We gather evidence. We get the children out. And then we burn it so thoroughly that there's nothing left to cover up."
"That's terrorism," Jonah says quietly.
"That's justice." I meet his eyes. "Those children don't have a voice. They don't even have names, just designations. Someone has to fight for them."
"And we're that someone?"
"We're the only ones who can be. We know how the Foundry works. We know how the Silent operates. We know where the vulnerabilities are because we were designed to exploit them." I set down the tablet. "We were built to be weapons. Fine. Let's be weapons. But let's choose our own targets."
The room is quiet. I watch my brothers process what I'm proposing. Treason. War. The destruction of everything we were raised to protect.
Jinx speaks first. "Fucking hell. Alright, I'm in."
Jace is slower, more measured. He looks at Elliot, a question on his face, Elliot just nods.
"We're in," Jace says. "But we do it smart. No rushing. No unnecessary risks. We plan every step."
"We will." I turn to Jonah. "What about you?"
He's been quiet through my entire speech, watching with those dark eyes that see too much. Now he stands, crosses to me, takes my hand.
