"I'm trying. She's not responding. The conditioning is too deep." Another pause, and when Jinx speaks again, his voice is tight with fury. "Helena's telling her I'm a threat. That I'm here to hurt her. The kid believes it. She wants her to use the man as a shield before killing me. I don’t wanna kill a fucking kid man."
"I'm coming to you."
"Negative. Get the children out. That's the priority."
"Jace has the children. I'm coming to you."
"Asher—"
"Five minutes. You said it yourself in the farmhouse. We're partners. We do this together or we don't do it at all."
I don't wait for his response. I'm already running.
Helena's office is a war zone.
Not physically. The furniture is still intact, the artwork still hanging, the monitors still glowing with their feeds of an empty facility.
Jinx is in the doorway, gun lowered but not discarded. His body is coiled tight, ready to move, but he's holding himself back. Waiting.
Ten feet in front of him, a girl who can't be more than twelve stands with a knife pressed to the throat of a middle-aged man in a lab coat. Her hand is steady. Her eyes are empty. She's been trained for this moment, conditioned to protect, to kill, to obey without question.
And behind them, seated calmly at her desk like she's conducting a board meeting, is Helena Cross.
"Ah." Helena's gaze flicks to me as I enter, and her smile widens. "Another one of my projects. Subject M, isn't it? From the Foundry pits. You were never officially part of the program, but we tracked your progress with interest."
"I'm not your subject."
"Everyone is someone's subject. The only question is who's doing the observing." She folds her hands on the desk. "You've created quite a mess, you know. Years of work, decades of research, all of it compromised because a handful of broken weapons decided to play hero."
"We're not weapons."
"Of course you are. That's what you were made for. What you were designed to do." She nods toward Jinx. "Look at him. Standing there, vibrating with the urge to kill me, held back onlyby his pathetic need to protect children. Even now, even after all these years, my work controls him."
Jinx's jaw tightens. He doesn't respond, but I can see the truth of it in his eyes. The war between what he wants and what he's programmed to do.
"Twelve." Helena's voice shifts, becomes softer, almost maternal. The voice of a handler. The voice of control. "These men are threats. They want to hurt you. They want to take you away from your purpose. You know what to do with threats."
The girl presses the knife harder against the man's throat. A thin line of red appears, blood welling up and trickling down his neck. The man whimpers, his hands fluttering uselessly at his sides, too terrified to fight back.
"Don't listen to her," Jinx says. His voice is steady, but I can hear the strain underneath. The effort of holding himself back when every instinct screams attack. "She's lying. She's always been lying. We're here to help you. To take you somewhere safe."
"Safe doesn't exist." Twelve's voice is flat, reciting words that have been drilled into her through pain and repetition. "There is only the Silent. There is only the work. There is only compliance."
"That's not true. I know it feels true, because they made it feel true. They broke you down and rebuilt you with those words as the foundation. But there's a whole world outside these walls. People who will care about you. People who will never hurt you."
"Everyone hurts." Twelve's empty eyes find Jinx's face. "That's what the work teaches. Pain is the foundation. Pain is the path. Pain is the purpose."
"Pain is a lie they told you to make you controllable." Jinx takes a step forward, and Twelve's grip on the knife tightens. He stops, hands raised, showing he's not a threat. "My name is Jinx. When I was your age, I was called H3. Just a number, like you. I lived in a place like this. I was trained like you were trained. I believed everything they told me, because believing was easier than fighting."
"What changed?" she wavers on the last word.
"I met people who showed me another way. I was reconnected with my brothers. I met others who proved that the world wasn't just pain and purpose. That there was more than the Silent, more than the work, more than compliance." Jinx's voice cracks. "Let me show you. Please. You don't have to do this. You don't have to be what they made you."
The knife wavers. Twelve's empty expression fractures, something human bleeding through the programming they've installed in her brain.
"Twelve." Helena's voice cuts through like a whip, sharp and commanding. "Complete your objective. Eliminate the threats. Now."
Twelve's hand steadies. The emptiness returns, snapping back into place like a mask.
