He fired once, the round hit Michael’s hand cleanly, the control unit dropping from his grip as he screamed.
I was already dropping to a knee and grabbing the device, scanning it fast, searching for the interface, for anything that would tell me how to shut the collars down, my brain switching tracks even as the room tilted with noise.
Michael was still alive.
Whimpering now, dragging himself back across the floor, leaving a smear behind him as he tried to put distance between us and whatever control he thought he still had.
Noah moved.
I saw it out of the corner of my eye, the switch from stillness to intent, the way his hand came up with the gun, the line of it snapping toward Michael with a certainty that wasn’t hesitation but decision.
I stepped between them before he could fire.
“No, Noah,” I said, sharp, immediate, blocking his line, forcing him to look at me instead of the man on the floor. “Not you.”
“He has to die,” Noah said, voice shaking but resolute, eyes burning with something that went way past fear. “He bought all of us. He sold Ezra and Seth—they’re kids—and Eden—” his voice broke, then hardened again. “She’s pregnant, he sold her. He has to die. You must let me?—”
I lifted a hand, holding him there with the same control I’d used on the boys in the hall.
“No.”
I turned to Michael.
He’d dragged himself up against the wall, one bloody hand splayed across his thigh, the other lifted between us, palm out, slow and easy, as ifhewere the one calming a frightened room instead of the one bleeding out in it.
His eyes flicked past me to Noah.
“Son,” he said, soft, the cadence the reverend had described on the recording. “Son, you don’t want to do this. Whatever they’ve told you?—”
“Don’t talk to him,” I snapped.
His gaze slid back to me, reassessing, the same soft cadence following without missing a beat. “Son. Listen. Your father didn’t want you and we took you in and?—”
“He sold us!”
Michael nodded, “None of their parents wanted them—not one. They were cast out, abandoned, set aside, and I gathered all the children in. I gave them a name. A home. A place at the table. The men who give to this work aregoodmen, son, faithful men who pour out what God has given them so these children might have what their own fathers refused them. I madebetter livesfor them. You don’t take that from a man?—”
“Care?” Noah broke, his voice cracked. “Care?You’re no better! You sold my sister! You sold her! She’s pregnant—she’s akidand you let men use her and she’s pregnant—you sold Ezra, he’seleven, you sold Seth, you put a fuckingcollaron me—” The gun came up in his hand again, shaking now, breath ragged. “You don’t get to talk like that. You don’t get to call anyoneson?—”
I caught his wrist before the barrel cleared the line. “Noah.”
“Let me?—”
“Look at me.” I waited until he did. “This isn’t on you.”
Michael’s voice came again, soft, undeterred, threading into the silence Noah had cracked open like he was filling it with something gentle. “Whoever these men are, they don’t understand, son. Your sister—she was beingcaredfor. She was being lifted and given to a man who would care for her, who would?——”
I raised the gun and shot him between the eyes mid-word.
The body slumped sideways and the room went very quiet.
I lowered the weapon, lowered Noah’s wrist with it, and turned him to face me.
“I won’t have that on your conscience, okay?”
Noah stared at me for a moment, breathing heavily, the fight still burning in him.
“The rest of the team is rescuing Eden. Go with Zach, get out of here.”
