Cam’s up beside me in the next second. “I’ll get the files ready. We go in with specifics, not open-ended questions. Make it hard for Reyes to dodge.”
Kiera stays where she is, seated with her eyes on the scratched tabletop. Her hand drifts unconsciously back to her lower abdomen, palmpressing just above the waistband of her jeans. She catches me looking and snatches it away. “Don’t,” she warns.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it loud enough.” Her eyes roll, clearly not amused.
Kiera’s not wrong. The image of her doubled over in the safe house earlier, the way she almost buckled on the stairs, it’s burned into my vision like afterimages from a flashbang.
“Reyes, then you rest.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and for a second, the exhaustion cracks, something rawer showing through. Fear, maybe—of what the answers might mean, what else the program could have buried in her body without her consent? “Fine,” she agrees. “But I want to be there when Reyes talks. I want to look her in the eye when she tells me what she did with us.”
Us.The word hits harder than it should. I nod. “You will.”
Cam disappears down the basement stairs toward the room where Dr. Reyes is sleeping off the concussion I gave her. I stay where I am, watching Kiera. The lamplight throws shadows under her eyes, turning the grey almost black. She looks like hell.Beautiful. Dangerous. Mine. “You okay?” I ask quietly.
She huffs a laugh with no humor in it. “You really want the answer to that?”
“Yes,” I say. It comes out harder than I meant it to. “I do.”
Her mouth twists. “Then no,” she says. “I’m not okay. I found out my mother didn’t die for me; she filed reports on me. I found out every choice I made was being watched, measured, and turned into data points. And I’m…” She breaks off, pressing her lips together.
“And you’re still here,” I finished. “Still breathing. Still capable of putting a bullet between someone’s eyes when they need it.”
She looks at me for a long time. “And you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re the one she called a question,” she says softly. “The variable. Does it bother you that maybe they wired you into me on purpose?”
My mind drifts to the files—of me, of the boys before me, of the hands dragging me down the basement stairs, and a voice saying be quiet if you want my love. “No. I know something they don’t.” Her brows lift. “I know I chose you,” I say simply. “Again and again. Before I knew who you were. Before I knew what they wanted from us. I walked into your life because I wanted to. They can’t program that.”
“And if they did?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “If Reyes or Evelyn stands in front of us and says this was all a design?”
“Then fuck them,” I say. “Because they tried to play god and still underestimated us.” Something in her eases.
The basement door creaks open as Cam appears with Reyes in tow, her hands still bound, eyes clear but wary now. He plants her in the chair. “Round two,” he says. “Let’s see how her version stacks up.”
Kiera’s spine straightens, the mask sliding back into place. Whatever Reyes is about to say, whatever new hell she’s going to open up about, one thing is already decided—the program might have made us question who we are, but we’re the only ones who hold the final answer.
Reyes sits rigidly in the chair, like there is a battery wired to it—back straight, hands zip-tied in front of her now instead of behind, ankles bound. The bruise on her jaw stands out white against her skin. Her eyes find me first. Assessing and calculating odds. “Dr. Reyes,” Kiera speaks first; her voice is calm and sharp. “You’ve met Cam. I’m sure you remember Sterling and me.”
Reyes’s gaze slides to her. Something shifts in her eyes, guilt, maybe. Recognition, for sure. “Subject 001-A,” she says before she can stop herself.
The temperature in the room drops ten degrees. “Myname,” Kiera corrects, “is Kiera Hawthorne.”
Reyes swallows, the tendons in her throat working. “Kiera,” she echoes. “Right. Kiera.”
“Good, we can skip the dehumanization phase.”
Cam opens his laptop, fingers hovering over the keys. “We’re going to ask specific questions. You’re going to give specific answers. If you lie, we’ll know. If you stall, we’ll assume you’re wasting time for someone else to find this place.”
“No one’s coming,” Reyes says quietly. “The Nesting House is gone.”
“Buildings burn,” I say. “Programs move.” Her eyes shift slightly.Yeah, that's what I thought.
Kiera leans forward, forearms on her thighs, every inch of her screamingpredator. “We just came from a talk with Evelyn,” she says. “She told us her version. Now we want yours.”
