3. Oakley
OAKLEY
Maverick drops the tray on the metal table, then winces when it clatters loudly in the busy lunchroom. The diverse staff at the Wimberley office—people in lab coats, special ops folks in all black, office personnel—turn toward the sound.
“Sorry!” Mav says, waving both hands like a politician. “Slipped out of my hand.”
Everyone returns to their business, and Mav slumps into the cafeteria chair.
He’s bitched about having to go through Hedy’s training program, given he’s already started going on missions, but considering everything we’ve learned on day one…
I sit across from him, equally rattled.
Rami was right. One hell of a first day, and we’re only halfway through it—which feels incongruous, given that we’re in a state-of-the-art office building overlooking the Texas Hill Country on a gorgeous blue-sky day.
Hedy joins us. “How’re y’all doin’?”
Our aunt-slash-boss wears a knowing smile, her green eyes popping against her pretty freckles and caramel-colored waves.
Curvy and comfortable in flowing layers, you’d be hard-pressed to guess that she’s also the pilot of record for all of Wimberley’s aircraft.
Including the tactical helicopter. Apparently.
I raise my brows. “You could have warned us about Aunt Rae and her…” I pause, still trying to wrap my head around what I saw. “…genetic gifts.”
The extensive NDA we signed before coming in this morning is starting to make sense. As is all the secrecy around Wimberley. Suffice it to say that genetic experimentation in the late nineteen hundreds was wild. And highly illegal.
Hedy sends me an amused grin. “How’d you fare?”
I turn over my hand, a weak gesture. “I did okay. I guess.”
“Okay? Yeah, right.” Mav snorts. “I nearly shit myself, and this one just stood there, cool as a cucumber.”
I shrug. Years of research into the human psyche and clinical rotations through the most dangerous mental health wards thankfully burned through my startle reflex a long time ago.
Still, Rae was…something.
“I would have preferred a heads-up,” I finally say. “And not just with Rae.”
What I don’t say is that I’ve already figured out that the PhD track I followed—the one Hedy suggested—was never meant to lead me to researching mental health reforms, as I’d originally planned. She wanted me here, in the Wimberley office, this whole time.
As it happens, psychopathy, which is my specialty, shows up with alarming frequency in the richest of the rich. It’s estimated that forty percent of today’s leaders—CEOs, governors, representatives, and, yes, presidents—demonstrate psychopathic traits.
That’s double the number from just twenty years ago, and it’s no accident.
The laws have started catching up to the oligarchs, but evil is like water: It finds and exploits the tiniest crack in the system.
The richest of the rich have refined their tactics, starting with hiring and funding a phalanx of soulless leaders to test every boundary, norm, and law out there.
While I’ll provide counseling and support to the operatives, my main job will be profiling the world’s most powerful people and identifying the ones we should keep an eye on for human rights violations, environmental endangerment, and election interference.
Am I excited by the thought of working more closely with the family business? Of course. The idea of being part of a team helping to rid the world of the worst of the worst is exciting.
Am I happy about being manipulated into this position? No, I am not.
To be honest, I haven’t decided whether this is actually where I want to be.
Hedy’s already promised to put me in rooms where important mental health reforms are being discussed, but my dads have always taught me to trust my own path.
And I don’t feel beholden to people who haven’t been completely upfront with me.
Based on the way Hedy’s looking at me, I think she knows it.
“But it’s not just Rae,” Mav says, picking up the conversation while nailing Aunt Hedy with a glare. “What about that guy with the weird side-blinking eyes? Like a goat. Yet another secretary y’all kept from us. For years.” He curses under his breath. “Secret.”
Yeah, that… Oof.
Mav and I are gonna need some answers on that.
Hedy, looking chastised, holds up her hands. “I have been specifically forbidden from warning y’all about anything.” She looks around, then leans in, whispering to Mav, “But when Rae comes to get you for the next part, keep your wits about you and your hands on your weapons.”
Mav thins his lips. He’s on the operations side, so our training diverges from this point on. Can’t say I envy whatever they’ve got planned for him this afternoon. He doesn’t know it, but I’ll be observing from an empty dorm room that overlooks the sparring area.
Hedy waves off Mav’s mutinous look. “I’m just sayin’. Edison one hundred percent hesitated during his test, which resulted in my favorite blouse being ruined.”
“Ahem.”
We all flinch and turn to find Rae with her arms crossed over her chest, grinning down at us.
Rae’s an older Black woman with neat braids in a low bun and more muscle than most people half her age.
Not that I’d dare ask her age, but she’s gotta be at least in her sixties, despite the fact that she looks barely forty.
“You still bitching about that blouse, Gaia?” she asks, using Hedy’s call sign.
Mav had been super excited to get a call sign but was devastated to discover they no longer use them. Except to chirp at each other.
Hedy shoots Rae the finger. “Shut it, Sissy.”
I bite back a laugh while Mav stares at Rae’s head. I take the opportunity to examine her carefully curated braids and…damn. I’m right next to her, and I still can’t tell. That’s one hell of an adaptation.
Rae grabs Mav’s shoulder. “Finish up here and meet me in the training center.”
Mav considers the pile of food in front of him and pushes away his tray, rising to stand at the ready. “I have a feeling it’d be a mistake to do whatever you’ve got planned on a full stomach. Let’s just get this over with.”
She winks at him. “Smart man.”
Mav sends me an uneasy look, then follows Rae like she’s leading him to death row.
Dramatic.
Hedy watches him go, then sits and pulls the tray in front of her. “It’d be a shame to let this go to waste.”
As we eat, she continues our earlier conversation.
“Now that you understand a bit more of the dynamics of this place, hopefully you can see the need to survey all operatives for strengths and weaknesses.”
“Sure,” I say, biting into my burger. I chew and swallow before asking what I think is a pretty obvious question. “But didn’t you already profile every operative before they were hired?”
She nods, spearing an enormous bite of salad. “I profiled their ability to do the job at hand,” she says, crunching happily. “That’s different from diagnosing and examining any neurodivergencies or mental health issues that may have cropped up as a result of their service.”
“So…Uncle Anders.”
She laughs and takes another big bite. “Maybe treat it like a wine flight. Start with someone a little saner, like Holmes or Honoré, before moving on to the more full-bodied crazies.”
Dragging a fry through some ketchup, I consider the work I’ve already done.
“The test I created for my doctoral thesis is focused on a psychopathy diagnosis, but I can edit it into a general diagnostic tool.”
She grins. “Nah. Let’s see where they rank on the psycho scale first.”
One of the lessons my professors frequently hammered home was to use people-first language when discussing mental health disorders. Instead of calling someone a psychopath, we’re supposed to say “the patient is displaying behaviors associated with psychopathy.”
In my rotations, however, I learned pretty quickly that colloquial terminology is useful in clinical situations.
“He’s a complete psycho,” for instance, was helpful shorthand for—“Grab the Haldol and don’t forget the soft restraints.”
Speaking of Silas, he walks into the lunchroom.
Miss Odeal beams at him, then piles a double helping of the lunch special onto his plate, along with, just guessing here, the spiciest hot sauce she could find.
He gives her his shy smile and takes his tray to a far corner. He eats by himself, his back to us.
I’d be lying if I said I don’t want to see how he’ll fare on the psycho test. I’ve been fascinated by abnormal psychology since I was young.
Spending the night with Rami and Maya was a surefire way to overhear the good stuff.
My uncles were never as careful when they thought the kids were asleep, and Uncle Anders, in particular, was a gold mine.
Still, I was a teenager before I overheard Uncle Anders and Uncle Edison talking about a kid named Silas. What stood out was the way Uncle Edison seemed proud of what Silas had accomplished.
“He’s been managing his violent impulses more frequently than not. Once he’s beyond puberty, I genuinely think he’ll be able to control himself as well as I do.”
Uncle Anders let out a low whistle. “Really? Think he’ll ever be able to be introduced to the Wildlings?”
Uncle Edison went quiet for a while. “Erik and Ant have worked so hard with him. Ronan won’t ever be comfortable around him, but it might help to socialize him further once he’s past the hormone surge.”
From that moment on, I had to know more.
All I knew about Erik and Ant was that they were our uncles who hardly ever came to the pool parties and hadn’t attended a family function in forever.
Edison refused to explain why my dad would never be comfortable around Silas, no matter how many times I asked.
There wasn’t much I could do except wait, listen, and gather whatever scraps I could find.
As much as I dogged Anders’ and Edison’s cell phones, I never found a file or a full history. Just notes here and there. One instruction on Edison’s phone, over a decade old, made my blood run cold: Keep Silas separate from Ronan and the children.
I cobbled together that Uncles Ant and Erik adopted him when he was five years old.
Though Silas’s age was an estimate because they didn’t even have his birth certificate.
It was a big deal among the adults in our family because Sy had come from some kind of horrible situation where he’d been genetically modified and had needed special people to adopt him.
The science behind his genetic modifications was beyond me, but he couldn’t have done better than Erik and Ant.
Still, the communication blackout around Sy only fueled my curiosity. The second I had my own place, I convinced the cousins that we had to meet him.
I hadn’t really known what to expect. I was actually kinda surprised when Silas answered my text.
When this shy, super fit guy with messy, dirty-blond hair showed up wearing sunglasses, covered in tattoos, and accompanied by an intimidating emotional support dog, it only verified that I’d been right to be curious about him.
The only thing average about Silas was his height, and in my books that meant he was one of us.
He hadn’t been able to stay long—he had to meet up with Anders for some reason—but he answered our questions and had a few of his own.
“Do you hate my fathers?” was one of them.
We discovered that Uncle Edison had been a sort of mentor to him, but they don’t get along so well now. We also found out that he isn’t a huge fan of hugs, but half hugs are okay.
He got a half hug from each and every one of us before he left.
Dad called me that night and asked me why the hell I’d let “that boy” into my apartment. I’d never heard him sound so afraid.
“He’s a really cool guy, Dad. Why are you acting like he’s a mass murderer?”
Unsurprisingly, Dad shut down any questions aimed at clarifying his stance on…anything. Just as unsurprisingly, I ignored his request to keep Silas out of our lives. Besides, Sy had already agreed to join us in mischief making, and a promise was a promise.
“It’s like you’ve never met a Wildling before, Dad.”
I texted a bunch of questions to Silas after I ended the call with my dad, but he was hesitant to say anything.
Silas: I’m sorry. My history is top secret.
Me: Like one of those old Mission Impossible movies?
Silas: More like Gattaca.
A quick internet search on that movie indicated Silas’s secrets involved genetic modifications.
Me: Is that why my dad is so afraid of you?
Silas: Your dad has every right to be suspicious of me.
Me: But you can’t tell me why.
Silas: Correct.
Silas: I hope that’s ok
I decided right then and there that, as curious as I was about Sy’s past, I hoped he would be our friend.
Now that Sy is a solid member of the Wildlings, I can verify that Dad is still terrified of him. He would never use that word, and maybe he thinks he does a great job of hiding it, but I can assure you that he does not.
Today, for the first time, I have access to Silas’s unredacted files.
And I plan on finally getting the answers he could never give us.