Chapter Thirty-One
The stairs leading to the basement are too narrow for both of us, but Sterling refuses to let me go first. Of course he does.
His hand is a comforting weight on the small of my back as we make our way down.
He’s close enough behind me that if I stumble, I’ll fall straight into him.
I hate that it makes me feel safer. I hate that I somehow need it now.
The air grows colder with every creaking step toward the answers.
Upstairs smells like instant coffee, wet wool, and kids’ shampoo.
Down here, it’s damp concrete, rust, and the sour tang of fear.
The last step groans under my weight. The light from the single bulb swings in a lazy sway, throwing shadows across the walls like something alive.
And there she is. Evelyn Hawthorne, my mom, tied to a rusted water pipe at the far wall.
Her ankles, shackled together. Wrists cuffed and hanging above her head.
Her dark hair is shorter than my memories, hacked off at the shoulders, threaded with silver, but her face is the same.
The same high cheekbones. The same sharp jaw.
The same mouth that used to press against my forehead and whisper, ‘You are my sunshine.’ Now that mouth curves into a small, amused smile.
“Sunshine,” she says. Her voice is hoarse from lack of water. “You look tired.”
The words hit like a punch, and the room tilts.
For a split second, I’m eight again, watching red bloom across the library floor as my dad killed the woman in front of me.
All for files that I’m still no closer to having answers for.
My fingers tighten around the keys in my hand, the teeth digging into my palm.
I welcome the sting; it keeps me here. “I’ve had a long day.
” My voice lacks any empathy. “What’s your excuse? ”
Sterling moves to my left, his shoulder brushing mine—a solid line of heat between me and the cold.
He doesn’t speak, and Evelyn clocks it. Her gaze flicks from my face to his.
Calculating. “Sterling.” Her voice is almost a purr, like she’s tasting his name like a word she’s been waiting years to use out loud.
My stomach twists in disgust. “You grew up well.” He stands like a statue, not giving her an ounce of satisfaction.
“You know him.”
“Oh, I know all about him.” Her smile widens, not kindly. “I watched his file with great interest.”
A scoff escapes from between my lips. “Interesting choice of words…watched.”
“It was my job.”
My rage flares, cutting through the ache in my abdomen. The weight of exhaustion presses behind my eyes. “Your job,” I repeat her words. “Right. Because that’s what you were doing in the Nesting House for the last sixteen years? Just clocking in for your shift, and watching innocent children.”
Something like surprise flashes across her face, there and gone. She masks it quickly, but I see it. “You’ve seen the logs.” It’s not a question. “Cam’s good.”
My fingers twitch. “How do you know his name?”
“I know all their names. I’ve kept tabs on you until the day you came to the Nesting House.
” Mom shrugs it off and continues. “They gave me access to everything: Subject lists, observer notes, genetic screenings. The bond stability reports.” She tilts her head.
“You were always obsessed with knowing how the world worked, Kiera. Are you really mad I tried to understand the rules they were using to hurt you?”
The way she says my name makes something inside me uneasy. I take a step closer until I’m standing within reach of her. “Try that again. This time without pretending it was fucking charity work.”
Her smile drops. For the first time since we pulled her out of that facility, Mom looks almost tired. “You think I was hiding,” she says. “That I died a martyr for you?” Her lip curls. “You built yourself a very pretty story to survive.”
“I built myself the only story I had,” I snapped. “You, bleeding on the floor. Wade with the knife. Refusing to sign the Cicada files. That’s all I saw.”
“And then what?” she asks quietly. “What did you think happened next?” I open my mouth, then close it. What did I think, that the program vanished? That the men who wanted to buy my future packed up and went home because Mom said no? No. I knew better. I just didn’t want to believe it.
Sterling’s hand finds the back of my neck, his thumb pressing in at the base of my skull—grounding, claiming. “We’re not here for your philosophy lessons.” His voice is low and controlled. “We’re here for answers.”
“Why?” I demand. “Why go back? Why work with them?”
Silence stretches. The bulb hums overhead.
Somewhere in the house above us, a floorboard creaks, one of the kids shifting in sleep.
“Because this was my program,” she says finally.
“They decided that when I wouldn’t sign those papers just yet, they were going to take it all from me! I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice!” I scream back, my voice cracking under the waves of emotion.
“You made one sixteen years ago when you wouldn’t sign.
You made a damn decision when you fucking left me in that house with him.
But you couldn’t love me enough to come back for me?
To be the fucking good mom you always pretended to fucking be? ”
“You think that was about love? You think I died for some noble reason? I didn’t sign because I didn’t want to go through with it.
The contract was wrong. The terms were wrong.
The price was wrong. I thought I had time to renegotiate.
” Years of built-up rage and sadness coil around my spine at my mom’s confession.
“The Cicada files. What are they?” I keep my voice calm, pushing down everything that is flowing through me.
“A transfer of ownership. Your father wanted to domesticate you before he sold you. Make you… palatable.” She glances at Sterling. “The program was supposed to create a bond, something that would make you easier to handle. Easier to hand off.”
“A transfer to who?” I hear myself ask, but my voice sounds far away.
Evelyn smiles again, thin and humorless.
“You already met one of the highest bidders,” she says.
“He died in a warehouse at your hands.” Asher.
I swallow bile. Sterling’s grip on my neck tightens.
“They pulled me in after I ran,” she continues.
“They showed me pictures of you. Screenshots from the Hawthorne house cameras. Files from your doctor. Your school. They wanted to monitor you and your… attachments…” Her gaze cuts to Sterling again.
Her eyes flick back to Sterling, then to me.
For a moment, something like regret crosses her face.
It’s gone so quickly, I might have imagined it.
“Fine. My part was watching. Reporting. Making sure you stayed alive long enough to become what they wanted.” She leans forward as much as the chains allow.
“And then tonight, you walked back into their hands all on your own. With him.”
“He’s not theirs.” He’s not really mine either, but he damn sure isn’t theirs.
“Doesn’t matter. He’s still the question they’re trying to answer.”
I take another step in until my boots are almost touching her bare toes. The cramps in my lower belly pulse with my heartbeat, a sick drum. “What question?”
Mom’s smile turns soft. Almost maternal. God, I’m so fucking sick of her damn smile. “That’s the million-dollar question,” she says.
“Stop stalling and answer it,” I bite out.
She studies me for a long moment, eyes tracing my face like she’s measuring how much truth I can take before I crack.
The worst part is, she doesn’t look afraid of what I’ll do.
She looks afraid of what I’ll be. “They wanted to know,” she answers finally, “if what you feel is inevitable… or engineered.”
The words land like a blade to the sternum. “What I feel.” My voice sounds wrong, too thin. “You mean for him.”
Her gaze flicks to Sterling again. “For him. For anyone. For the boy they paired you with. For the ones before him. Whether the bond was something they discovered or something they could build from scratch and sell.”
“The bond stability reports.” All of the evidence snaps into focus, suddenly making more sense. “That’s what you were logging. Sterling and I.”
“And your responses,” she adds quietly. “What decisions would you make. Who would you protect? If you’d burn the world for each other, or if you’d walk away when they told you to.”
“You turned my life into a fucking lab report.” My voice comes out as a fragile whisper. “Like I was a lab rat. You watched your own daughter suffer, sat back, and took notes.”
“I watched you survive,” she snaps. “Do you really think they would have stopped experimenting if I said no and walked away? They would have kept going blind. I made sure they at least had to account for you. That they couldn’t just make you disappear into a spreadsheet and call it a failure.”
“Congratulations,” I mock. “You turned me into a successful faulty product. Too broken to even know what love is and who is safe to trust. Hope it makes you so proud, Mom.” Spitting venom with the last word.
Sterling presses his thumb harder into my neck, like he’s trying to keep me anchored instead of spiraling into violence.
His voice cuts through the rising static in my fucked-up head.
“What did they want tonight?” “You said we walked back into their hands. Why would they set the whole thing up just to let us burn it down?”
“You didn’t let them. You did exactly what they wanted.
You returned to the starting point. To the Nesting House together.
They needed one final data point,” she continues.
“They needed to see how you were firsthand, and with other variables in play.” Her eyes meet mine, and for the first time, there’s no mask.
Just brutal honesty. “They needed to know, with no sedation, no observers, no controlled conditions, if, when forced to choose, you were still going to pick each other.”
Silence slams down. I think about the Nesting House.
The alarm is screaming. Smoke fills the tunnel.
The kids, sedated, piled together from the blast. No way forward or backward.
Sterling hoists children up three hundred feet, muscles shaking.
Both of us hurt, but we still chose to move in sync because working together was the only way to get every single one of them out.
I did choose. Over and over. My vision blurs.
I blink hard. I will not cry in front of her.
“So?” I ask, my voice a rasp. “Did you get your answer?”
Mom gives a slight confirming nod. I want to ask what they’ll do with that answer.
How far does the program’s reach go now that we’ve turned one of its houses to rubble?
But the cramps in my abdomen spike. A hot knife twist that steals my breath.
I sway, and Sterling catches me before my knees can hit the floor.
“That’s enough for now.” His voice is ice-cold. “We’re done.”
Mom’s eyes lock onto where his arms wrap around my waist, to the way I let myself lean into him. Satisfaction glimmers there, ugly and bright. “Of course you are; you always did tap out right before the good part.”
I consider lunging at her despite the pain as rage burns through me.
To demand every answer that she’s still holding back.
But my body is screaming at me to stop. Sterling is right; we can’t give her the show she came for.
Not yet. I straighten, using his grip as leverage.
“Enjoy the quiet while you have it,” I tell her.
“Because next time we come down here, I’m not leaving until I know everything. ”
“I can’t wait, Sunshine.” The nickname follows us out the door, sticking to my skin like smoke as Sterling hauls the door shut behind us and turns the key.