Chapter Forty-One #2
“And I’ve been rethinking this ever since,” he says, a flash of humorless honesty cutting through.
“Kiera, I’m serious. You don’t stop being you.
You don’t stop fighting. But the way you fight has to change at least for a little while.
No more walking into an active fire. No more volunteering as the test subject every time we hit a wall. We have other assets. We use them.”
Lila nods, jaw set. “He’s right,” she agrees. “You’re not getting sidelined. You’re getting promoted. People in charge of strategy don’t get to die in stupid ways.”
“That’s not how that usually works,” I point out.
“It is now. I refuse to let my niece or nephew suffer from their parents' lack of self-preservation.” Lila’s really in a mood right now.
Sterling finally speaks, voice low but steady. “You already know where I stand.” His eyes graze over me. “You keep this, and we change the war. You don’t, we still change the war. Either way, we’re done letting Cicada write endings for you.” Silence settles over us, thick and humming.
“I’ve decided.” The words feel like stepping off a ledge and trusting the landing will be there. “I’m keeping it,” I blurt out. Lila sucks in a sob, trying not to cry.
Cam shuts his eyes for a second, then opens them, something fierce and resigned in the set of his mouth.
“Okay, then we plan around that.” He flips the tablet around, showing a rough schematic he’s been building in the short time of this conversation.
Places of safety, ones where the baby and I can be safe—Mara’s, a few safe houses, new safehouses.
There are blank spaces where new safe houses will go, paths between them like veins.
“We put other people on the front lines,” he says.
“Me. Lila. Contacts we can trust. We make you and Sterling the brain and the shadow.”
The anger at the program, at my mother, at all of it, burns low and constant. But underneath that, there’s something else. The stubborn, newly loud part of me that wants to live. That wants this kid, this innocent baby, to have a version of me that isn’t just a weapon. “I hate this,” I say.
“I know,” Cam says. “That’s how I know you’re going to be fine.”
Lila reaches over and flicks my forehead, gently. “You’re still the sharpest thing in the room,” she says. “You’re just… sharpening from a safe distance.”
Sterling uncrosses his arms, steps closer, not quite touching me, but close enough that I can feel the heat of him. “On your terms, Thorn,” he says. “From here on out, it’s on your terms.”
I look at all of them, the people I never should have had, standing in a warehouse that was never meant to be a home.
Tears stream down my face at all the possibilities that we could have had.
“This changes everything,” I sob, echoing Cam’s words.
It feels good. Because for the first time, I’m the one changing the rules. This is now my game to play.
“Okay,” Cam says, business reasserting itself in the set of his shoulders. “We’ll refine the plan. In the meantime, we still have two high-value problems in the basement.”
Dr. Reyes and Evelyn. The ghosts I haven’t finished with yet. “I’ll handle them,” I say.
Sterling’s head snaps toward me. “We’ll handle them,” he corrects.
I shake my head sharply. “You’ve both had your turn,” I say. “This part is mine.”
Sterling’s jaw flexes. “I’m not letting you go down there alone.”
“I know,” I agree, looking at him. “But you don’t talk unless I ask you to. No questions. No interventions. No pulling me off them if I go for the jugular.”
Sterling’s eyes search mine, waiting for me to back down. “Fine,” he says at last. “I can do silent.”
Lila snorts. “That I’d like to see.”
“Stay,” I tell her and Cam. “Figure out how we make this new war work. I’ll be back when there’s one less loose end.”
“One less?” Cam echoes.
I meet his gaze, let him see what’s already decided. “There will be no other endings for them,” I say. “We’ve already agreed on that.”
Cam doesn’t argue. “We’ll be here,” he says. “Take the walkie. If anything feels off…”
“It won’t,” I cut in. “Not this time.”
Sterling pushes off the table. “Let’s go.
” He gestures toward the door. We head for the service stairs.
The deeper levels of the warehouse were never meant to be hospitable, concrete, steel, the kind of utilitarian ugliness that doesn’t care if you bleed on it.
We pass through two key-coded doors. The air gets colder, quieter.
“Last chance to let someone else get their hands dirty,” he says as we hit the final landing.
“Not a chance.”
The hallway is short and windowless, with two reinforced doors facing each other.
We put Reyes and my mother opposite on purpose; let them feel each other’s presence without ever seeing, two halves of the same wound.
I stop between the doors, palm flat against the cool metal under my mother’s keypad.
“How do you want to do this?” Sterling asks.
“One at a time,” I say. “Her first.” He nods, then steps back, taking up a position where he can see both doors and the staircase—a silent sentinel.
I key in the code, the lock clicking open with a sound that makes something ugly curl in my gut.
The room is small and bare except for a bolted chair and a camera in the corner.
Evelyn is sitting on the edge of the chair—hands cuffed in front of her, ankles shackled to a floor ring.
Her hair is flatter than I’ve ever seen it, makeup long gone, the clinical polish stripped away.
She still straightens when she sees me. “Kiera.” Not Sunshine.
My heart stutters at the use of my given name. “I was wondering when you’d come.”
I step inside and shut the door behind me. “We’ve been busy,” I say.
Her gaze flicks over me, cataloging. Bruises. The fact that I’m not limping anymore. She’s always been good at reading bodies for data. “You look well,” she says. “Considering.”
“Considering you tried to turn me into a lab report?” I ask. “I’m full of surprises.”
Evelyn’s mouth tightens. “We both know you were never just a report.”
“We both know that’s a lie,” I retort.
She exhales slowly, as if she’s the one who has to be patient here. “Is that why you came? To trade barbs? I expected more from you.”
“Of course you did,” I say. “You expected me to be you with better aim.”
A flash of something, pride, maybe, twisted and wrong, flickers across Evelyn’s face. “You survived,” she says. “You thrived. We gave you…”
“Stop,” my voice rises, the word has enough force that it cuts through whatever script she was about to read from.
“You don’t get credit. I survived because I watched what I thought was my mother dying.
I survived because I thought my father had killed her.
I SURVIVED,” I yell the last word. “Because I had no other fucking option in a world you shoved me into with no information! I survived because of the memory of a stupid song and nickname that apparently meant more to me than it ever did you…”
Evelyn’s eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t be alive without us.”
“I might have had a life without you,” I counter. “You don’t get to call that a favor.”
There’s a beat where we just look at each other, two mirrors from different timelines. Finally, she asks, “What do you want from me, Kiera?”
The honest answer lands before I can soften it. “I want you to admit what you did,” I demand. “All of it. I want to hear you say the words without hiding behind the program and the work.”
“You know what we were up against. Cicada didn’t start this. We responded. Someone had to.” Evelyn tries her hardest to come up with a reason for what she did.
“KIDS IN CAGES!” I scream. “Drugged. Conditioned. Branded. You call that a response?”
“It was imperfect,” she says. “But the world we were trying to prevent was worse.”
“You don’t get to talk about preventing worlds when you were building one. You looked at these children and saw raw material. As nothing more than a breeding ground for your fucking perfect society. They were nothing but a cash cow to you.”
“I saw potential,” Evelyn snaps. “I saw a way to shape strength out of chaos. To create something that could survive what was coming.”
“Did you ever ask yourself if we wanted to survive your version of it?” I ask.
Her mouth flattens. “You’re angry.” What was your first clue? “I understand that.”
“You don’t,” I chuckle, low and dark, venom dripping with every ounce of rage that's built up. “You understand data points and deviations. You don’t understand what it feels like to be strapped to your own metrics given to you by the people who are supposed to love and protect you. To question every fucking decision you make and wonder if it’s your own or something someone programmed you to do. ”
Evelyn falls silent again. “You saved them,” she states softly.
“The kids?” She nods. “Yeah,” I agree, “I did.”
“That wasn’t in the design.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Because I am nothing like you.”
Evelyn’s gaze drifts, just for a second, to my hip.
To where the brand hides under denim and stubbornness.
When her eyes come back to my face, there’s something almost curiosity-like there.
“They’ll come for you,” she announces. “When they realize what you’ve done.
When they realize that you can’t be controlled.
You can’t burn a Nesting House and expect them to shrug and move on. ”
“Let them fucking come.” My voice holds every ounce of rage and strength I feel at the moment. “I’m done being your guys' plaything.”
“And you’re still willing to…”
“Yes,” I clip, cutting her off. “I’m still willing.”
We stare each other down across the few feet of concrete between us. Evelyn is the first to speak. “Why? What are you getting out of this that justifies setting your entire life on fire?”