Chapter 15 Jinx
Chapter Fifteen: Jinx
The door closes behind Asher, and we're alone. She's on her knees in front of her desk, that expensive suit getting dirty on the carpet, her silver hair coming loose from its perfect arrangement. For the first time since I entered this office, she looks truly afraid.
"You don't have to do this." Her voice is steady, but I can hear the tremor underneath. The desperation. "I have information. Resources. I can give you everything you need to dismantle the Silent from the inside."
"I don't want information." I crouch in front of her, close enough to see the pulse jumping in her throat. "I want you to understand what you did."
"I understand perfectly. I created—"
I backhand her across the face. Not hard enough to break anything. Just hard enough to shut her up.
"You don't get to talk about creation." I grab her jaw, force her to look at me.
"You didn't create anything. You destroyed.
Children came into your facilities whole, and you broke them into pieces.
You shattered their minds and called it improvement.
You taught them that pain was the only truth and love was a weakness to be exploited. "
"The subjects—"
"We're not subjects." Another backhand, harder this time. Blood blooms on her lip. "We're people. We were always people. You just couldn't see it because you're not one yourself."
I stand, drag her up by her hair. She cries out, hands scrabbling at my wrists, but I don't let go.
"Do you know what I remember most clearly from my conditioning?" I haul her around the desk, shove her into her own chair. "Not the pain. Pain fades. The body forgets. What I remember is your voice, narrating my destruction like it was a nature documentary."
I lean in close, my face inches from hers.
"'Subject H3 shows increased aggression response.
Recommend escalating the fear protocol.'" My voice mocks hers, nasally and clinical.
"I was eight years old. I didn't have a name anymore.
I didn't have a family. I didn't have anything except the cage you put me in and the lessons you beat into my skull.
And you talked about me like I was a science experiment. "
"You were." The words slip out before she can stop them. Old habits. The arrogance of someone who's never faced consequences.
I break her nose.
The crunch of cartilage is satisfying. Blood gushes down her face, spatters across her expensive blouse. She screams, high and shrill, the sound of someone who's never experienced real pain before.
"That's for calling me a subject."
I grab her hand, bend her index finger back until the joint pops. Another scream.
"That's for every child you strapped to a table."
Another finger. Another pop. Another scream.
"That's for every needle. Every electrode. Every hour of conditioning."
I work my way through her fingers, methodical, precise. Each break is a memory. Each scream is a child's voice that she silenced. By the time I'm done with both hands, she's sobbing, snot and blood mixing on her face, her ruined fingers curled uselessly in her lap.
"Please," she gasps. "Please, stop."
"Did you stop when we begged?" I circle behind her, grab her shoulder hard enough to bruise. "Did you show mercy when we cried? When we screamed? When we tried to die just to escape what you were doing to us?"
"I was following orders—"
"You gave the orders." I spin her chair around, make her face me.
"You designed the protocols. You refined the techniques.
Every horror that happened in the Foundry, in Geneva, in Singapore, in a dozen other facilities around the world.
.. you're the source. The monster that made all the other monsters. You created the Harrison Protocol, which was used to enhance Project Omega. You created my brothers and I and you tried to fucking destroy us. You’re a fucking demon. "
"I'm not—"
"You are." I crouch again, bringing us eye to eye. Her tears leave tracks through the blood on her face. Her eyes are wild, desperate, finally understanding that there's no escape. No negotiation. No clever words that will save her.
"Tell me something." I keep my voice soft, almost gentle. The same tone she used when she was breaking me. "How many children have come through your programs? Total. All facilities, all years."
She doesn't want to answer. I can see her calculating, trying to figure out what response will buy her mercy.
"I asked you a question."
"I... I don't have exact numbers—"
I grab her broken hand and squeeze. The scream that tears out of her is animal, primal. When I release her, she's shaking so hard the chair rattles against the floor.
"Try again."
"Thousands." The word comes out wet, garbled by snot and blood. "Over the years... thousands."
"Thousands." Death is too kind for a person like this and rage fills me. "And how many of those survived deployment?"
Silence.
"Answer me."
"Seventeen percent." She's crying now, ugly sobs that shake her whole body. "Seventeen percent survival rate post-deployment. It's... it's within acceptable parameters for—"
"Eighty-three percent." I stand, pace away from her, trying to contain the rage that's building in my chest. "Eighty-three percent of the children you tortured are dead. How many is that? Do the math."
"I don't—"
"Do. The. Math."
Her voice is tiny. Broken. "If thousands... if the total was approximately seven thousand subjects over thirty years... eighty-three percent would be..."
"Five thousand, eight hundred and ten." I turn back to face her. "Give or take. You killed almost six thousand children, Helena. You tortured them, broke them, turned them into hollowed out shells, and then sent them out to die. And you call it 'acceptable parameters.'"
"It was necessary." Even now, even with her hands ruined and her face bloody and her death approaching, she clings to her justification. "The work we do... the subjects we produce... they change the course of history. Wars have been won. Governments have fallen. The ripple effects—"
"The ripple effects are dead children." I grab a letter opener from her desk.
Silver, sharp, engraved with her initials.
"Children who will never grow up. Never fall in love.
Never have families of their own. You stole all of that.
You stole futures from six thousand kids so you could feel important. "
"It was more than that. The science, the advancements—"
"Tell me about Protocol Twelve."
She freezes. Her breath catches.
"Tell me," I repeat, "about the protocol where you forced us to kill the people we cared about."
"That... that was a necessary component of emotional severance. Attachment creates weakness. Weakness compromises operations. The only way to ensure subjects were fully optimized was to—"
"You made me kill a girl I cared about." The words come out flat. Deadly. "I was thirteen. Her name was... I can't remember her name anymore. That's how good your protocol was. You burned it out of my brain along with everything else."
"Subject F7." She says it automatically, like a reflex. "Female, age twelve, high aptitude scores but excessive emotional development. She was going to wash out anyway. Using her as a severance target was the most efficient—"
I bury the letter opener in her thigh.
Her scream is different this time. Higher. More desperate. The sound of someone who finally understands that they're going to die.
"You remember her designation." I twist the blade.
"You remember her aptitude scores. But you don't remember that she was a person.
That she had a laugh that sounded like bells.
That she used to hum when she was scared because music helped her cope.
That she trusted me right up until the moment I cut her throat. "
"Please—"
"You don't get to say please." I yank the blade out, watch blood pour from the wound.
"You don't get to ask for mercy. You didn't show mercy to any of us.
You watched children scream and you took notes.
You watched us beg for death and you increased the stimulus.
You built an empire on our broken bodies and cities on our bones, and now you want compassion? "
She's hyperventilating. The blood loss from her leg is making her pale, her eyes unfocused. I grab her hair, yank her head back, force her to look at me.
"I used to wonder what I'd do if I ever found you," I tell her. "I had fantasies. Elaborate ones. All the ways I'd make you suffer, all the pain I'd repay. But now that I'm here, now that I have you, I realize something."
"What?" she whispers.
"You're not worth the time."
But I'm not done yet. I need her to understand. I need her to feel, for just a moment, what she made us feel.
"Here's what's going to happen." I release her hair, let her head fall forward.
"I'm going to kill you. But first, you're going to tell me everything.
Every facility location you know. Every operative.
Every Custodian who bankrolled your work.
You're going to give me the tools to tear down everything you built. "
"If I do... if I cooperate... will you—"
"No. You die either way. But if you cooperate, it's quick. If you don't, I have all night."
She looks at me. Really looks, maybe for the first time. Sees the thing she made, the weapon she designed, the monster she created and called a product.
"The Harrison Protocol," she says slowly, blood dripping from her split lip, "was my masterpiece.
You were supposed to be the perfect soldiers.
Unbreakable. Unfeeling. But I made a mistake with you.
With your brothers. I underestimated the power of sibling bonds.
The connection between you was stronger than my conditioning. "
"Is this supposed to be a compliment?"