Chapter 8 Jace #2
I took a photo of the document and sent it off to Patel. I was about to move on to the next box when I got a prickling feeling at the back of my mind. On a hunch, I texted a short message, asking him to look into this Annabelle woman.
Then I started on the CONFIDENTIAL box.
If the other box was bad, this one was a nightmare.
Punishment logs. Notes about which members “responded well” to fear. Logs of who cried, who begged, who broke fastest. Medication compliance charts. A list of approved restraining methods.
A spreadsheet titled temperament flags, with color-coded indicators next to each member’s name.
Green: compliant.
Yellow: wavering.
Red: defiant.
Blue: requires isolation.
Purple: condemned.
What the fuck did that mean? Condemned? That wasn’t fucking ominous at all.
Suddenly, I heard faint footsteps coming from directly outside the building.
Shit.
I shut off my flashlight instantly and ducked behind a row of crates, flattening myself against the cold metal of the shelf at my back.
The door creaked open.
“Who left this unlocked?” Malachi’s frustration bled into his words as he walked deeper into the room.
My body tensed on instinct, ready to fight if it came to it.
But, after a long, suffocating pause, Malachi let out a displeased breath, turned sharply, and walked out, closing the door behind him with a thud.
I stayed frozen, listening for the telltale sounds of the lock.
To my surprise and relief, they never came.
Instead, I heard him walk back around the side of the building.
I didn’t risk moving until I couldn’t hear even the faintest trace of his steps, then carefully snuck to the door, putting my ear against the wood to make sure there were no signs of someone waiting to ambush me outside.
Concluding that it was almost certainly clear, I slipped quickly out the door, walking in the opposite direction that Malachi had gone.
Eventually, I made it back to the dorm without being spotted—at least I was 95% sure. And considering the night I’d had, I’d take it.
Inside, the old wood groaned as I shut the door behind me.
I flicked on the small lamp by the bed, the dim light filling the room. I sat down hard on the mattress, running both hands over my face until I felt the beginnings of a headache pulse behind my eyes.
I should’ve been celebrating a successful night of gathering intel. I’d found some rock-solid info that was sure to please everyone working the Covenant case.
And yet, I found my mind focused on one thing only.
One person.
One sweet, innocent angel, whom I could no longer pretend was someone I could keep as a friend or just an asset.
I leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
Most of the kids born here had at least some medical records and immunization logs.
They had documents about homeschooling requirements, and some even had custody paperwork.
The kids that had been born on the outside had school transcripts and a bunch of other shit from when their lives were normal.
But Elior?
Nothing.
Nothing except a single piece of paper to say he existed.
“What kind of education did they give you?” I muttered to the ceiling.
I already knew the answer. I’d spent enough mornings with him to piece it together.
Elior wasn’t stupid. He probably had more emotional intelligence than anyone I knew. He was able to read and write, and he spoke well. But he’d been taught nothing except Malachi’s doctrine and whatever scraps of basic learning were necessary to keep him obedient and functioning.
No math beyond the elementary school level.
No history except the version Malachi preached.
No outside literature, and there was a high likelihood of there being no sex ed.
He’d never watched television, gone on social media, or played video games.
I highly doubted he knew what taxes were, let alone that they existed.
Simply put, he was sheltered beyond belief, and it made something primal curl hot in my gut.
Because the second I started thinking about how innocent he was, how untouched and unaware and good he was—
Something inside me desperately wanted to take advantage of it.
I’d spent half my life burying this part of me. Locking it down so deep that even I barely acknowledged it existed.
I was born wrong.
I was a child who would rather break a toy than share it.
The breaking point for my mother had been when I’d offhandedly remarked that I wanted to push another kid off the monkey bars on the playground. When she’d asked why I wanted that, I was truthful. I’d told her that I wanted them broken so that I could put them back together.
She’d looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. She was scared of me.
She dragged me to her church and begged Father Kent to exorcise me. He’d refused, thankfully, but had agreed to counsel me regularly on the down low.
She hid it all from my father, scared that he’d insist on taking me to a doctor who’d declare me insane. Her biggest fear was being known as the mom with a fucked up kid.
In hindsight, it was a miracle Father Kent wasn’t one of those priests who liked touching kids, because Nanay had all but thrown me into a room alone with him once a week until I learned that I needed to hide my wrongness.
I’d gotten good at it, too.
Years of carefully navigating desires that veered just a little too dark, too possessive, too hungry. Years of keeping people at arm’s length. Years of watching others to add to my repertoire of masks.
And now here came Elior.
Bright and breakable and as pure as spring sunlight.
Looking at me with those huge, trusting eyes like I was something good.
I shouldn’t have touched him that night, but it was too tempting not to.
Now I couldn’t get it out of my head.
I wanted to touch him again. To watch the innocence unravel from the edges.
He was nineteen.
He was technically an adult, even if he was fourteen years younger than me.
He was legally capable of making his own choices.
But he wasn’t free. He wasn’t educated. He didn’t know what choice truly meant. And that made every impulse I had feel twice as foul.
Fuck, I craved him—every time he looked at me, every time he smiled so shyly, or said my name like he was in awe of me.
The darker part of me savored the attention, like a starving person wanting nothing but to consume him.
I exhaled slowly, forcing the tension out of my shoulders.
I knew it was morally, ethically, and legally reprehensible to want what I did.
But I also knew that if I gave in, he would keep my secret.
He was a good boy like that.
I needed a plan. Something that would guarantee that he would be free once the shitstorm the agency was brewing rained down on this place. I needed solid evidence that he was an innocent victim of his father, and not a co-conspirator.
If I went through with this, I was guaranteed a place in hell if it existed.