27. Isla
ISLA
The number will not hold still.
Nine facilities used my storage protocol. Seven used the sourcing change. Four used the side-chain modification.
Those figures are clean. Everything beneath them is not.
Children were transferred between sites.
Some kept their subject codes and some were assigned new ones.
Two facilities recycled codes after a subject was discharged.
Population snapshots exist for certain months and disappear for entire years.
Every time I construct a total, I find an overlap that makes it false.
The secure drive is locked between my hands. Theon drives with his eyes fixed on the road, giving me the silence I need and the proximity I cannot ask for.
“Not from those files,” he says.
I had not realized I spoke aloud.
“I can calculate exposure-months. I can build a range.” My voice sounds like it belongs in a laboratory report. “I can’t produce a unique count.”
“Then don’t pretend the data says something it doesn’t.”
A laugh escapes me, but it breaks before it becomes a sound. “That’s what I taught you?”
“Among other things.”
Texas passes beyond the window in strips of pale grass, scrub and hard blue sky.
The lower end of the range is in the hundreds. The upper end could reach into the thousands. Neither figure captures what the reports actually mean.
Faster onset meant less time to resist.
Better stability meant the compounds could survive poor storage and longer journeys.
Lower cost meant more doses, in more facilities, for longer.
I used to describe those results as improvements.
“You aren’t going to tell me none of it was my fault,” I say.
Theon’s hand tightens on the steering wheel. “No.”
I turn to look at him.
“The harm is real,” he says. “So is the fact that they took you as a child, moved you into Site Nine at thirteen and trained you to equate usefulness with safety. They controlled every condition under which you made those choices. I won’t erase either truth to make this easier.”
“I was good at it.”
“You were brilliant. They decided what your brilliance was for.”
“Sometimes I gave them more than they asked for.”
He does not deny it. He does not rush to cover the sentence with something kinder.
After a moment, he lifts one hand from the wheel and opens it over the console between us.
He waits.
I put my hand in his.
We land at the Nexus at 1740.
Dominic takes the secure drive directly to the Archive. He promises to send the Site Nine directory to an isolated terminal in our quarters once the files have passed the first scan.
Cascade has transmitted no alarm. Its afternoon production logs look normal. Seattle remains behind the seventy-two-hour gate while the pharmacy records, customer routes and hidden archive are reviewed.
It should feel like success.
Instead, I can still taste Kessler’s cake.
Chocolate, with a layer of cherry filling I did not like but ate anyway because she was watching. She stood beside my bench while the others applauded. I remember thinking I had finally become too useful to discard.
I remember being happy.
Theon goes to the Chamber to brief Nikolai. I go to our quarters and wait for Dominic’s message.
The directory arrives at 1823 with read-only restrictions. I open the first report on the isolated tablet, then draw a table on paper: facilities down one side, implementation dates across the top, population snapshots in the few cells where they exist.
I begin with the storage protocol.
Nine facilities.
The first two have overlapping subject codes. The third has only annual counts. The fourth records transfers but not destinations. I mark each uncertainty instead of choosing the answer that hurts most.
Theon returns while I am cross-referencing the seventh facility.
“Seattle?” I ask.
“Still closed.” He removes his jacket and places it over the back of a chair. “Persistence doesn’t call home until tomorrow night. No decision before we know whether it survived.”
I nod toward the empty space beside my table. “Ezra?”
Theon sits next to me. “Nikolai and Raphael are telling him tonight. The C-11 file stays restricted until he knows what we found.”
“And Marchant?”
“They knew the name as a possible alias. This is the first evidence tying her directly to his conditioning.”
I look down at my own reports.
The archive stored both versions of us together. Ezra’s mind turned into a cage. Mine turned into a production tool. Different protocols, same purpose: take whatever a child does best and make sure it belongs to someone else.
Theon draws the tablet closer.
“Show me where you are.”
I do.
For nearly an hour, we work through the reports together.
We remove duplicates where the identifiers match.
We flag every missing year and every transfer without a destination.
Theon does not let me turn estimates into facts merely because uncertainty is unbearable.
I do not let him soften the language in the implementation notes.
Eventually, there are no more honest calculations to make.
I put down my pen.
“Hundreds,” I say. “At least hundreds. Maybe thousands.”
My throat closes around the rest.
“I will never know.”
Theon reaches for me as I fold.
My hands close in his shirt. My body shakes against his chest, but the crying is almost silent. Noise was never safe at Site Nine. Apparently grief remembers rules I no longer follow.
He holds me on the floor beside the bench.
He does not tell me the harm is imaginary. He does not say captivity made every action meaningless. I think I would hate him for either lie, and he knows it.
“I hate what I was,” I whisper. “I hate that I was proud.”
“I know.”
“What do I do with this?”
His arms tighten around me.
“You let it change what you do next,” he says. “You help us find the children those reports expose. You help Raphael keep them alive. And when it hurts, you don’t sit alone and call that punishment.”
I grip his shirt harder.
“You still want me?”
His hand closes around the back of my neck. He pulls my face from his chest and makes me look at him.
There is nothing gentle in his expression. I do not need gentle.
“There is nothing in those files that makes you less mine.” His thumb presses beneath my jaw. “Nothing that makes me love you gently. Nothing that makes me leave.”
Relief should not feel like this—dark, possessive, almost violent in its certainty.
It does.
The first tear slides over his hand.
“I don’t know how to forgive myself.”
“Then don’t force forgiveness tonight.” He presses his mouth to my forehead. “Tell the truth. Do the work. Let the rest take longer.”
I curl back into him.
The table waits above us, filled with names, numbers and blank spaces. The count is unfinished. It may always be unfinished.
For tonight, he lets me stop.