Chapter 21 #2
It’s different seeing this for myself, seeing exactly what my choices led to. What I did. The system reorganized around the damage that I caused, the one that came out stronger for it.
I didn’t break the machine. I purged the interference that was slowing it down.
My phone rings.
The sound cuts through the apartment like a bullet, but I don’t flinch. I just peer down at it and watch as it buzzes against the desk.
Of course.
“Right on time,” I murmur.
I pick it up on the third ring.
“Hello, Uncle,” I say, my voice rough but surprisingly steady. “Was wondering how long that would take.”
Because I wasn’t careful. I wanted him to find me.
Maybe it would’ve been smarter to fly under the radar, to go in through the backdoor instead of the front.
I could’ve used the element of surprise to my advantage.
But none of that matters as much as what I need.
And what I need right now is to hear it from his own mouth, to hear how badly he betrayed his own family.
“Cason.”
He says my name calmly. Measured and controlled, like he’s calling about a scheduling conflict instead of the fact that I just combed my way through all his sins.
“I’m going to need you to stop what you’re doing,” he says.
There’s no anger, no urgency. Just arrogant expectation.
I lean back in my chair, eyes on the screen, on all the files still open like a crime scene I haven’t cleaned up yet.
“Or what?” I ask lightly. “You’ll have me kidnapped again? Oh, wait. No. You already got everything you wanted from the first time.”
“You’ve already made your point,” Malcolm continues as if I didn’t speak. “You’ve accessed information you weren’t meant to see. This doesn’t have to escalate further.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “Doesn’t it?” I glance over my shoulder at my bookcase, to the camera tucked into the corner beneath the top shelf. “Because from where I’m sitting, it kind of feels like escalation is your whole brand.”
“Cason,” he says, my name sharper now but still controlled. “If you refuse to be on my side here, then the smartest thing you can do is stay out of it.”
“There it is,” I mutter with a roll of my eyes. “The concerned uncle schtick.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah?” I snap. “You weren’t all that worried about my safety when you used me.”
There’s a thin stretch of silence. Then, “I did what was necessary.”
This time, the laugh that escapes me is even more hollow. “Oh, fuck you, Malc. You did what was useful.”
“Careful, Cason.”
But I’m never careful.
“You needed a story,” I continue, pushing to my feet despite the protest in my ribs. “A kidnapped nephew. A grieving family. Something the public could latch onto so when Reese died, it stuck. You wanted sympathy and attention and control of the narrative.”
Malcolm doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t deny it.
I move to stand in front of the bookcase, staring directly into the camera. I hope Reese is watching. I’m almost positive he is, like I can feel his eyes on me. I want him to know that I hate him but that I hate Malcolm even more.
“So don’t fucking stand in your glass office and pretend this was about protecting me. You used me as bait and a headline.”
Another beat of silence.
“You’re playing with variables you don’t understand,” Malcolm says. “People like Reese—”
“Don’t,” I cut in, my voice going cold. “Don’t you fucking do that.”
“—are not stable. They are not safe. Power doesn’t corrupt, Cason. It reveals. And I don’t like what it reveals in most people.”
My grip tightens around the phone. Because, well…Malcolm may not be completely wrong. Reese is dangerous. I learned that firsthand. And, yet, everything in me is screaming at me that Reese is the lesser of two evils.
Only monsters make other monsters.
“You don’t get to talk about him like that. Not after what you fucking did to him.”
“I talk about him like that because I’m right.”
I shake my head, pacing now despite how much my body hates it. “No. You talk about him like he’s not a person.”
“Because he isn’t,” Malcolm replies simply. “Not in the way that matters. He was my right-hand for two years. I know him, Cason. Better than you do.”
I stop pacing. As I stand in the center of the living room, something hot and violent twists in my stomach.
“He’s an event,” he continues, cold and uncaring. “An anomaly. A destabilizing force. Unchecked, people with power like his turn to chaos and go down paths far worse than any crime Reese Morgan had already committed in his life.”
“But you’re fucking creating them!” I shout into the phone as I start pacing again. “And then what? Enslaving them?”
“I contain them. I give them structure and resources and purpose. In exchange, they disappear and work for me.”
I scoff. “You mean they become your property.”
“You’re angry,” Malcolm says, almost gently now. “Because you think I took something from you.”
Again, I stop in the middle of the room.
I close my eyes, and Reese’s face flashes behind my lids.
Not the one I saw just earlier today. Not the one surrounded by shadows.
The one who smiled at me when I told him we should run away together seconds before he was stolen from me and turned into something that scares me.
“I didn’t,” he adds. “I provided the Institute with the best soldier we’ve ever had. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re dangerous. All of them are. It’s better to have the most powerful of them on our side in order to prevent something worse.”
“Worse than what? Worse than turning people into your personal science project? Worse than deciding who lives, who dies, and who gets to come back?”
“I don’t choose who survives Pulse Zero. I choose what happens when they do.”
“That’s not better.”
“It is,” he replies. “Ascension happens with or without me. But without me? It’s people like them who decide who lives.”
My jaw tightens. I fucking hate that he’s starting to make sense.
What if Reese really is the bad guy after all?
“Wow.” I drag a hand down my face and shake my head. “That was almost convincing. Ten out of ten, really. You almost had me. Next you’re gonna tell me you’re doing all of this for my own good and I should thank you.”
There’s only silence from the other end of the line, and that does the trick, snapping something back into place. Because I know him. I know the way he talks when he’s spinning something, when he’s dressing up control as necessity.
“You don’t get to rewrite this like you’re the good guy, Malcolm. I saw it. I saw what you’re doing. You created your own Ascended so they could either recruit more or kill the ones who refused. You’re building a fucking army that you control.”
“They’re containment protocols,” he corrects.
“They’re people.”
“They’re risks.”
“They’re fucking human beings!”
“They’re unpredictable,” he counters, keeping his voice much more calm than I’m keeping mine. “And unpredictability on that scale gets people killed.”
I close my eyes and take a steadying breath. “You don’t control chaos by becoming worse than it.”
“I haven’t become worse. Just…necessary.”
Like God.
I want to reach through the damn phone and fucking strangle him.
“Don’t let Reese get his claws in you, Cason.”
Too late.
“He’s one of the worst ones,” Malcolm continues. “As I told you before, I respect him, but that doesn’t change the fact that I made a mistake when I chose him. He’s dangerous, and I don’t want you near him. It’s time to stop digging and walk away. Live your life.”
I glance at my computer again, at all the data on the screens. The proof. The damage.
“Can’t do that,” I say, the words coming out as a whisper.
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“You used me,” I shoot back. “I’m not going to let you convince me that you suddenly care.”
There’s a pause, and the next time my uncle speaks, his voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it.
“Be careful, Cason.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at my phone for a second before tossing it onto the desk and dropping into my chair, my heart racing. I look at the screens, at everything I just uncovered, everything I helped make worse. Then I take off my glasses and rub my eyes.
“Good news,” I tell Felix, who is curled up on the couch like he pays rent. “We’re officially in way over our heads.”
He blinks at me.
“Bad news?” I let out a tired breath as I spin my chair around to face the camera. The crease between my brows deepens. “I don’t think I can walk away from this.”