Chapter 32
Morning hits softer than it has in years. No pounding heart, no rush of blood in my ears. Too many nightmares, and I grew accustomed to waking up like that nearly every morning.
This is different. Something pulls me gently from sleep, like I’m floating up into consciousness on a cloud.
The bed beneath me is certainly soft. I wake tangled in sheets that don’t belong to me, in a room that definitely doesn’t belong to me, and for a moment, I fear I hallucinated the entire night.
But then I turn my head and see Reese asleep beside me, and my body relaxes back into the bed. I roll over slowly so I can watch him.
I accused him of being a creep for this very thing last night, but now I understand the appeal.
I’ve never seen him asleep before. I’ve never had the chance. I’ve never been allowed this version of him.
And it’s kind of surreal because he looks…
exactly the same. I expected him to look different.
Isn’t that the cliche people use, claiming people look different, softer, in sleep?
Sure, he looks a little more peaceful. But all those hard edges and promises of danger are still firmly in place even while he’s unconscious.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Pushing myself upright, I drag a hand through my hair. My glasses are on the nightstand, so I grab them, sliding them back into place. I stretch, wincing a little.
Yeah, okay, definitely sore. But, fucking hell, was it worth it.
I find a pair of sweatpants on the floor at the foot of the bed, the ones Reese wore when he went to make us sandwiches last night.
Fuck him. They were delicious.
After pulling on the pants—because I’m definitely stealing them—I step quietly across the room. As I do, the shadows in the corners stir.
I come to a halt and place a finger to my lips. “Shh. Let him sleep.”
They settle back into place, and I grin.
“Good shadow puppies.”
Tiptoeing to the door, I leave the room on a mission to raid his kitchen and make him breakfast since…well, he’s always been the one to feed me.
But then I stop dead in the doorway of the kitchen.
There’s a man I don’t recognize standing on the other side of the island counter with a cup of coffee halfway to his lips.
He’s tall with dark hair, wearing army fatigue pants and a gray T-shirt that’s honestly way too tight over muscles that size.
He looks tired and a bit rough, like maybe he just got in this morning.
He looks up, and our eyes lock. For several seconds, we do nothing more than stare at each other.
Finally, I ask, “Who are you?”
“Sebastian.”
Cool. That answers absolutely nothing.
I lean against the doorway and fold my arms. “Great. Are you supposed to be here?”
A slow smirk pulls at his mouth. “Look at that. One night with the boss, and you already think you run the place.”
“Got it.” I nod. “You’re one of his.”
Now that I know that, I think I might even recognize him. I squint my eyes like that will help me remember, and…
Was he in the basement that first day I got here?
Well, if I didn’t like him before…
And then he makes it worse when his gaze dips down to my neck where I’m sure Reese’s marks are displayed proudly and says, “Not like you are.”
I narrow my eyes at the inflection in his voice. “Alright, Sebastian. Here’s the thing. I don’t know you, and I don’t appreciate the tone. You’re in his kitchen. I just got here, and I’d really like to not die again this week.”
“Fair.”
The way his smirk widens makes it feel like he’s still taunting me.
“So maybe,” I continue, pushing off the doorway and stepping further into the kitchen, “you give me a reason not to…”
I don’t finish the sentence. My fingers brush along the edge of the island, and electricity snaps from my fingers, hopping and skipping over the laminate toward him.
Okay, so I probably shouldn’t go around attacking Reese’s men, but maybe Reese’s men should stop having electrocute-able faces.
Also, I might be slightly trigger happy with these new powers.
The electricity hits him. Or, it should.
Instead, it vanishes.
Just…gone.
My brain barely has time to register that before a white-hot bolt slams into me. Hard.
“Fuck!”
It’s my own power, but wrong. Amplified. Like it got a second charge during its circuit back to me. It hits my chest like a goddamn truck, and I double over, a strangled sound ripping out of me as pain spikes through my ribs and down my spine.
Well, that’s fucking new.
“What the hell was that?” I gasp, clutching at the counter to stay upright.
“That was a bad idea,” Sebastian says calmly. “You might want to—”
He doesn’t get to finish.
Reese is suddenly there. I don’t see him enter, but I feel the change in the room, the air itself darkening. It’s more than just being able to sense his shadows, it’s like I’m attuned to him now.
I look up in time to see Sebastian slammed backward against the refrigerator, his mug clattering to the floor, coffee spilling across the faded tile. Reese’s hand fists the front of his shirt, shadows already curling at his feet like they’re seconds away from turning violent.
“What the fuck was that?” Reese snarls in the other man’s face, voice low and dangerous.
Sebastian doesn’t even look rattled. “Your new toy bit first.”
When he glances past Reese at me, Reese moves inches to the left to block his line of sight. It feels possessive. Or protective. Definitely both.
Reese turns his head just enough to check on me, eyes flicking over me, quick and assessing. “You okay?”
“Peachy,” I say, rubbing at my chest. “Just got hit with my own power like I owed it money.”
Sebastian huffs a quiet laugh. Reese does not.
“Explain to him what just happened,” Reese demands.
“Kinetic debt,” he says, unable to meet my gaze because Reese is still blocking him. “You throw something at me, I hold onto it and send it back when I feel like it.”
Okay. Woah. Love that.
Or…hate it right now.
Reese’s jaw tightens, but after a second, he releases him with a quiet but firm command. “Don’t do that again.”
Sebastian straightens out the front of his shirt. “Tell your boy not to start shit.”
His boy.
Despite just getting seriously fucked up by my own goddamn powers, I have to look down to hide the fact I’m smiling big enough to hurt my cheeks, a warmth rising in them.
“Cason,” Reese says, turning to look at me properly as I snap my head back up. “This is Sebastian. Baz. He’s my second in command. He’s—”
“The one who saves your ass over and over and over again?” Sebastian finishes smugly as he takes a mop out of the pantry.
Reese rolls his eyes as he snatches the mop out of his hand. “Pain in my ass is more like it. But…yes. He’s family.”
That sends another little warmth through me.
Seven years ago, he would never give any straight answers to my questions about his family, and I got the idea that he didn’t actually have any.
Even though I believed he was dead this whole time, I’m glad to know he found something he didn’t used to have.
But then he rounds the island, comes to a stop in front of me, and holds out the mop. “That said, you attacked first. Clean up the mess.”
My jaw drops, and I scoff. “You’re kidding.”
He says nothing, just raises a brow.
I huff and take the mop from him, glaring at him and then Sebastian as he pours himself a fresh cup of coffee.
“Actually,” Baz says casually as he returns the coffee pot to the brewer, “you should be thanking me.”
“For what?”
“Feeding your cat.”
I blink at him before my brain catches up. The half-full food bowl in the kitchen. I knew someone had been there to feed him, so I don’t know why I’m surprised it was this guy with the killer beard and the big muscles.
“You fed Felix?”
He leans against the counter and takes a sip of his coffee before saying, “Sure did.”
“And planted the cameras,” I assume.
He grins at me. “Wasn’t the first time I was there.”
Reese sighs.
“You.” I point an accusing finger at Sebastian, glaring deathrays at him. “You’re the asshole who kidnapped me!”
He laughs. “This last time anyway.”
“Then you don’t get gratitude points for feeding my cat if you also committed a felony against me!”
Sebastian shrugs. “Felix liked me.”
I almost do it. I almost fuck up and use my power against him again, but I catch myself just in time. Since I can’t defend my own honor, I turn to Reese instead.
“Are you not going to do anything?”
Reese looks between us, expression flat. “I’m not getting involved. Mop the fucking floor.”
Both my jaw and my shoulders slump, and Sebastian smirks behind his cup.
“While you do that,” Reese says, “we all need to talk.”
I groan because I know what he’s referring to. Strategy. The Institute. A war I just enlisted in five fucking minutes ago. I’m aware it was my idea, but…
“Could we at least have breakfast first?” I whine. “No one should jump straight into overthrowing their evil uncle’s entire empire on an empty stomach.”
Bellrose Institute looks exactly the same as it always has. Pristine and polished. Untouchable.
I pull into the parking garage just before sunrise, find a spot, then get out with my hoodie pulled up, glasses on, and hands shoved in my pockets like I’m just another guy heading into work way too early.
Which, technically, I am.
Just not the kind of work they’d approve of.
We spent all day yesterday talking strategy. And by talking strategy, I mean I got ganged up on by Reese and Sebastian while they tried to poke holes in every idea I had. But I poked holes right back until we landed on something that wouldn’t immediately get us all killed. Hopefully.
I met another Ascended, Mia, yesterday too. I liked her better than Sebastian.
What we agreed on was that we don’t have time to be careful. The longer we wait, the higher the chance Malcolm somehow finds out I’m Ascended now. And the second that happens? Game over. He comes for me because he knows I’d be his biggest liability.
So we decided to move fast. No frontal attack because that would be suicide. Reese’s resistance is strong, but Malcolm has numbers. And power. The kind you don’t beat by kicking in the front door and hoping for the best.
So we’re doing it my way, quiet and surgical.
Which is why I’m the only one here, early as fuck, before Malcolm usually gets in.
As I make my way inside through one of the side entrances, I notice that security is tighter than it used to be.
I almost smile because it’s not like it matters.
The doors slide open without resistance, the building’s systems lighting up in my head like a map.
Cameras, keycards, internal networks humming beneath it all.
I leave a trail of looping security footage behind me.
No one stops me. No one even looks twice. Why would they?
I’m Cason fucking Bellrose.
The elevator takes me down into the lower level. The server room is colder than I remember. Rows and rows of machines blink steadily like they’re breathing, like they’re alive.
“Okay,” I whisper as I let the door close behind me. “Let’s ruin my uncle’s day.”
I walk straight toward the nearest terminal, then I stop, realizing I don’t need it.
Instead, I reach out, pressing my palm flat against one of the server racks.
The connection is instant. Data unfolds in my head like it belongs there alongside my own memories.
Files, directories, security layers that don’t even register as obstacles.
I’m inside.
“Holy shit.”
It’s overwhelming how easy it is. I don’t have to navigate. I just know.
There’s so much in here that I’ve never seen before. I’m pressed for time, but curiosity gets the better of me, so I go straight to the files I want to see.
BELLROSE, CASON
Status: RECOVERED
Yeah, only after seven years.
My jaw tightens, and I pull up the next file.
MORGAN, REESE
Status: DECEASED
That almost makes me laugh. But then I sense something hidden beneath it, like a secret directory that no one would be able to see unless they knew it was there. Of course, I’m not just anyone.
In a hidden file, details are changed.
Status: ASCENDED
Then I dig deeper, and there are more. Hundreds. Over a thousand of them. Names, profiles, test subjects. Ascended. People Malcolm has catalogued, tracked, experimented on, and killed or owned.
My stomach twists, but I don’t stop. I can’t.
I keep going, pulling everything I can, compressing it, storing it.
Not in a drive, but in me. It’s like building a second brain in real time, data folding in on itself, slotting into place until I’m carrying more information than I should physically be able to hold.
Once I have everything backed up in a little flash drive inside my mind, I start tearing things apart. Files corrupt, systems glitch. Access logs rewrite themselves into nonsense. Protocols unravel under my hands like thread being yanked loose.
It’s easy and deeply satisfying.
But then warnings start flashing. They’re not in the room with me but somewhere deeper in the system.
“Okay, okay,” I mutter. “Just a little more.”
Seconds later, there’s movement and sound, no longer inside the system but inside the room with me.
“Shit.”
I turn, but I don’t see a thing before pain explodes at the back of my head, and the connection is severed. The guts of the servers vanish before I can finish wiping data. The room tilts violently as my knees buckle, hands trying to hold on but slipping off the metal as I sink to the floor.
You’ve gotta be fucking—
All the blinking lights go out.