Chapter 36 #2
I close the door as they both move to the couch, then I go back to pacing like a man possessed. Which, honestly, might not be that far off.
“Anything we can help with?” Harrison asks, watching the screen as it flickers through files on its own.
“Unless you suddenly became experts in illegal human experimentation and morally bankrupt billionaires, probably not.”
Lane leans forward, the corner of his mouth tipped up. “Try us.”
Right.
I huff out a breath and drag my hands down my face. I kept my promise and told them what I could about the Institute and Ascension and Malcolm and Reese. But…fuck. Shit has just gotten so much worse.
“They haven’t stopped,” I mutter. “They didn’t stop after Reese.”
“Reese?” Harrison asks. “As in the man who kidnapped you?”
As in the man I’m in love with.
But I don’t say that because I’m still very aware of the camera in the room, and I’ll be damned if he hears me say that for the first time through a video feed to two people who aren’t him.
Of course, if he doesn’t already know, he’s fucking blind.
I’ve been in love with him for seven fucking years.
“Yeah. We’re…kind of together now.”
Lane grins. “That tracks. Even when you talked about how much you hated him, it was clear you didn’t.”
“That transparent, huh?”
They both nod, and I suddenly feel ganged up on.
“Anyway,” I say, rolling my eyes as I start pacing again. “The Institute tracks every flatline they can get their hands on. Hospitals, EMT logs, military reports. They flag survivors, then they run models to figure out who’s most likely to Ascend.”
“How do they do that?” Lane asks.
“They figured out a common denominator, what it is that increases the probability of Ascension. But they’re not only waiting for people to cross Pulse Zero.
They’re using what they found to continue causing it like they did with Reese.
They take people like they did with him, people who won’t be missed.
The thing is, only a small percentage of people Ascend after a single P0E.
But if you repeat it? Two, three, more times? The probability spikes.”
Harrison swears under his breath. “They don’t stop after the first death.”
“No,” I reply with a shake of my head. “They kill the same person over and over. Flatline, revive, stabilize, kill again. Until they Ascend or their brain degrades past usefulness.”
My gaze drifts, uninvited, toward the camera. Toward Reese.
How many times did he die?
He said he was dead for a little over a minute. But did he mean just once or was there more he purposefully left out? The thought hits like something blunt to the chest, and my jaw tightens. I don’t know if I want the answer.
“So then this common denominator…” Lane trails off, but then his eyes fill with a sad understanding. I think he pieces it all together seconds before Harrison.
“Fuck,” Harrison curses on an exhale. “Psychological conditioning through trauma.”
“Ding ding ding. Trauma, stress, grief, suffering. All of it increases probability.” I’m pacing faster now, words starting to trip over each other. “Which is probably—no, definitely—how I was able to Ascend on the first try. In fact, I think—”
I stop mid-step.
Something clicks.
It’s not like before, not with data or files. This is a feeling, something personal. The room goes quiet, and it feels like it drops out from under me.
“Case?”
It’s Lane’s voice, but I don’t answer. Because suddenly I’m not in the room anymore, not staring at a screen. All I see is a basement. Concrete and blood and shadows. Reese and the gun. All those little moments when things went wrong.
My chest tightens, breath catching as the realization crawls up my spine like something alive.
No.
No.
That’s not…
But it is.
It is possible.
“Holy fucking shit,” I whisper. “This was his plan all along.”
“What do you mean?” Lane asks.
My hands curl into fists at my sides, and I try to focus on my breathing so I don’t start fucking hyperventilating. My heart starts to pound, too fast, too loud.
“This whole time…Malcolm wanted me to Ascend.”
Those words land like an explosion, but one that brings silence and dread and speculation. Lane and Harrison look at each other, then at me, waiting for more of an explanation.
“Seven years ago. My kidnapping. It wasn’t just setting up Reese’s Ascension.
It was setting up mine too.” My throat is too dry, the words coming out raw and scratchy.
“I was kidnapped and held long enough to grow an attachment to my captor. Then I had to watch him die. Years later, Malcolm led me to the resistance, knowing I would betray Reese under false pretenses. That Reese would take revenge. That he would…”
I choke on something rotten. My gaze flicks over to the camera on the bookshelf, then quickly away.
“Malcolm knew how bad it would get. He knew what it would all do to me.”
Lane’s expression shifts, concern bleeding into something deeper. “Case…”
Images flash in my mind. Pain and fear and the way everything broke. The way I broke. The way we broke. It was years of it, of obsession and anger and bitterness. Of feeling so fucking hollow.
“He needed me broken. He needed the trauma and the conditions that would push me over the edge.”
Harrison’s back straightens. “You really think—”
“I don’t think,” I snap, something wild in my chest now. “I know.”
Because it fits, too perfectly. Every piece slides into place in a way that makes me want to tear it all back apart again. I drag a hand down my face, trying to ground myself, but there’s nothing solid to grab onto. My vision goes out of focus, and I feel like I’m crumbling from the inside out.
“That’s giving Malcolm an awful lot of credit,” Harrison says slowly, carefully as though he’s making sure his words reach me wherever the fuck I am right now. “To plan everything for that long, to that extent.”
“You’re not wrong. But Malcolm is smart. And patient. I can’t explain how I know this is true. I just do.”
“Well, we were hesitant to believe you about Ascension in the first place.” Lane gives me a sheepish smile, which is almost calming with how endearing it is. “But the question now is why.”
That’s the worst part of it because…
“I don’t fucking know.”
The words feel wrong because I should know. I have everything, all this data, all these files, all this access. And still, nothing.
“But I’m going to find out,” I add, quieter now, something hard and determined settling into place beneath the chaos. I glance over at the camera again because if Reese is watching, I hope we’re on the same page.
“We could try to help. We could—”
Harrison moves his hand to Lane’s leg, gentle but firm, interrupting his husband.
Lane frowns at him. “What?”
Harrison glances at me, then back at him. “You may be a reincarnated soul, angel, but we don’t exactly stand a chance against people who can…” He gestures vaguely toward the screen, the air, me. “Do all of this.”
Lane’s shoulders drop. “That doesn’t mean we should just do nothing.”
“I didn’t say that. But you already know I refuse to let you get hurt trying to fight something we don’t understand.
” His grip tightens a little on Lane’s leg, protective.
Then he looks back at me. “If there’s something we can do, something on our end, let us know.
Data, analysis, medical, whatever. We’ll help where we can. ”
“Thanks.” There’s something thick in my throat that I have to swallow back. “I appreciate it.”
I glance at the camera and give it a look, one that says, this is why you’re not allowed to kill them.
Looking away, I turn back to the screen, to the files, to everything Malcolm built. To the chaos still unfolding, the truth I can’t ignore.
I take a long, slow breath, then let it out.
“If he thinks this ends the way he planned, he’s about to be very fucking wrong.”