Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Lila stands up, squaring her shoulders. "I'm in."
"Me too," Cam agrees despite the exhaustion etched into his face.
Sterling steps close to me, his voice dropping low enough that only I can hear. "You sure about this?"
I touch the pearls at my throat—my mother's final message, still encrypted, still waiting. "She died to get me out of that place,” I say quietly. “The least I can do is make sure no one else has to."
He nods slowly. "Then let's burn another house down."
Cam turns back to his monitors, fingers already flying across the keyboard. "I'll need blueprints. Guard schedules. Anything in those files about security protocols?"
"On it," Lila says, already diving into the paper files scattered across the table.
Sterling pulls out his phone, already making calls. "I know a guy who can get us more tactical gear."
I stand in the center of the warehouse, surrounded by evidence of what was done to us, and I feel the little girl in the basement finally wake up.
Not the broken child who watched her mom die through a peephole.
Not the teenager who survived Asher's violence.
The girl who might have spent fifteen months with a boy in the dark, learning what it meant to be someone's person before either of us had words for it.
Or maybe she spent those months alone. Maybe the boy was someone else. Maybe nothing I remember is real.
"Cam," I say, a storm starting to rage inside my head. "Pull up everything you can find on Angelina. If she’s running the program with Wade, there may be more facilities. More pairs."
"Already on it," he says without looking up, fingers never slowing on the keyboard.
I move to the window to watch the sun rise over the city, the skyline shaded in bruised oranges and pinks.
Somewhere north of here, in a building disguised as a school, children are waking up.
Going through motions they don't understand.
Being prepared for a purpose they didn't choose.
Not anymore. My phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number pops up.
Unknown: The peonies always come back. Even
when you think they're gone. Check the third
pearl, Sunshine. You'll understand.
My breath catches. I look at the timestamp. The message was sent less than a minute ago. "Sterling," I say, or at least think I do. It comes out so soft it barely disturbs the air.
He's at my side immediately. "What?"
I show him the text. "That's impossible."
"I know,” I say, the words barely making it past my lips.
"Your mom is dead,” Sterling says carefully. “We just burned your father's body. No one would…" He trails off, jaw tight, eyes locked on the message.
"I know," I repeat. But my fingers are already moving to the necklace, finding the third pearl on the left side.
I roll it between my fingers, and something inside it shifts.
The pearl isn't solid. I twist it carefully.
It unscrews with a tiny click, revealing a hollow interior.
Inside rests a microchip no bigger than a grain of rice.
"Cam," I call out, my hand shaking. "I need your smallest card reader. Now." He tosses me a device the size of a thumb drive. I carefully extract the microchip, slot it into the reader, and then plug it into my phone. A single video file appears. I press play.
The screen fills with my mom's face, but it’s not the video Wade showed me.
This one is different. Her hair is down, and the lighting is softer.
She's in a room I don't recognize. "Sunshine," she says, her voice clear and strong.
"If you're watching this, then you found the pearl.
Which means you're ready to know the truth.
" She leans forward, her eyes intense. "I'm not dead.
" The video continues, but I can't hear it over the roaring in my ears.
Sterling catches me as my knees buckle, lowering me gently into a chair.
On the screen, my mother keeps talking. "I had to disappear.
Had to let Wade think he won. The Cicada program was bigger than just him, bigger than Angelina, bigger than I understood until it was too late.
But I got out, and I've been waiting. Watching.
Making sure you were safe until you were old enough to fight back.
" She touches the pearls at her throat—the same ones I'm wearing now.
"By the time you see this, Wade is probably dead. Good. He deserved worse than whatever you gave him.” She leans closer to the camera, eyes fierce.
“But the program is still running. There are children who need you.
Pairs who need to be separated before Phase Three begins.
And there are others who were in the program years ago who need to know what was done to them. "
The camera shifts slightly, and I see another woman I don’t recognize come into frame.
She’s around my mom’s age with lifeless brown hair.
We've been working together," my mom, her voice steady and urgent.
"Building a case. Collecting evidence. The files you took from Wade are just the beginning.
There's more. So much more. And the answers you're looking for—about your pairing, about what they did to you—they're all at the Nesting House.
" The video timestamp shows it was recorded two days ago.
Two days ago. While Wade was still alive and the manor was still whole.
"Meet me at the Nesting House. Midnight.
Bring Sterling. Bring your friends." She smiles then, and it's my smile.
The one I make when I'm about to do something dangerous.
"We've been underground for sixteen years, Sunshine.
Just like the cicadas. But it's time to emerge. " The video ends.
I sit in the chair, staring at the black screen. "She's alive," I whisper.
Lila appears at my shoulder, having watched the video over my head. "Holy shit."
Cam is typing frantically. "I'm cross-referencing the metadata.
The video was uploaded to a secure server two days ago.
IP address is bouncing through seventeen different countries, but the origin point is...
" he pauses, eyes narrowing at the screen," approximately two miles from the Nesting House. "
Sterling crouches in front of me again, his hands warm and steady on my knees.
"Kiera. Look at me." I meet his eyes. "Your mom is alive," he says carefully, each word deliberate.
"Which means we need to move. Now. If she's been watching, she knows about Wade.
She knows about the manor. And she's planning something big for tonight. "
"She knows who I was paired with," I say quietly. "She knows if it was you."
Sterling's jaw tightens, a muscle ticking as he stares at me. "Then we meet her there. We get the children out. We burn the Nesting House to the ground. And we find out the truth. All of it."
"That's a lot of moving parts," Cam warns.
"Good thing we have fourteen hours to figure it out," I reply, shrugging off his warning.
I look around the warehouse at the makeshift family I've built. At Lila, who followed me into the darkness without question. At Cam, who hacked through walls to find the truth. At Sterling, who hasn’t faltered at any step along the way.
"Let's free these kids,” I say, voice steady. “They’re done carrying someone else’s sins around. "
The sun is fully up now, spilling golden light through the warehouse windows.
We have until midnight. Until my mother emerges from underground.
Until I find out if the boy in the basement was real…
or if I've been chasing a ghost made of programmed memories and desperate hope.
I touch the pearl necklace one more time, then let it fall back against my chest. "Everyone, get ready," I say.
"We have a house to raid and a program to end.
" And this time, I'm not hiding. This time, I'm the one breaking down doors.
Whether Sterling was meant to be mine or not, he's here now.
And that's going to have to be enough…at least until midnight.