Chapter 16 The Weight of Secrets #3
She flinched. “Mel—”
“No.” I backed toward the bathroom, grabbing the file from my bed. “You want me to figure it out myself? Fine. I will. But don’t pretend this is for my own good. Don’t pretend keeping me in the dark is somehow protecting me.”
“That’s not—”
But I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I fled into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me and twisting the lock with shaking hands.
My breath came in shallow gasps. I slid down to the floor, pressing my back against the door, the file clutched to my chest like armor.
Breathe. Just breathe.
But I couldn’t; the air wouldn’t come. My lungs locked up, panic squeezing my chest like a vise.
I fumbled for my inhaler in my bag with shaking hands, taking two puffs.
Slowly, my lungs unlocked. Air returned, and my vision cleared. But the panic remained, coiled in my stomach like a snake.
I could hear Luz on the other side of the door, quietly crying as she sat on her bed. Eventually, her breathing evened out into something that might have been sleep.
But I stayed on the bathroom floor, staring at Aunt Reenie’s journal and the file in my lap.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Inside was chaos: printed emails, redacted reports, spreadsheets, newspaper clippings, photographs. Some in color, some grainy black and white, all clearly taken in secret. It was organized in the meticulously overwhelming way that only Candace could manage.
I started with a report stamped with the Ekklesia Biotech letterhead:
Subject Evaluation Metrics – Tier Omega Cohort
Amy’s cohort.
My stomach turned as I read clinical descriptions of “adverse reactions within predictive margin” and “behavioral shifts suggestive of epigenetic unlocking.”
One phrase stood out: “Spiritualization efficacy remains inconsistent.”
Spiritualization? What the hell did that mean?
Emails between executives discussing something called “Project Eden.” Cyrus’s name appeared over and over:
“Cyrus approved the shift.” “Waiting on green light from C.” “Our benefactor insists on full metaphysical integration before next phase.”
Benefactor?
Then I found pages from Aunt Reenie’s journal, tucked between corporate reports like pressed flowers.
“They call him The Shepherd. He moves between departments, faceless but feared. Everyone answers to him. He speaks in riddles about ‘tending the flock’ and ‘harvesting the chosen.’ I think he knows I’m digging. I think he’s watching me.”
Another entry, dated just weeks before she’d been hospitalized:
“Cyrus is always there. I feel him even when I don’t see him. The others call him ‘our benefactor’ like a priest at an altar. I’ve been dreaming of fire, of a hearth that won’t light no matter how I try. Someone is trying to snuff it out. I think they know. I think they’re going to stop me.”
Bile rose in my throat.
The next page was a yellow-hued printed news article. A journalist had gone missing after investigating medical fraud related to Ekklesia’s wellness centers in the Midwest. His last known contact had been with a patient who claimed to see “angels in the walls” after taking their supplements.
I pressed a hand to my mouth, nausea rolling through me.
Another blurry photo taken through a window. A clean, bright lab with rows of glass pods. Inside one, a figure lay too still, too thin. Almost skeletal. The word “prototype” was scrawled across the bottom in red marker.
Then I found the list.
A spreadsheet with names arranged in columns. Categories across the top: Tier Alpha, Tier Beta, Tier Omega.
My eyes scanned down, and my stomach dropped.
Melanie Blumenthal - Tier Omega - Active - Persephone Protocol
Amaris Lane - Tier Omega - Compromised - Artemis Protocol
Luzelle Villanueva - Tier Beta - Observing - Leuce Protocol
Xavier Greaves - Tier Alpha - Escalating - Ares Protocol
Leonard James - Tier Omega - Observing - Hermes Protocol
We were all there, categorized and labeled.
The list went on for pages. Dozens of names, maybe hundreds. Students I recognized from class, from campus, from the ER waiting room.
All of us were marked and being used. The page slipped from my fingers, drifting to the floor. Another note in Candace’s handwriting:
Mel—I traced the funding back. Ekklesia is a front. The real money comes from a pharmaceutical conglomerate. This goes deeper than I thought. Be careful who you trust.
The file spilled from my lap, papers scattering across the bathroom floor like fallen leaves.
Reenie’s words stared up at me in her looping script. Clinical descriptions of human experimentation. Photos of people being used as test subjects.
My breath came in shallow gasps. There was a ringing in my ears like pressure dropping before a storm.
I lurched forward and vomited into the toilet, my body rejecting everything I’d just learned.
When I was done, I slumped against the wall, shaking.
The sky outside was beginning to lighten into that gray-blue hour before dawn when the world holds its breath.
And in that quiet, surrounded by scattered papers and terrible truths, I understood. This wasn’t random. This wasn’t a coincidence.
It was a hunt.
And whatever Ekklesia wanted from us, whatever Cyrus Vane was building, it had been in motion long before any of us knew to be afraid.