Chapter 26 #4
“There’s a long list of reasons why I know,” she said, her voice calm and matter-of-fact.
“Dread’s shadows didn’t kill you permanently, and they absolutely should have.
You killed Dread with your bare hands, which should have been impossible since he was a Trueborn and you were supposedly only serum-based. ”
Every instinct screamed at me to deny it, to craft some elaborate explanation, to do what I’d done my entire fucking life—hide.
“You flew away without your suit being powered up,” she continued, ticking off the evidence on her fingers. “Which I see you’ve given an explanation for now, but I don’t buy it.”
I opened my mouth to interrupt, to salvage this somehow, but Annie raised her hand, cutting me off.
“There’s one more thing,” she said. “Something you can’t explain away with secret serum powers.”
My throat went dry. “Annie—”
“I felt you.” She tapped her chest, right over her heart. “After you came for me on the rooftop. You felt different.”
Fuck.
“I felt what you are, and we both know it wasn’t serum-based power I was sensing.” Her voice was steady, certain. “However you hid yourself from me before, it stopped working in the Crucible. I felt you. The real you.”
The Tinkerer’s Hammer. The fucking goddamn Hammer.
It had turned off everything about me that night, not just my suit, but all of my implants. The ones that masked my Trueborn signature.
I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Hadn’t considered what it meant that Annie had been there, that she would feel the difference. That she would know.
I’d never felt more exposed, more fucking naked, than I did right then.
I could deny it. I could laugh it off. I could threaten her. I could run. I could—
I just stood there, frozen, as the foundation of my entire existence crumbled beneath my feet.
Seconds stretched into an eternity as we stared at each other. The muffled sounds of the gala faded to nothing. There was only Annie, me, and the truth I’d spent my life burying.
“What are you going to do?” I finally asked, my voice a rasp.
The question contained multitudes. What are you going to do with this information? With me? Will you report me? Turn me in? Expose me? Destroy everything I’ve built? Destroy who I am as a person?
“Nothing,” she said simply.
I blinked. “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” she repeated.
I searched her face for signs of deception, for the trap I was certain must be there. People don’t just discover your darkest secret and do nothing with it. That’s not how the world worked. That’s not how people work.
“Why?”
“Because it’s not my secret to tell,” she said. “And because...” She trailed off, looking away.
“Because what?” I pressed, needing to hear it, whatever it was.
“Because I did the research.”
My pulse hammered in my ears as she continued.
“Your mind, the way it works, that’s one of your Trueborn gifts, isn’t it? And now I know what happens when an intellectually gifted Trueborn is given the suppressing serum.”
She’d researched the very thing that haunted my nightmares.
“They break you,” she said. “They take what makes you special and they crush it. I’ve seen the case studies. The brilliant ones who became hollow shells after treatment.”
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She’d seen right through me to my deepest fear, becoming that empty-eyed child again, trapped in a mind that couldn’t access its own brilliance.
But the fear that had been building in my chest twisted into something else. Something dangerously close to hope.
“You protected me,” I said, disbelief coloring my voice. “After everything I did. After I lied to you.”
“I did it because I know what it’s like to have powers you didn’t ask for. To be afraid of what others would do if they knew.”
“You could have destroyed me with this,” I said softly. “You still could.”
“I know,” she said. “But even if I hated you, I wouldn’t let anyone take you away like that. I wouldn’t let them break your mind.”
I stared at Annie, struggling to process what had just happened. She’d known, for months. My biggest secret, the one thing that could destroy everything I’d built, and she’d just kept it to herself. Protected me.
No one had ever protected me before.
“So,” Annie said, “are we going to go flying or are we going to keep standing out here staring at each other?”
I blinked. My mouth opened, but no words came out.
Finally, I found my voice. “You’re just going to drop this bombshell? Reveal that you know my biggest, deepest secret—have known it for months—and that’s it?”
Annie shrugged and gave me a small smile. “Yep.”
I just stared at her. This impossible woman. This fucking miracle of a human being who knew what I was and hadn’t run screaming. Hadn’t reported me. Hadn’t used it against me.
Had protected me.
She’d known what I was since that night on the rooftop. Known, and still came to my bed. Still let me touch her. Still fought with me, cried with me, fucked me.
She knew, and she stayed.
“Okay,” I finally exhaled, the word carrying the weight of everything I didn’t know how to say.