“By the Council. By Dad’s predecessor. The official reason was dereliction of duty, but if Victor Ash was building wards to increase Rift output, and the Deverauxs were the original keepers of the quarry site?—”
“Then they knew. They knew what the Rift really was, and they were removed so the Council could take over. And when Victor Ash started doing the same thing the Deverauxs were doing, he was killed.”
“Silas, stop.” Helena stands, her hand pressed flat on the desk. “Stop. You’re talking about exposing a conspiracy that involves our father and the High Chancellor, two of the most powerful men in the Midwest. You can’t just?—”
“We have to expose it.”
“Are you crazy? They’ll destroy us. They’ll destroy Willowbrook. They’ll?—”
“They’re already destroying Willowbrook. They’ve been doing it for decades. Every Omega in that town has been a lab rat, and they don’t even know it. The heats, the failed bonds, the children going into early heats because the suppressants are degrading—it’s all by design. It’s all to keep the Rift producing.”
“If we expose this, it won’t free them. The Council will send people. Enforcers, investigators, cleaners. They’ll sweep in and take control openly instead of covertly, and Willowbrook will become a military zone.”
“Let them.”
Helena stares at me. “Let them?”
“Let them come. They have no idea what they’d be walking into. They think it’s a town of helpless, unbonded Omegas and ineffective local magic.”
“You’re talking about starting a war.”
“I’m talking about ending one. The war that’s been waged against that town since before either of us was born.”
Helena’s eyes are wet. She wipes them roughly with the back of her hand, and the gesture makes her look younger. More like the sister I grew up with.
“I’ve worked too hard,” she says, her voice cracking. “Eighteen years of hiding. Eighteen years of being the perfect Alpha, the perfect representative, the perfect daughter. If I do this, I lose everything.”
“You gain yourself.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’ll be exposed.”
“No. But I’m the one who’s going back to that town. I’m the one who’s going to stand in front of the people I care about and tell them the truth. And I’m not going to do it alone.”
I reach into my jacket and pull out my Council badge, the small silver pin that I’ve worn every day for nine years. I set it on Helena’s desk with a softclick.
“I quit.”
Helena looks at the badge like it’s a live grenade. “Silas?—”
“I’m done. I’m done being a tool. I’m done writing reports that obscure the truth. I’m done being part of a system that treats people like fuel.” I meet her eyes. “You can come with me, or you can stay. But I need you to make that choice as my sister, not as a Council representative.”
She picks up the badge. Turns it over in her fingers. The Council seal catches the light from the window—all those interlocking lines, all that ordered geometry, built on a foundation of lies.
“If I go with you,” she says slowly, “they’ll come for me specifically. I’m their asset. Their inside Omega. Losing me would be?—”
“Liberating.”
“Devastating. To them. Which means they won’t stop.”
“Good.”
She sets the badge down. She doesn’t put it back in my hand. She doesn’t throw it away. She just sets it down and looks at it, and I watch something settle in her face—the same expression I saw on Caroline’s face when she said she didn’t hate me, the same one I saw on Griffin’s face when he said he was in love with her, the same one I saw on Damon’s face when he locked the door and said he’d join us.
A choice being made.
“I need to pack,” Helena says.
“Fast.”
