“I can be ready in an hour.”
I nod and turn toward the door.
“Silas.”
I stop.
“Who is she? The one who made you come back here and say all this?”
I think of Caroline. Her face in the morning light. Her hand in mine. The way she looked at the fairgrounds, watching the string lights come on, eating cotton candy like the world wasn’t ending.
“Her name is Caroline,” I say. “And she’s not the reason. She’s the proof.”
I walk out of the office, down the marble hallway, and into the elevator. The doors close, and I pull out my phone and dial Damon.
He picks up on the second ring.
“Yeah?”
“I’m coming home.”
A pause. Then: “What did you find?”
“Everything. And it’s worse than we thought.”
“How much worse?”
“Scale of decades worse. I’m bringing my sister. She knows things. We’ll need everyone—Amara, June, Gideon if he’ll talk. All of it.”
“Silas. What aren’t you telling me?”
I watch the floor numbers count down. Thirty-two. Thirty-one. Thirty.
“Willowbrook isn’t a town,” I say. “It’s a battery. And we’re going to disconnect it.”
Circle of Love:
Hold hands under moonlight. Whisper the word…home.
They arrive just after dark.
I’m on Caroline’s porch when Silas’s car turns onto the street, followed by a black sedan I don’t recognize. Two cars. Two people. He wasn’t lying about bringing his sister.
Helena Thorn gets out of the sedan, and my first thought is that she doesn’t look like a Council representative. She looks like a woman who hasn’t slept in days. Her hair is pulled back in a messy knot. She’s wearing jeans and a sweater instead of the tailored blazer I’ve seen in Council briefings, and she’s carrying a duffel bag like she’s running from something.
Maybe she is.
Silas comes around the rental and meets my eye across the lawn. One nod. That’s all I get. I nod back.
Caroline is behind me in the doorway. Griffin is in the living room, and Amara is on her way—she didn’t need muchconvincing when I told her it was important. June is already inside, setting up tea things on the coffee table because that’s what June does when the world is falling apart. She makes tea.
“Who’s the woman?” Caroline asks.
“His sister. Helena.”
“The Council one?”
“The same.”
