“Another safe house,” Sterling says. His voice is carefully neutral. “It’s off the books. No ties to any of us.” I nod, though he can’t see it. My fingers trace the edge of the tablet in my lap, the one I took from Asher’s cooling fingers. It’s warm from my body heat, humming with electricity and secrets. Sixteen years of questions encrypted behind a single password.
Sterling’s safe house is in a converted warehouse downtown—exposed brick and steel beams, the kind of place that looks expensive because it’s trying hard not to. He leads us in through a service entrance, checking corners out of habit, then locks the door with three deadbolts and a biometric scanner. Cam collapses on the couch with a groan. Lila hovers nearby,wanting to play nurse but too shaken to move. Sterling goes to a cabinet, pulls out a med kit, and tosses it to Cam without a word. Then he turns to me. “Shower,” he says. Not a suggestion. An order. “You’re covered in blood. Asher’s…and yours.”
I look down. My hands are shaking now that we’re still—tremors running through the muscles like plucked strings. There’s a cut on my forearm I don’t remember getting, and my shirt is stiff with someone else’s life drying against the fabric. “I need to see what’s on the tablet,” I say.
“You need to shower,” Sterling repeats, stepping closer. He’s careful not to touch me, questioning if it will end in violence or something that burns far hotter. “Cam can start on the encryption. You can’t help anyone if you’re in shock.”
“I’m not in shock,” I say, meeting his eyes. They’re bright blue in the harsh overhead light, sharp as broken glass. “I’m awake, Sterling. For the first time since I was eight years old, I’m actually awake.”
“Kiera..”
“I watched him die,” I say, and my voice doesn’t crack. It should. The girl who cried in the shower over dead peonies should shatter when she talks about watching the light leave a man’s eyes. But I’m not that girl anymore. I burned her the moment Asher took our friends. “And all I could think wasgood. All I could think wasfinally.” I let the truth, raw and ugly, between us. “I told you before we left that I wouldn’t be the same. How many more ways can I tell you? I AM FUCKING BROKEN!”
Sterling’s expression shifts, something dark and hungry flickering behind the concern. He steps into my space, crowding me against the kitchen island. His hands come up, caging me in—palms flat on the counter on either side of my hips. “You are broken,” he says, voice low and rough, almost a growl. “But you’re fucking mine. And I’m not letting you face this fuckingshit alone, even if your stubborn ass tries to push me away like you do with everyone else in your fucking life. ” This time, I don’t argue, shoving my way to the bathroom. I don’t have the energy left to deal with emotions.
The bathroom is all black tile and chrome fixtures—masculine, sparse, cold. I strip methodically, dropping the ruined clothes into the trash. There’s no saving them, not with that much blood soaked into the fibers. I stand under the spray until the water runs cold, then hot again, watching pink swirl down the drain until it finally runs clear. I scrub my skin until it’s raw and red, but I can still feel Asher’s pulse under my boot. I can still see the surprise in his eyes when he realized I wasn’t bluffing.You’re just like her. Weak.He had it backward. My mom wasn’t weak. She would rather have died than sign me over. And I’m not weak either. I’m the consequence.
When I emerge, I’m wrapped in Sterling’s old sweatshirt: a few sizes too big, sleeves swallowing my hands, carrying a faint smell of cedar and gun oil. Cam is hunched over the tablet at the kitchen table, his good hand flying across a portable keyboard jacked into the device. Lila is bandaging his other arm, her movements precise despite her hands still shaking. Sterling stands by the window, silhouetted against the city lights, a glass of amber liquid in his hand that he hasn’t touched.
“Anything?” I ask, sinking into the chair across from Cam.
He looks up, and his expression tells me everything I need to know before he even speaks. “It’s… bad, Kiera.”
“Define bad,” I say. My voice comes out more demanding than I meant.
“The Cicada files aren’t just documents,” Cam says, voice dropping. “They’re ledgers. Accounts. Years of transactions. Human trafficking, adoptions that aren’t really adoptions, medical experiments.” He swallows hard. “Your mother wasn’t just refusing to sign business papers, Ki. She wasrefusing to hand over custody of you to a subsidiary of Hawthorne Corp’s medical division. A facility called… the Nesting House.”
The room spins. I grip the edge of the table hard enough to cut off circulation in my knuckles. “Custody.”
“You were the asset,” Cam confirms, his eyes filled with pity. “Not metaphorically. Literally. Wade needed her signature when you were eight to transfer guardianship to the program. Something about genetic markers. Rare compatibility.”
Sterling moves behind me, his hands landing heavily and possessively on my shoulders. “What was the program?”
“I don’t know yet,” Cam says. “Most of the files are corrupted or password-protected, but there’s a location. Upstate. The Nesting House is still operational.”
I stare at the tablet screen—at the stylized cicada with wings spread—and feel the last piece of the puzzle click into place. My dad didn’t kill my mom because she refused to sign a corporate merger. He killed her because she wouldn’t give me to them. To whatever they’re doing in that facility. And now that I’m twenty-four, legally an adult, I can sign myself over voluntarily. Retroactively validate the transfer. That’s why he’s been so patient—why he let me plan his parties and manage his image. He was waiting for the clock to run out on my childhood. “He’s coming for me,” I say. No doubt in my mind.
“He sent a message ten minutes ago,” Sterling says, his fingers tightening on my shoulders. “To your burner phone. He knows Asher is dead. He knows you have the files.”
“What did he say?” I ask, the words coming out sharp, my pulse hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
Sterling pulls out his own phone and slides it across the table. One line glows on the screen.
I’m proud of you, Sunshine.
Now come home.
The childhood nickname hits like a gut punch. I close my eyes, seeing my mom’s face in that last moment, her lips moving around words I couldn’t hear.You’ll always be my sunshine.
“He’s using her voice,” I whisper.
“Then we take his,” Sterling responds darkly, his voice low, a dangerous promise that sends a shiver down my spine.
I push the chair back so hard it scrapes loudly against the floor. Sterling catches my elbow, but I’m not falling. I’m pacing the floor instantly. The energy surges back, but it’s different now. Not the cold, calculated rage from before. This is a wildfire. This is nuclear. “We go tonight.”
“Kiera, you’re injured,” Lila protests, her voice cracking with worry.
“Scratches,” I mutter, touching the cut on my forearm. The one I earned by slamming Asher’s head into concrete. It’s already clotting. “We go tonight before he moves them. Before he knows we’re coming for the facility.”
