Page 44 of Storm Caller

“About what Edward found in the Citadel.”

He blinks and then says, “This is about your brother. I was there that night.”

“Yes.”

I swallow thickly as he blinks a few more times.

“When did you realize it?” I ask carefully.

I need to know that he didn’t intentionally deceive me.

At least not about this.

He shakes his head. “I never did for sure. When you told me, I wondered if it could have happened on a night I joined a raid.”

“Okay,” I say, equal parts relief and grief twisting in my chest.

He didn’t know.

“I should have said something,” he says. “But I thought that might just hurt more than anything, and I didn’t see what the point was.” He swallows and inhales a shuddering breath, clearly bracing himself. “Was it me? Did I do it? I’ve been too scared to ask.”

“No,” I say immediately, and he exhales in a woosh. “You weren’t nearby when he went down. He was fighting someone, but it wasn’t you.”

Rook presses a hand to his chest. “I know it isn’t fair, because you still lost him, but I’m relieved it wasn’t me.” He peers up. “We didn’t take his body, though. I promise you that. I wanted to defend my people from that accusation, but it didn’t feel appropriate. We wouldn’t ever do that to someone.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Something else happened in the video.” It’s burning me up, and I need to tell someone about this.

“What?”

“General Sol was there,” I say, lowering my voice, conscious of the Guards close by. “She took his body.”

His forehead creases. “What happened?”

I describe what I saw when General Sol killed one of her own Storm Guards and then took Raine away still alive.

“Do you know why she would do that?” I ask, and Rook runs a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know for sure.”

“But you have a hunch?”

“Maybe. We believe General Sol is working on a cure for Whispers, too . . . and that The Shield uses the bodies of Keepers to further their understanding of how the disease functions.”

“In what way?”

“Performing tests on them,” he says, and my stomach clenches. I try not to imagine Raine strapped to a metal table while a bunch of scientists callously poke at his body for their research.

“That’s what you were looking for the night we broke in, wasn’t it? This was always about more than learning about Storm Callers.”

He nods. “Yes. I should have told you about that, too.”

I use the heel of my hand to wipe away a tear. “It was so painful, watching you dismiss my message when I saw you on that screen. I jumped to a lot of conclusions, realizing you had another agenda you never told me about.” My shoulders drop. “And maybe it hurt thinking you were choosing that over me.”

“Poet,” he whispers, squeezing my hand. “That was never what I was doing.”