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Randy sighed. “We were… test subjects, essentially. Spy craft, brainwashing, none of that stuff was new. Psychological warfare, none of it. But those bastards—those Belrose motherfuckers… they aimed to perfect it. It was nothing to get ahold of moldable young minds that wouldn’t be missed by their parents: refugees, orphans, whatever. A steady supply of workers that just had to be trained, but in order to keep them under control, it required certain… methods.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Methods?”
“They fucked with our heads,” my mother cut in. “Pumped us full of psychedelics, shit that messed with our perception. They tortured us, abused us, for years on years, with the intention of molding us into perfect weapons.”
“And it worked?” Brandon asked, verbalizing the exact question on my mind.
Randy and Carmen looked at each other before Randy answered. “It did, but didn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
My mother grinned. “It means that sometimes the methods worked and sometimes we just let them think they did. It was the only way we could get any peace. After so long, you become hardened to the reality of what you’re being used for; it became just… a task to do. You compartmentalize, and once it’s over, it’s over.”
“And once it’s over, you have your own mind. At least for a little while. Because sometimes, especially with the drugs, you couldn’t help it. You wouldn’t even know what you were doing until it was done,” Randy explained, her gaze down on the floor. “We did so much—lying, spying, stealing, political interference, you name it. Istillremember some of it. But the violence… that was the worst.”
“Because it stuck with you,” my mother added. “Even if you were completely out of it for the actual mission, just running on autopilot, you could justfeel itafterward. And sometimes… you could see it too.”
“And… that’s why we left,” Randy said. “Well… it wasn’t the why, not completely, but it was the catalyst. We had a mission, all of us together. The rest of us thought it was one thing, but… Jesse was given different instructions. Ones he didn’t want to follow. Ones that were more monstrous than anything we’d been directed to do before. It was always business before, but this time it was ugly, and personal. So they forced his hand. But we didn’t know all this until afterward, after it was already over. I just remember him waking me up in the middle of the night to tell me we couldn’t stay there another night, not anymore. He was afraid of what they might make us do.”
For a long moment, no one spoke.
When I glanced at Brandon, he was glaring at his hands, probably trying to come to terms with what we’d been told.
“So… what was the mission the rest of you thought it was?” I asked, directing the question at whoever was willing to answer. In this case, my mother.
“Career sabotage, from all sides. The target was Onyx’s mother, Saanvi. Getting close to her for emotional torture, provoking car accidents, getting bullshit stories in tabloids,” she said, shaking her head. “Anything to ruin her reputation, her happiness… that was the goal.”
My lips curled in disgust. “And y’all just… did it?”
“I cannot stress enough that we had no choice,” she replied. “Even when we were in control, we had nochoice.”
“We didn’t believe we did,” Randy added. “It wasn’t until Jesse realized what he’d been made to do to Saanvi, once it played back in his head, that we learned different.”
I nodded. “So… Jesse was…what? Induced into a hypnotic state or something?”
“Yes,” Randy nodded. “Something they did often, but you don’t know it’s happening and only somebody really close to you would be able to tell. It’s like… your mind is split into two different realities—this monster inside you and then the human outer.”
Shaking my head, I scrubbed a hand over my face. “This is nuts.”
“Nuts is exactly right,” Brandon spoke up, finally. “Ma, you’rereallygoing to sit here and slander my father like this?”
Randy glared at him. “I’m notslanderinganyone; I’m telling you the truth of a situation that isn’t what it looks like from the outside looking in. Jesse wasdisgustedby what he’d been compelled to do, literally sick about it. Once he was in control of himself, he decided he would rather die trying to get away from that reality than risk harming someone else in that manner. He told us he was leaving, which was a risk in itself, and asked if we wanted to go with him. We did.”
Brandon shook his head, the vein throbbing at his temple making his agitation abundantly clear. “Did he know she got pregnant? Didyouknow?”
“No,” Randy answered immediately. “We got the hell out of there too soon for that to have come out. We ran and didn’t look back. And it was never even a consideration until I took the hood off that young man and got agoodlook at him. All of that shit was locked away in my mind, tight. We learned little things in passing for a while, from Daniel, once we came here. That’s how we knew they changed their methods, but I told Jesse I didn’t want to know and more. I didn’t want to think about any of it, I just wanted to move on, and live whatever was left of my life. And then… Jesse’s other son showed up.”
The choked-back emotion in her tone brought about the sudden realization that… this had to be incredibly hard for these two. All these other uncertainties swirling already, afterThe Fall, and now to have such ugly, buried memories clawed back up to the surface?
Shit.
“Renard Belrose is in this town,” I said, snatching the last bandage off the situation, to expose it all. I ignored their shocked reactions to keep going. “I wish we’d known some of this,anyof this before now. Because with this information bubbling up, doesn’t it make the culprit behindThe Fallpretty obvious? It was the Belroses. They found their missing seedlings after all these years and they’re making us pay for it.”
Brandon huffed. “Maybe if your boyfriend had told us what he knew instead of pretending to help, we’d have known sooner.”
“He took a damn bullet forPredatorbusiness, I don’t think he was justpretendingto help,” I snapped back. “I don’t think he knew, not for sure.”
“When did you become so damn gullible?”
