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“Scientists had come from Solstice Bay,” I whispers. “ACB people, I think. They brought alphas with them…alphas who wanted to start a new Great Mutation, to bring omegas into line. I was an accident.”
“In what way?”
“They made me more powerful,” I say. “My scent…it isn’t natural, what happened to Oberon, to Gunnar. Even to you.”
He takes a moment to understand what I’m saying, then he shakes his head.
“Damn,” he breathes out, the word a curse and a prayer all at once. “That’s why they’re drawn to you.”
“Like moths to a flame.”
We sit in silence, the past and present colliding in the space between us. There’s a rough kind of understanding that passes from his gaze to mine—a recognition of the scars we carry within us.
“New Eden isn’t a utopia anymore,” I add, the words like ash in my mouth. “But maybe, just maybe, we can keep Pacific City from becoming another hell.”
“And how do you intend on doing that?”
I swallow the knot in my throat, knowing this is the only choice I have.
“I want you to offer me up in exchange for Gunnar,” I whisper. “If Lianna Rossi and her husband are that interested in the cult…then they’ll want me. I’m the prototype, Vance. It’s time for me to go home.”
Vance leans against the edge of his desk, a fortress of steel and dark wood, while I stand there, raw from the unraveling of my past. The silence hangs between us, filled with the gravity of revealed secrets.
“You have no idea how much this means to me, Aisling,” he says quietly.
I sit down across from him, finally ready to breathe. Now that it’s out in the air—now that my fate is sealed—I feel better.
No matter what’s going to happen.
“I know you care about him,” I say. “Even if you—“
“It’s not just that,” he interrupts. “You shared something with me, so you deserve to know the truth…before you go. If you really love Gunnar, I want you to know this.”
I nod. “Okay. I’m listening.”
Vance pours himself a glass of whiskey, his jaw tense. “I’ve always tried to keep Gunnar out of the limelight,” he says. “He and I grew up together, and he was always eager…but when I took over the family business, I kept Gunnar at distance. He was a kid, he was green. I wanted him safe.”
“Why?”
“Because his father,” Vance starts, voice low, “Logan Finch, was more than just my father’s right-hand man—“
“Your father?” I interject, trying to piece together the tangled lines of allegiance and betrayal.
“Ronan Solace,” he supplies, an undercurrent of pain surfacing for a fleeting second. “After the Mutation, Logan and my father…they both loved the same woman. My mother, Isabel.”
“Your mother…” I repeat, understanding dawning like a slow poison. “So, Gunnar is…”
“Half-brother.” Those three syllables fall heavy, like stones into still water. “They made a pact, kept it secret. To keep him safe from all this.” His gesture encompasses the city beyond the walls, its pulse a low thrum of danger and power.
“Safe from the Eclipse,” I whisper, comprehension painting the world in starker shades.
“Exactly.” Vance nods once, a sharp, decisive movement. “If anything happened to me, Gunnar was the backup. A ghost in the system.”
“Outside the reach of your enemies.”
“Right.”
The depth of what he’s shared settles around us, each truth a link in the chain that binds us together. But there’s one more move I need to make—the card I’ve been holding close to my chest.
