"So we go there," I say, the decision hardening in my chest like steel. "We get the files. We find out the truth."
"And we get the other kids out," Sterling adds like a vow carved in stone.
Cam pulls up the spreadsheet again. Lines of subjects—children—flood the screen. "There are seventeen other active pairs still in the program at the Nesting House."
"How old?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
"Teenagers, mostly. There are six infants who were taken from foster care. The program didn't stop when you left. It evolved." He zooms in on the facility location on the main monitor. "The Nesting House is still operational. And according to these files, they're about to start Phase Three."
"What's Phase Three?" Sterling demands.
Cam's expression goes dark, his face hardening into something grim and haunted. "Reproduction."
The word hangs in the air like a curse. "They're forcing them to…" Lila can't finish the sentence.
"Not yet," Cam says quickly. "Phase Three doesn't begin until the subjects turn eighteen. But several pairs are approaching that age. The oldest turns eighteen in..." he checks the file, "three months."
I grab the edge of the table, knuckles white. "Where is it? The exact location."
Cam pulls up coordinates. "Mountain region. Two hours north. Heavily secured—private security, cameras, the works. It's listed as a therapeutic boarding school for at-risk youth."
"Of course it is," Sterling mutters, the words dripping with disgust.
I turn to face them all. Lila, with her ruined makeup and shaking hands. Cam, with his injured arm and his screens full of horrors. Sterling, with his blue eyes that might or might not remember me from fifteen months in hell. "We go tonight," I say.
"Kiera, we need to plan," Cam starts.
"Tonight," I repeat. "We have the maps. We have the security protocols from Wade's files. And we have seventeen children who are being held in that place, being prepared for the same thing that was done to us."
"It's a fortress," Cam argues, frustration bleeding into his voice. "Private security. Guard rotations. Cameras on every entrance. We'd need a team. Equipment. Time to…"
"We have until sunset," I cut him off. "That's fourteen hours to plan a raid. You're the best hacker I know. Sterling's a professional ghost. Lila can rig charges in her sleep. And me?" I smile, sharp and cold. "I just killed my father and burned down my childhood home. A boarding school in the mountains is just the encore."
Lila stands up, squaring her shoulders. "I'm in."
"Me too," Cam agrees despite the exhaustion etched into his face.
Sterling steps close to me, his voice dropping low enough that only I can hear. "You sure about this?"
I touch the pearls at my throat—my mother's final message, still encrypted, still waiting. "She died to get me out of that place,” I say quietly. “The least I can do is make sure no one else has to."
He nods slowly. "Then let's burn another house down."
Cam turns back to his monitors, fingers already flying across the keyboard. "I'll need blueprints. Guard schedules. Anything in those files about security protocols?"
"On it," Lila says, already diving into the paper files scattered across the table.
Sterling pulls out his phone, already making calls. "I know a guy who can get us more tactical gear."
I stand in the center of the warehouse, surrounded by evidence of what was done to us, and I feel the little girl in the basement finally wake up. Not the broken child who watched her mom die through a peephole. Not the teenager who survived Asher's violence. The girl who might have spent fifteen months with a boy in the dark, learning what it meant to be someone's person before either of us had words for it. Or maybe she spent those months alone. Maybe the boy was someone else. Maybe nothing I remember is real.
"Cam," I say, a storm starting to rage inside my head. "Pull up everything you can find on Angelina. If she’s running the program with Wade, there may be more facilities. More pairs."
"Already on it," he says without looking up, fingers never slowing on the keyboard.
I move to the window to watch the sun rise over the city, the skyline shaded in bruised oranges and pinks. Somewhere north of here, in a building disguised as a school, children are waking up. Going through motions they don't understand. Being prepared for a purpose they didn't choose. Not anymore. My phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number pops up.
Unknown: The peonies always come back. Even