“You’re really not going to tell me what you think I should do,” I groan, laying my head back.
“No, my opinion is irrelevant.”
“I am asking,” I say, softer than I mean to.
On the other end of the line, I hear Dr. L exhale slowly. “I think,” she says slowly, “that the part of you that called me instead of pretending this was nothing already knows it doesn’t want the program anywhere near this. The rest is up to you to figure out whether you want it enough to fight the war that comes with keeping it. Or whether you’re allowed to say you’re not ready and walk away without turning that into another weapon to hurt yourself with.”
The van’s turn signal clicks on up ahead. We’re close to the highway exit that will start threading us back toward the warehouse. “I don’t know yet,” I say. “I don’t know if I want it. I just know I don’t want them to have it.”
“That’s a start,” she says. “You’re allowed to be a work in progress.”
We hit the exit ramp, tires thumping over the seams. I mirror Sterling’s movements and stay tucked behind his van. “Okay,” I say. “Send the labs. I’ll… think about it. That’s the best I can promise right now.”
“It’s enough,” she says. “You’re allowed to take longer than a car ride to decide the shape of your life. Drive safe, Kiera. Call me when your brain stops spinning so fast.”
“Unlikely,” I say. “But I’ll try.” We disconnect the call, the phone screen going dark, leaving me with nothing but the dashboard glow and my own pulse roaring in my ears.
Sterling’s van takes the turn toward the industrial district, signal blinking steadily. Behind me, Cam’s headlights hold the back line.Pregnant, the word flashes in my mind like a glowing neon light. I tighten my grip on the wheel, angle us toward the shadows of the warehouse district, and let the convoy pull me forward into whatever comes next. No matter what, I have to tell him. This isn’t my burden to carry alone, and he deserves a say in this, too.
Chapter Forty
The warehouse looks abandoned and dead when we pull up. The street’s empty, full of veiny lines of cracked asphalt and bad lighting, our three-car convoy the only thing disturbing the quiet. “Still ugly,” Lila says, climbing out of Cam’s car and eyeing the building.
“Security and privacy over curb appeal,” I say. “You’re welcome.” I do a slow three-sixty turn—checking corners, roofline, and sightlines. The roll-up doors are still locked in the pattern I left them in. The side-entrance keypad blinks its steady, patient red. “Give me five,” I say. “I want to clear the place first.”
Cam nods, already dragging his go-bag out of the trunk. “Try not to blow anything up.”
“Fucker,” I mutter, heading for the side door.
The keypad lights up green after entering the code, and the lock disengages with the same mechanical sound I’ve heard a thousand times. Inside, the air is stale and cold, the faint scent of dust and old oil that settled into concrete and steel. I sweep the first floor, storage bays, and empty staging areas; the control room with its mountain of monitors that are currently dark. By the time I circle back and reappear at the door, the tension in my shoulders has eased a notch. “All clear.”
Cam whistles low as he steps in. Lila follows, eyes scanning, taking in exits. Kiera hangs back in the doorway for a second, fingers brushing the frame like she’s saying hello to an old bruise. The overhead fluorescents buzz to life in sections as I flip breakers, cutting the darknessinto manageable chunks. It takes us a while to get the basics up: heat systems waking with a cough, motion sensors checked and reset, the internal cameras flickering on, one by one. Lila takes over the kitchen, tossing out anything that looks like it remembers the last war and making a list of what we’ll need if we don’t want to starve. Cam stakes a claim on the office space, dragging his tech into a nest of cables that will become mission control by morning. Through it all, Kiera is quieter than usual. Not silent. She cracks a few jokes, rolls her eyes in all the right places, but there’s intent in the quiet now, like she’s waiting for something. When the essentials are finally humming, and the others are occupied enough not to overhear, she catches my eye and jerks her chin toward the stairs. “Upstairs,” she says. “Now.” Not a request.
“Bossy,” I mutter under my breath.
“I’ll bring in Dr. Reyes and Evelyn,” Cam announces as he heads for the door again.
Kiera heads for the mezzanine, following behind as we climb up to the catwalk that wraps around the main floor and leads to the small apartment I built out of one corner. Up here, the warehouse looks like it is—a giant metal box rigged to keep bad things out and worse things in. Down below, Lila’s voice floats up in fragments; Something about coffee and how if I ever buy the cheap stuff again, she’ll stab me. Cam answers with a muffled retort. Once we’re out of earshot, Kiera stops. Turning, she braces her back against the railing, facing me fully. The marks between us hum. “Okay,” she says. “I need you not to do the thing where you go silent and start creating fifty scenarios in your head before I finish a sentence, or cut me off. Let me finish speaking because if I stop, it may never come out.”
“I promise nothing,” I say. “But I’ll try.”
Kiera’s mouth twitches, then flattens again. She blows out a breath like she’s psyching herself up to kick in a door rather than tell me whatever she’s been hiding. “I’m just going to say it,” she says. “I’m pregnant.” No preface. No edging. Just the words, clean and sharp. For half a heartbeat, they don’t register. Then every piece of information I’ve been avoiding aligning—opera, Nesting House, chapel, the way she’s been moving, late nights, quiet nausea, trips to get air. It all slams into place with a magnitude.
The room spins as I put one hand on the railing to keep it upright. “How sure?”
“I had blood work done,” Kiera whispers. “Early, but not hypothetical.” She’s talking as if this is something we can strategize. “If we do the math, it lines up with the opera.” A night that was already burned into my brain, now rewriting itself with an alternate ending.
Something hot and ugly flares under my skin—rage at Cicada, at whoever thought any of this was a good experiment. Rage at myself for letting it happen in a world built like this. The rage cools into something heavier. “Okay,” I exhale. It’s the only word that doesn’t feel like a lie.
Kiera studies my face like she’s waiting for a verdict. “You’re allowed more than okay.” She steps closer. “Yell. Swear. Tell me it’s a fucking terrible idea. I can take it. I know it’s not ideal for us. Hell, I’m not even sure what us means yet, let alone if we want to bring an innocent human into this.”
“I don’t think you planned this, Ki,” I say, leaning into her. “It happened in the middle of letting go, tired of being half broken. Blame feels…doesn’t feel right.”
Kiera’s fingers curl around the railing. “I need you to hear me on this…” She takes a deep breath. “I haven’t decided what I’m doing. I’m not sure I want to keep it. I don’t know if I can. I just know I didn’t want you finding out from a lab result or because I fainted in the middle of a firefight.”
“Good.” The words feel wrong. Realizing that my words came out wrong, I mumble an explanation. “That you told me, I mean. Not the fainting part.”
A quick, brittle laugh escapes her. “Dr. L says I have time,” Kiera goes on. “Weeks, not forever. Enough to decide if I want to fight the war that comes with keeping it, or if I’m allowed to say no without turning that into another weapon to beat myself with.”