Author: Erin Klitzke

As a warning, this is where things start to get very disturbing. In case you weren’t already there.

Four

A dim light shown through the kitchen window as she unlocked the front door. Behind her, Matthew watched from the car, engine idling, to make sure she got inside okay. Ky chewed on the inside of her lip again as she pushed the door open and slipped inside, closing and locking the door behind her. It wasn’t the kitchen light that was on, but one of the side table lamps in the living room. Reece was curled against the arm of the couch, legs tucked up beneath her, a book open against the throw pillow between her and the couch’s arm.

“You didn’t have to wait up,” Ky said quietly. “Figured you’d be in bed.”

“I wasn’t waiting up,” Reece said. “Just got a little absorbed.” She glanced at her watch and winced. “Though now I see why you thought I was. Everything okay? Matthew doesn’t usually have you out quite this late even when it’s not a school night.”

“No.” Ky shook her head. “Everything’s not okay. I—my world just turned sideways, Reece. I thought—there’s something I thought I knew that I was wrong about. Every decision I’ve made for years has been based on that one thing being true and it’s not.”

Her friend’s brow furrowed, a frown creasing her features. “Ky, you’re not making sense.”

“I know. I never told you guys about it. Not really.”

“About what happened before we met,” Reece said. “Before you started school here.”

“Yeah.”

“I always figured it was just something too traumatic to talk about,” Reece said, leaving her book on the couch and ducking past Ky into the kitchen. She filled the kettle and got down a canister of tea. “I thought if you’d wanted to talk about it, you eventually would.”

“Eventually finally came,” Ky whispered, gaze tracking her. She watched Reece put the kettle on and lay out a bit of sugar, watched her get down two mugs and add a sachet of loose-leaf tea to each. “You’re right, but it’s a lot. I didn’t think it was a burden anyone else needed.”

“Does Matthew know?”

“Most of it,” Ky said. “But that’s complicated.”

Reece leaned a hip against the counter, studying her carefully for a few seconds. Ky almost flinched under the scrutiny, would have if it had been anyone else. Reece had this way of looking at someone, though, looking without seeming like she was judging as she peeled back the layers that most people wrapped themselves in to hide parts of themselves from the rest of the world.

Part of Ky was still afraid what her friend would see, though.

“Okay,” Reece said quietly, still watching her. Ky wet her lips and drifted over to the stairs that wound up toward the second level, where their bedrooms were. She sank down onto the third step, meeting Reece’s gaze across the tile of the kitchen floor and the spate of carpet at the foot of the stairs.

“Matthew didn’t take me in right after my parents died.” The words tumbled out. It wasn’t where she’d intended to start but that was what came out of her anyway. “It was years before I met him. I met his brother first.”

“I—I didn’t realize he had a brother,” Reece whispered. “How did—”

“He doesn’t talk about him,” Ky rushed on. “Because we’re pretty sure he was killed when I escaped where we were, where they were holding us. I went to Matthew because I didn’t have anywhere else to go or anyone else to go to and that was the plan. We escaped and we took what we knew to Matthew—that was the plan. But T.S. didn’t—I got out and he didn’t. So I told Matthew everything. Almost everything.”

“Everything about what?” Reece’s brows knit. “Ky, what are you talking about? You’re not making sense.”

“I know. I know. I’m just—it’s hard to know where to start.” She buried her face in her hands, taking one ragged breath, then another, trying to steady herself as her eyes began to sting. They might be alive. They’re out there. Maybe—maybe I can get them back. Maybe we can save them. “There’s this—there’s this place called the Institute, Reece. They took me from the foster system after my parents died in that accident and they—” she stopped, lifting her head as she drew another ragged breath, met her friend’s wide-eyed gaze. “I can step out of the normal flow of time.”

“What?”

“I have powers,” Ky said. “I can step out of the normal flow of time and move around and do things. I don’t—I’ve only done it a few times since you guys met me. Kind of handy when you’re running late.”

Reece kept staring, blinking rapidly. “Wait. Is that—is that how you’ve somehow beaten us to Commons when I knowyou left after we did?”

Ky nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that is exactly how.”

“I should not believe you,” Reece said, tone matter-of-fact, holding her friend’s gaze even as Ky held hers. “But I also can’t come up with any reason why you’d lie about something like this, either. So—wait. How—why did you mention this after you said some place called the Institute took you out of foster care? How are those two things connected? Are they connected?”

“They wanted me because I could do that,” Ky said. “They—they’ve spent at least a decade, probably a lot longer gathering as many vulnerable kids as they can, kids with different…different powers like mine so they could use them.”

“For what?”

“They…” a tremor shook her and she curled her hands into fists. You can do this. You have to do this. Just breathe. Be strong. “They believe that they needed us to protect them when the end times come because they’re coming soon. Because they were going to make sure they come soon. We were supposed to be shield and their weapon.”

“Kids. Kids with powers. Like…supernatural powers.”

“They called us their Angelic Legion,” Ky whispered. “Their Angels.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that welled up. One escaped, tracked down her cheek. A second chased it. “They would do anything to mold us into what they wanted us to be.”

“It sounds like a cult,” Reece said quietly.

“It is,” Ky agreed. “But it’s so much more than that, too.”

“They hurt you,” Reece whispered.

She nodded, unable to speak around the lump forming in her throat. Her fingers curled into fists against her knees. She heard Reece turn off the stove and a moment later her friend was sitting beside her and sliding her arm around her shoulders.

“It’s okay,” Reece whispered. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me more.”

“Yes, I do. Especially if things are about to go the way I think they can.” She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, forcing her voice to steady. She wiped her eyes and cheeks with the heel of her hand. “Matthew and I thought that they were gone after an incident four years ago. It was before I met you and Marie.”

“Before you started school,” Reece said. “Is that where—”

“Yeah, that’s where the scars came from. There was an explosion. I—I wasn’t far enough away. Part of me wished for a long time that I’d been closer. I thought I’d lost everyone else that I’d cared about, that I’d left behind on the inside there—in their hands.”

“The Institute.”

Ky nodded slowly. “I was never alone in there. There were a bunch of us that kept resisting them, not giving in. Matthew’s brother had infiltrated the place to try to get evidence so they could bring it down. They were pretty sure that the Institute was responsible for their parents getting killed. I don’t think they were wrong.”

“Why—” Reece stopped, then started again. “Why hasn’t someone done something?”

“I don’t know,” Ky said. “The theory always was because they managed to hide it so well and probably had some people willing to help cover it up. How else to cults stay under the radar?”

“This doesn’t sound small though. Someone must have noticed.”

“Someone probably did,” Ky admitted. “They either just didn’t care or someone found a way to make sure their mouths stayed shut and the Institute stayed protected.” Sometimes both. She drew another shaking breath, trying to fight down the memory of a look and a dismissal, one that she’d buried long ago so she wouldn’t have to feel the sting of it anymore.

And yet, there it was again and the pain and shock was as sharp as it had been in the moment. She hated it.

“They hide behind the veil and shield of religiosity and good works and because the flavor is palatable to so many, they get away with the shit they’re pulling. With what they’re doing to people who don’t even realize they need to protect themselves until it’s too late. And then what the hell kind of fight could anyone put up, right?”

“I guess,” Reece said faintly, leaning forward, titling her head to try to peer up into Ky’s face. “What happened tonight? A case? A case about—about them?”

“Yeah,” Ky said. “Literally the most important case personally to Matthew that he’s ever opened or worked. Like I said, we thought they were gone and that we were never going to be able to get justice for any of them.” The words stuck in her throat and her heart felt it was beating too fast. Reece threaded her fingers through hers and squeezed, hard. It helped. “But they’re not gone. They’re not dead. When I texted you last night I didn’t know what we were about to walk into and when I—” She stopped, blinking back fresh tears. “When Damon called him at dinner, neither of us had any idea. Damon didn’t even have any idea. But we walked in and all of a sudden it was Ridley there on the couch. It was Ridley.”

“Ridley,” Reece repeated slowly. “Ky, I don’t—I don’t remember you ever mentioning someone named Ridley. But then you never talk about anyone so I—”

“I—I know. I know. That’s part of why this is hard. He was my friend—he was all of our friend—when we were there. When the Institute had us, he was part of this little group of people that figured out all kinds of shit about that place and god the Institute hated us for it. But they never dreamed we’d do a damn thing about it, you know? We were kids. We were stupid kids who thought that we could bring the whole thing down around their ears if we just—if we just got loud enough and resisted hard enough. But it’s never that easy, is it? Of course not. Of course it’s not.

“But T.S.—that’s Matthew’s brother—he always kind of had this plan. He was going to get as much information as he could from the inside and then we’d find a way to get out and get that information to Matthew. We thought—hell. We were so stupid and I know that now. We thought that if we could show people what was going on, if somehow we could show them the truth, they’d care and the whole thing would just come down around the Institute’s ears. He and I tried to escape one night and—”

“It’s okay,” Reece said. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too hard.”

Ky scrubbed the tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Thanks. I—I made it out. Got to Matthew. For a few years, we worked on his plan for me to go back and get them out. And when I say we worked on the plan it was mostly me working on the plan and him trying to keep me from doing anything incredibly stupid. Then when the moment came, somehow the Institute was ready for us. They knew I was coming and set a trap. After that I—I thought everyone was dead. I thought they were gone and that I’d failed them.”

“But you didn’t,” Reece said, her brow furrowing even deeper. “Because you said that when you got to Damon’s there he was.”

Ky nodded slowly. “Yeah. Ridley. Alive and—and I don’t even know how to describe it. But I’d thought that the Institute was gone and they’d never threaten me or anyone I loved ever again and now I know that’s not true.”

“Because he was there.”

“Because he was there,” Ky confirmed. “We drew it on a map. I need to plug everything into Google Earth to see what I can figure out. Matthew’s freaked. I think he thinks I’m going to go off half-cocked.”

“Are you?” Reece asked.

“No,” Ky said, finally pushing to her feet and heading toward the stove, to the kettle spitting steam. “I intend to go off fully cocked. He knows it, too. He just hasn’t come to terms with it.”

“What, exactly, would he be coming to terms with?”

“That this is our chance,” Ky said, bracing herself against the edge of the cooktop. “We thought we’d lost it but now? We have our chance to find a way to stop them. It’s real this time. And this time? I’m not leaving anyone behind. Not again.”

Not again. Never again.

This time, everyone comes home safe—and we get the chance to have a future without the Institute trying to shape it to their whims.

This time, they don’t get to win.

It took them over an hour to get to Damon’s, a trip that should’ve taken them probably half as long. Matthew grew more and more agitated the longer it took, the more traffic and things beyond his ability to control interfered. She’d seen it before, but this time it somehow felt different. As they got off the highway and down onto the surface streets, Ky cleared her throat and studied him from the passenger seat of his car.

“What about this is getting you knotted up like this, Matthew? This—the way you’re being is a little extreme for you.”

“I’ve just got a feeling,” he murmured. “That’s all. Something about this feels too familiar and I don’t like it.”

“Familiar like a past case?”

“Familiar like the only case.”

The one that mattered the most. The one that was seemingly dead. Her heart seized for a moment in her chest and she had to swallow hard before she managed to speak. “But they’re gone. There hasn’t been anything, right? Not since—”

“No,” he said. “No, there hasn’t been anything. Not a whisper, not a peep, not even a damn shadow that I could point to and say ‘Yes, that has to be them.’ There’s been nothing—every damn sign has pointed to them being gone since that installation went up and nearly killed you. No sign of them looking. No sign of them acting.”

“But something about this…”

“I wish it didn’t,” he whispered as he eased the car around a corner into the alleyway alongside Damon’s building and back into the tiny parking lot behind it. “It would mean that I’ve missed something and that you’ve been in danger this whole damn time and I didn’t see it.”

Ever since she’d come to him and confessed everything, told him about what had happened to his brother, Matthew had been fierce in his protection of her, in his efforts to keep him safe, as if all of the love and protectiveness he felt for T.S. had been transferred to the girl who’d escaped where he fell in the attempt—trading a brother for a sister.

“That’s why you wanted me to come along,” Ky said, watching his expression as he parked the car. “To check your gut.”

“No one would know better than you.”

A shiver wracked her but she nodded. “You’re not wrong. I hope your gut is, though. I—I’ve finally started healing.”

“I know,” he said as he turned off the engine. “Me too. But the way Damon described it, it just—the wound’s bleeding again.”

Ky chewed hard on the inside of her lower lip. I hope he’s wrong. “I guess we’ll see.”

“Yeah.”

Matthew only hesitated a moment more before he got out of the car and she followed with only a slight hesitation of her own, heart heavy in her chest yet somehow beating too fast and too hard at the same time. They took the back stair, bypassing the clinic set up in the old furniture storefront that occupied the building’s street level. Damon lived two floors above, with another tenant living between him and the clinic. He was still renovating—five years later—the other two apartments on the fourth and fifth floor of the old building he’d managed to buy at a tax auction years ago, or so the story went. Ky wasn’t sure if it was the truth or not, but it was the way Matthew told it. He and Damon had been friends since their shared childhood growing up north of Detroit—that much she knew.

It only took a few seconds after Matthew knocked for Damon to crack the door open and wave them inside. Two people occupied the living room, a girl in her twenties wrapped in a blanket in an easy chair and a boy of maybe the same age stretched out on the couch, his back to the door.

Something tugged at the back of Ky’s brain, though she couldn’t sort out why. The girl was vaguely familiar, but there was more thing about the figure on the couch that stirred a memory she couldn’t quite grasp. There was something, though. Damon gestured toward the girl.

“This is my cousin Julia,” he said, more to Matthew than to Ky. “Not sure if you remember her, Matthew.”

“Vaguely.” He looked at Julia, offering a faint, brief smile. “It’s nice to see you again Julia.”

Julia nodded slightly, her gaze sliding slowly toward Ky with a furrowed brow. The scrutiny felt heavy, but innocent enough. After all, she wasn’t someone that she recognized from before the Institute or even while she’d been there—it had to be someone she’d met after, if at all. If Julia hadn’t been looking at her like that, Ky might have guessed that maybe she just had one of those faces.

But no. There was something there, she just couldn’t place it. Then Julia did for both of them.

“I know you,” Julia said, her voice quiet.

Ky chewed her lip, nodding slowly. “I know you, too, but I can’t quite remember where from.”

“We worked together.”

It hit, then. Oh. No wonder. She’d only worked at that summer camp for a few weeks before it had just been too much. The job had started in May and Ky had left by June, completely spent and nearly a wreck. It had taken the rest of the summer to recover. It had been in the wake of losing everyone she’d left behind at the Institute and while the distraction should have helped, all it had done was make the old pain worse. “That’s right. I—I’m sorry. That was a bad time for me.”

Julia smiled as she stood from the chair, dropping the blanket onto the seat. “We all have our moments.” She crossed to the couch and sank down onto the edge, leaning over the sleeping figure there. He startled slightly, starting to roll over, a bandage-swathed arm briefly visible. Bile rose in Ky’s throat as she threw a look toward Matthew and Damon.

Matthew was frowning—he must have seen the bandages, too. His gaze turned to Damon, a brow arching.

Damon just shook his head, a flash of worry and pain crossing through his expression. “They really need to talk to you, man.”

“Hopefully, you can help us,” Julia said. “Damon said you might be able to.”

By the time Ky turned toward the sound of her voice, Julia had started to help the young man on the couch start to sit up. His unruly dark red hair stuck up in a dozen different directions, a mop of soft spikes over a narrow but not unhandsome face that framed haunted, sunken green eyes. Ky’s heart crawled up into her throat and seized up as her gaze met his.

Ridley.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” they said in the same breath.

Ky shook herself, swallowed hard against the sudden pressure in her throat, sank down into the chair Julia had abandoned. Was she shaking? She wasn’t sure.

If Ridley’s alive, what does that mean? Are—are they all still alive? Were they still out there, still skating under the radar, hiding from us even as we were hiding my survival from them just in case? The explosion at the facility in Illinois was designed to kill her and she and Matthew had leaned into that—just in case they were wrong, just in case the Institute was still out there. But there had never been any sign of any of that.

Until now.

“I thought you all died,” Ky said. “All been killed.” Sacrificed like it might appease an angry god. Like it would stop us. But it did, didn’t it? They just—they fooled us. They bought themselves time. But to do what? Now what awfulness is coming? The same? Something different?

Why did I ever let myself begin to believe that it was over?

“No.” Ridley’s voice came as a hoarse whisper. He leaned into Julia, one of his hands splaying over her thigh even as she wrapped her arm around him. He was shaking as he stared back at Ky, as shocked to see her alive in front of him as she was to see him. “But I wish I was, now. Jesus pancake flipping zombie Christ on a pogo stick.” His chest convulsed and he squeezed his eyes shut, burying his face in his hands. “Hadrian. Forgive me. Oh god, Hadrian, forgive me.”

He’s talking like he’s—like he’s—   She wanted to scream. She wanted to hurt something. She wanted to fly into a thousand pieces that would never be mended. “Ridley?”

Matthew put his hands on her shoulders. The shaking was bad—her shaking was bad—and she felt sick to her stomach, bile slicking her throat and souring the back of her tongue. Please. He can’t be dead. He can’t be dead. Please don’t tell me he’s dead, Ridley. Please tell me I haven’t lost him. The note of desperation, of desperate, needful hope was in her voice as she leaned forward toward Ridley. “Ridley, is he alive?”

Ridley nodded, finally looking at her again even as Julia’s arm tightened around his shoulders. “Four months ago, at least, when they cut me loose.”

There were so many questions, each flooding in louder than the other. One came out. “They let you go?” They don’t just let people go. No one leaves unless they’re being sent somewhere else, to another facility. Something.

“Not really,” he winced, then rushed on. “Kind of. I graduated. They sent me to someone to watch me. To wait. They were finished with me until the end, until they were ready to use me.”

Her stomach convulsed and for a second, she squeezed her eyes shut. The end. Then nothing’s changed. Then that’s still—

Her hands curled into fists on her knees, nails digging into her palms. The pain was enough to bring her back to herself, to the moment, and the feel of Matthew’s hands tightening again around her shoulders was enough to ground her, at least for now.

Ridley was still talking. “That’s how I got out of there. Then Julia got me away.” He paused, voice getting quiet for a few seconds. “They told us you were dead.”

“They didn’t want any of you to have hope,” Ky said. “Damn it all.” They needed to find a way to stop me from coming after them again—as long as I could feel them, as long as I believed they were out there, I’d never stop trying to find them. The Institute must’ve known. But how—if he’s alive, how—

They told them you were dead. They didn’t believe the first time, but the second? How could anyone have believed you’d live through that?

She sure as hell hadn’t believed any of them had survived it, especially after not being able to feel him anymore. When she hadn’t been able to feel the connection between her and Hadrian anymore and that went on for months, she’d had to accept that they were gone. There had been no evidence to the contrary.

Until now.

“I’m sorry, Ky,” Ridley said. His trembling had begun to ease and he leaned into Julia’s embrace as if she was a grounding force—probably was, truth be known. The pain in his eyes mirrored the pain Ky knew was in hers. “I’m so sorry.”

Their stories were so similar, hers and his. He’d been taken by the Institute the same way she had, only a few months after losing his parents. Their stories were the same as dozens of others in the hands of the Institute. It was a pattern one that no one ever seemed to identify, to unravel. For a long time, she’d wondered how and why. It wasn’t until she’d escaped that she’d really started to understand how it could be possible, how awful things could happen every day and people just looked away. Sometimes, it was just too much, too big, too hard to try to tackle. She didn’t agree, but she’d started to understand how it could happen.

Some horrors were just too much to fully comprehend.

The pain in his voice unknotted something inside of her. “Oh, Ridley,” she sighed. “No. Don’t be sorry. Please, don’t be sorry.” There wasn’t anything you could do. Nothing any of us could have done other than—other than things they made sure we couldn’t do. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, bit down. “What happened to your arm?”

Rage flashed through his eyes. “They microchipped me, Ky.” Anger crept into his voice and in a second, it was like hearing him as he’d been when they were young teenagers, full of rage and resentment for the people that were routinely abusing them, trying to mold them to their own ends. His burning outrage had been something that they’d been in a constant war with, trying to keep it from bubbling over so he wouldn’t get hurt and so their collective planning wouldn’t end up under a microscope. “Like a fucking animal. They microchipped me so they could find me if I ran. I dug it out, threw it out the car window.”

They tracked him. Ky’s hands curled into fists against her knees again. Like an animal—like a lost dog. Someone they couldn’t trust but definitely had use for. They needed to find him in case they needed him—when they decided they needed him. Their goal hasn’t changed. They still mean for it to happen—they’re going to make it happen and use people like us to protect themselves from what comes next.

Whatever they believe comes next.

They can’t be far. Where are they? They have to be close, right? Ky’s voice came as a breath. “Where?”

Julia started to answer, but Ridley cut her off, answering before she could. “The only installation I know about is outside of Andover Commonwealth. He might still be there. I don’t know.”

Of course Ridley had understood that she wasn’t asking where he’d thrown the microchip out the window—he was probably the only person in the room that did. No, she’d wanted to know where they could find the Institute, wherever they’d set up shop, wherever he’d been held before they handed him off to someone else. It would never be far, not if they’d microchipped him. Moving him too far away, sending him too far away would have been too big of a risk.

“I need a map,” Ky said.

Matthew startled, finding his voice. “You can’t be serious.” His eyes were wide as he stared down at her, a storm of emotions flashing through them like lightning spreading through a summer sky.

“I thought he was dead Matthew! Get me a damn map. You want to take them down as much as I do.”

We’ve wasted so much time. We have to find them. We have to stop them.

And if any of our friends are still alive, we have to get them out of there. I can’t just stand back anymore. I have to do something.

Come hell or high water, they would.

Matthew stared at her for a few seconds more.

Then he went and got the map.

The Institute was supposed to be dead.

Knowing that, believing that, had been the only thing that had let her even begin to move on after all the pain and suffering, after everything she’d been through both before her escape and after—especiallyafter they failed in their last attempt to rescue her friends, to save the people she’d left behind.

They’d failed and her friends were gone. It had taken years to accept it, years to come to terms with that being reality. But at least the Institute was gone—at least it wasn’t in a position to hurt anyone ever again.

All signs pointed to that, anyway, and her guardian turned surrogate brother hadn’t found anything to the contrary, not even a whisper, in years. It had been reassuring enough for her to let herself mourn, to try to come to terms with the magnitude of what she’d lost.

It had let her begin to forgive herself for failing them.

Ky Thatcher’s hands shook as she slowly unwrapped the cellophane wrapper from the deck of tarot cards. I can’t believe she bought them. I can’t believe I’m doing this. All they’ll do is remind me. But that’s not bad, is it? It can’t be that bad. Her fingers fought with the flap on the cardboard box that separated her from the cards themselves. The find had been coincidental, to say the least. A trip to the bookstore at the mall with her roommates weeks ago was what had set it all in motion. She hadn’t known that Reece would go back and buy the deck for her, that Marie and Ian would buy the wooden box they’d tucked the deck into, the cloth they’d wrapped it in before they’d given it to her. Happy twenty-first, Ky. Much better than a bottle of fireball and bad karaoke, right?

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. She couldn’t see the future.

No. That had been his gift, not hers.

For a few seconds, she squeezed her eyes shut, fingers going still as the flap popped free of the box. A lump rose in her throat, one she struggled to fight down.

Yes, they were gone. But that didn’t mean she loved them any less—and him, most of all.

Breathe. Just breathe.

What hurt the most of all was that it war starting to be hard to remember his smile and the sound of his voice, his laugh. It was hard to remember what the touch of his fingers felt like, what it was like to hug him. Those were the things she didn’t want to ever lose, but the memory was fading, disintegrating like old photographs.

Six years since she’d seen him. Four years since she’d failed and the Institute had destroyed itself to protect its secrets. The ache was still there but the pain wasn’t raw anymore.

Time did heal, or perhaps the wound just scarred over enough to be bearable. She still wasn’t quite sure.

She slid the cards out of the box, unwrapping another layer of cellophane that kept them bound into a pack. It crumpled in her fist, crackling and unfolding as she tossed it onto the edge of her desk. The cards themselves were cool in her fingers, sliding against each other easily as she fanned them, stacked them, began to shuffle. They were crisp, new, not tattered around the edges and worn by years of use like his had been The edges of the cards were still clean, still white, where his had been grayed by years of brushing against his fingers.

It wasn’t the same, but it was close enough.

On the third shuffle, she bobbled the deck. A pair of cards slipped free, landing on the floor near her foot. She stacked the rest of the deck and set it beside her on the bed, then leaned down to retrieve the fallen cards.

Knight of Swords. Queen of Swords.

Tears gathered in her eyes as she stared at the pair of cards in her hand, the lump in her throat rising higher.

Hadrian.

His card. Hers.

It isn’t supposed to be this hard.

For a second, she could remember sitting together in the dim of his room, her shoulder and his pressed into each other, his tattered, well-loved deck in his lap, cards spread before them. She could hear his voice quietly explaining what it all meant, though she couldn’t remember the words. They’d been so young. They’d chosen to dare.

It had cost them almost everything.

“Ky? You okay?”

She startled at the sound of Reece’s voice, blinking furiously as she looked up from the cards. “Yeah,” she said quickly, scrubbing at her eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. What’s up?”

“Matthew’s here,” her roommate said, studying her with a look so filled with concern that Ky knew that her friend had seen a look on her face that worried her more than just a little. “Are you still up for dinner? If you’re not, I’ll make up some kind of excuse.”

“No, no,” she said, sliding the pair of cards back into the deck and standing up. “I’m still up for dinner. Tell him I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Okay.” Reece hesitated for a few seconds, studying her for a moment longer. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Ky said, tucking the cards into the wooden box. She wrapped it in the cloth, then tucked it into one corner of her bed, between her pillow and the wall. “Yeah, everything’s good. I was just—just thinking about something.”

Reece nodded, leaning in the doorway. “About before?”

“Yeah.” Her friends knew a little about her past, about the time before she’d met them as freshman. Not many people had managed to crack into her shell and none of the people she’d grown close to since her escape from the Institute knew the whole of what she’d been through—not even Matthew Thatcher, who’d taken her in, treated her like family, made her family, but he knew more than anyone else.

Some things were just too much to share—some things were too terrifying to share, even if the Institute was dead and couldn’t hurt anyone else. The fear was still there, the tiny voice at the back of her mind whispering what if you’re wrong?

It was too much of a risk to take with anyone who didn’t already know something and her roommates had no idea—of that much, she was certain.

“I know that you don’t like to talk about it, but you know that if you ever need to—”

Ky smiled, nodding. “Yeah. I know, Reece. And I appreciate it more than you know.” She scrubbed the last of the tears from her eyes. “Presentable?”

“He’ll be clueless,” her friend confirmed. “You going to be out late?”

“Probably not that late,” she said. “It’s just dinner. Probably home before dark.”

Reece nodded. “Okay. See you when you get home?”

“Yeah,” Ky said, smiling. “And—and I’ll explain when I get home.”

“About why you were crying over some tarot cards?”

Ky nodded. “Yeah.” And probably more than that, too, truth be known. It’s time.

The Institute was dead. The people she’d lost were beyond their ability to hurt anymore. But keeping the memory of them to herself wasn’t fair—not to her or to them. The friends she had now deserved to know about the friends she’d had then—and the friends she had then deserved to have her memory of them, her love for them shared.

It was time. Past time, really.

The past was gone. It was time to keep moving on.

♠ ♠ ♠

“I guess I never realized that something like that would mean that much to you,” Matthew said, leaning back in his chair and watching her as she picked at the steak left on her plate. “That it would conjure up something like that.”

“It’s not just that,” Ky said quietly, setting down her fork and reaching for her drink—sangria, his suggestion based on assumptions of her levels of experience with alcohol. She didn’t mind the assumption. It was sweet and cold and her head would still be relatively clear by the time she got home even after a second glass. “I’ve just been thinking a lot about them lately, that’s all.”

The FBI agent’s brow lifted slightly as he studied her across the table, fingers drumming lightly against his glass of Coke. “In a good way or a bad way?”

“Mostly good. I just—I miss them. I keep thinking about what they might want for me knowing that they’re—that they’re gone. I’ve finally realized that you’re right and they wouldn’t hate me for surviving.”

“The way you talk about them, I don’t think any of them ever could,” he said, glancing away for a few seconds. She didn’t miss the hitch in his voice, though.

After all, one of the people they were talking about was his little brother, and if the original plan had been successful, T.S. would have been sitting next to them at this very table.

But nothing had gone according to plan that night. It had all come apart, and now she was the only one left.

Ky took a long swallow from her glass. Steady. “I’m going to tell their story, Matthew. The whole thing.”

He’d picked up his glass to take a sip and nearly dropped it, eyes widening. “What?”

“You heard me. I don’t exactly know how yet but I’m going to tell their story. Our story. All of it.”

“All of it,” he repeated, still staring at her.

“Yes. It’s not fair to—”

His phone rang and he cursed under his breath, holding up a hand as he dug for his cell. “Hold that.”

“Uh-huh.” A wry smile twisted her lips and she rested her chin on her palm, watching him as he frowned at his phone. Either I’m saved from having to explain my logic, or he’s just going to be even more disturbed when I launch into it.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, rising and starting away as he answered his phone. Her gaze followed him as he stepped out onto the restaurant’s sparsely populated patio, dodging a waitress on the way.

Well. It’s either work related or it’s not. If it is, I’ll either have to catch the bus back or have him drop me on the way to wherever he needs to go. It was after his usual hours and he hadn’t mentioned working anything critical—usually he’d tell her if he was working on something, even if he didn’t tell her what it was—so if it was something work related, it wasn’t something that could wait.

And if it wasn’t work related, then who was calling? Matthew didn’t have much of a social life to speak of by design, few close friends and very little family beyond her as his all but adopted sister—though on paper, she was his cousin, since circumstances had precluded him from passing her off as his actual sister.

Must be something work, then. A new case? Some kind of emergency with an old case? The idea of the latter sent a chill skittering down her spine. Matthew specialized in working with the victims of cults and similar groups—and taking down said cults and groups where he could. He’d had some success in the past but the most important one to him—the Institute—had been the one to escape him thanks to what had happened four years before in Illinois.

They’d taken his parents, his brother, and then denied him the chance to bring them down. If anyone hurt as much over it all, it was him.

There hadn’t been any cases relating to cults lately, though, at least not that she knew of or that he’d mentioned. Sometimes she helped him talk to the victims as someone who could understand where they were coming from in ways he never could. It didn’t happen often, but she’d done it a few times over the last few years since she’d started college. That she’d probably join the Bureau after graduation was something that had gone almost unspoken between them, though she knew that he’d never force her into any choice in the matter. The Institute had been their case together, though, even though she’d really been too young for it.

But T.S. had been younger when he’d inserted himself into it, probably foolishly, before anyone could talk sense into either brother in those dark months and years after their parents had been murdered while working on a case.

Ky idly sipped her drink, fingers drumming quietly against the table as she watched Matthew pace beyond the windows, watched the expression on his face shift and change the longer he was on the phone. Her heart began to sink.

Definitely work. I know that look. But what case? Or is it something new? She gnawed at her lower lip and glanced at her phone. Nearly seven. Whatever this was, it was urgent enough to call him two hours after he was allegedly off the clock for the night. Of course, in his line of work, he was rarely completely off the clock. It was something she’d realized a long time ago when he’d first taken her in after she’d escaped the Institute—but lost his brother in the process.

Outside, Matthew hung up his phone and headed for the door to come back inside. Ky turned back to her plate, her drink. She took a sip of the sangria, staring at the remnants of her steak and sides, realizing that her appetite was long gone.

I hope he’s okay.

The way he dropped back into his chair told her that Matthew was not, in fact, okay. He took a long swallow from his glass and stared at her for a few seconds before he found his voice. “Was my friend Damon. You remember him?”

“Vaguely,” she said. “The one that runs that clinic downtown, right?”

Matthew nodded. “He needs me to come down. His cousin got mixed up in something.”

“What kind of something?” she asked, swallowing the bile that crept higher and higher in her throat. “Like something you work on, that kind of something.”

“Yeah,” he said, the word coming out heavy. “That kind of something.”

Ky nodded. “Do you need me to grab the bus home?”

“No,” he said. “No, I—are you up to coming with me?”

“It’s that kind of something.”

“Sounded like. Not her, not really, but the person she brought with her, yeah. Damon’s spooked and worried that they’re in danger or worse. You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t—”

“—if you didn’t think you’d need me.” Ky drained the last of her glass. “Let’s get the bill and go, then. Sounds like this can’t wait.”

“Are you sure?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that today,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Yes. I’m sure. But we’d better get going before I change my mind. Hell of a way to spend the day after your birthday, isn’t it?”

Matthew snorted a laugh and went to find their waitress about the bill.