Page 18 of Light

“Yes, Reece. That means they do.” She inhales too but takes in her air with chopped-up spurts. Her lips form a pale and taut twist before she amends, “That means we do. If she’s put enough intel together to start activating the Newport Beach-bound Faliniacs for recon missions like Juliet’s, then she’s gotten just as close as her efforts to pinpoint the ridge.”

“‘Faliniacs?’” Calvin pushes in again, shooting a narrowed stare between the two of us. “What the hell does that—whoa.” Just as quickly, his gaze pops wide. “That whackball who runs the Consortium…isn’t her name Faline? Is that what you’re getting—oh, hold up again.” He stabs a hand through his well-pomaded black hair. “Do you think Juliet has something to do with that psycho? Holy shit.”

“We can’t get into it all right now.” An understatement of fact to match the mountain of stress I’m trying to hide with what feels like a hand towel of composure. Every second we linger out here is another opportunity for exposure—because, goddamnit, Emma’s more right than I want to admit. “But cutting to the chase: Faline’s found a way of expediting a mass brainwashing technique. Over the last few months, she’s been quietly gathering more and more followers.”

“The last few months?” Cal ripostes. “Are you serious?”

“As a world domination vendetta,” I confirm.

“But why?” He jerks his head as if trying to shake dirt out of it. “What the hell is her issue?”

As antsy as I am to rush all three of us to safety, I take some extra seconds before replying. Not because I’ve never considered the question but because I have—at least a thousand times already. “Wish I had that answer too,” I counter. “But it’s not as easy as opening the cosmic coloring book and turning to the ‘badly parented kid gone wrong’ page.”

Emma pushes out a little snort. “If it were only that easy.”

I share a commiserating glance with her before going on. “The woman’s a triple threat of enemy force. Obscenely smart, intensely driven, deeply damaged.”

Calvin hikes both brows. “And well-funded.”

Emma manages a short laugh. “Someone was taking notes during your press conference last spring.”

I give the kid a nod of deference before clarifying, “We’ve learned a few things about that since then, though. The relationship with the Scorpios might be taking some…evolutions.”

I’m deliberately sketchy because I have to be. The hunch is all I have to go on right now, but logic is leading me closer to the conclusion each day. The cartel, even with their global muscle, can’t still be Faline’s biggest fans right now. She hasn’t sealed off every crack of the Consortium’s secrets—nicks that we’ve been successfully widening.

“But she’s still amassing a secret army-cult thing.”

“Yeah.” I nod—reluctantly—at Cal’s observation. “There is that.” Goddamnit.

“But why?” he presses then. “What’s her end game?”

Here’s the part where my thousand questions and just as many contemplative hours bear fruit. “She really believes in her ultimate purpose. To her, the human race is permanently broken—and to save it, she has to reboot it. Literally.”

With a clouded gaze, Cal sucks in a harsh breath. “An evolution for the digital age.”

I slowly shake my head. “Sounds like batshit nutso time…”

“Until it doesn’t.” Emma’s the one who fills it in now, finishing with a hitched breath—as she drops her head toward her stomach. I press in over her, kissing tenderly into her hair, sharing as much of her pain as I possibly can—but there’s so much more of it than I imagined.

Irony is a word with which I’m powerfully familiar—but never so much as right now. We’ve been fighting Faline about her mission to alter the human race—even as we’ve accomplished exactly that in creating our perfect bean.

So how do we justify our battle with her now?

Or can we?

And do those answers even matter if Faline finds out about our baby? If that happens…what then? Am I supposed to think the bitch will acknowledge our rights as his parents at all—or just tick out a notation as the kid’s DNA contributors? She values human life so little that she cataloged us inside the Source. To her, in so many ways, I’ll always just be Alpha Two.

So to what lengths will the woman go once she learns about our child? What extremes will she use in the name of creating more super babies?

But even worse: what will she do if those children don’t reach the high bar she’s already set?

But this is a brood meant for a different time and place. And it’ll be ready and waiting once I choose to revisit it.

For now, I have to refocus on a scowling Calvin, his mind clearly churning into a high gear of conclusions. “Okay, so the witch turned her troubled past into an alliance between the Consortium and the Scorpios and let her intellect carry that into dreams of grandeur—which got bigger when the Consortium’s experiments were successful, using human subjects like you”—he stares at me but swiftly sweeps Emma into his regard too—“well, holy shit, now like both of you.”

“Another story for another time.” My rebuttal is in response to the blatant curiosity in his stare—which has probably been waiting to be set free since our wedding day, when he was part of the crowd who witnessed Emma outing herself during the reception that broke the internet. The connection amps my trust in the guy by another notch. As one of the most public faces of RRO, Cal’s likely been approached for hundreds of interviews in the three months since then but hasn’t accepted a single one. “A much different time,” I repeat as soon as my wife stops to double over again. “With much different timing.”

Emma twists her head, looking up to reconnect our stares while dragging her hand the opposite direction. As she pops off several buttons, she grits, “You mean the kind that doesn’t suck ass like this?”