Anna did not begin with Evan. Instead, she walked into the kitchen, filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove.
Jessie watched from the table. “Are we seriously making tea?”
“We are.”
“Two men just followed me here, someone I abandoned twenty-four years ago sent me a photograph taken thirty seconds away from this room, and I’m supposed to meet him tomorrow night.”
“Yes.”
“And your response is tea.”
Anna opened a cupboard. “You’ve always been impatient.”
“I feel like this particular situation justifies it.”
“It doesn’t.”
Jessie glanced toward the apartment door. Gabriel had finally been allowed inside after the police arrived and confirmed the two men were gone. He now stood by the window, carefully keeping himself out of sight while watching the street below.
Anna placed three mugs on the counter. “If Evan wanted you dead, you wouldn’t have received an invitation.”
Jessie looked at her. “Vale said something similar about me.”
“And you were right about him.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m right about Evan.”
“No. It means panic isn’t useful.”
Jessie disliked Anna more every minute, largely because Anna kept saying things Jessie might have said herself.
Gabriel apparently noticed. “This must be very difficult for you.”
Jessie looked at him. “What?”
“Meeting someone as irritating as you.”
“Keep talking and you’ll be drinking your tea through a straw.”
Anna glanced between them. “You two have a strange relationship.”
“You have no idea,” Gabriel said.
The kettle began to whistle. Anna poured the water, carried the mugs to the table and sat across from Jessie. Only then did she pick up the photograph of the nine young people outside St. Catherine’s.
Her finger rested over Evan’s face.
“You asked me to start at the beginning,” Anna said. “The problem is that there are several beginnings. There’s the beginning of Vale’s work. There’s Daniel’s investigation. There’s when you arrived. There’s the night of the fire. But if you want to understand Evan, you have to start with why Vale chose him.”
Jessie wrapped both hands around the mug without drinking. “I’m listening.”
“Evan was seventeen when Vale found him. His mother had died two years earlier. His father was alive but wasn’t someone Evan could safely go home to. He’d been sleeping wherever he could, stealing food, occasionally dealing drugs and getting into fights.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“You noticed that too.”
Jessie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“That’s why you liked him.”
A fragment surfaced before Jessie could stop it: a boy sitting on the hood of a car, bruised knuckles resting on his knees, grinning at her as though the entire world were a joke only the two of them understood.
She pushed the memory away.
Anna continued. “Evan was angry in the way frightened teenagers sometimes are. Everything became a challenge. Every insult required an answer. Every kindness was suspicious. Vale loved people like that because anger is easy to redirect.”
Jessie understood. Anger felt like control. Fear didn’t.
“Vale paired us because we were alike.”
“Partly. He wanted to know what would happen when two people with similar survival instincts were placed together. Would you compete? Cooperate? Betray each other? Become dependent on each other?”
“What happened?”
Anna smiled faintly. “You annoyed each other immediately.”
Jessie almost laughed. “That also sounds familiar.”
“You stole his cigarettes.”
“I didn’t smoke.”
“Exactly.”
Jessie stared at her.
Anna’s smile widened slightly. “You stole them because he’d told you that you couldn’t.”
Another memory flickered. Evan patting his pockets, Jessie walking away with a cigarette tucked behind her ear, neither of them noticing Daniel watching from a doorway and trying not to laugh.
Jessie rubbed her forehead. “Apparently I was exhausting.”
“You were nineteen.”
“That’s not a defence.”
“No. It’s an explanation.”
There was Daniel again, Jessie thought. Or perhaps Daniel had simply surrounded himself with people who understood the difference.
Anna took a sip of tea. “Vale gave you and Evan increasingly difficult tasks. At first they were harmless enough—observation exercises, memory tests, reading people, getting information without directly asking for it. Eventually the tasks changed. Vale wanted obedience.”
“Did we give it to him?”
“Sometimes.”
Jessie didn’t like that answer.
Anna continued. “You were better at the psychological exercises. Evan was better at following instructions without questioning why. That bothered Vale because he’d expected the opposite. Evan looked rebellious, but underneath all that anger he desperately wanted someone to tell him where he belonged.”
Jessie looked at Evan’s photograph.
“And I didn’t.”
“You wanted belonging too. You just didn’t trust anyone offering it.”
That felt true enough to hurt.
“Daniel changed that.”
“Yes.”
Jessie stared into her tea.
Anna’s voice softened. “Daniel was the first person who helped you without asking what you could do for him. You didn’t know what to do with that.”
“I stole from him.”
“Repeatedly.”
“That seems ungrateful.”
“It was your love language.”
Gabriel made a choking sound into his coffee.
Jessie pointed at him without looking. “Not one word.”
Anna continued before Gabriel could answer. “Evan noticed Daniel’s influence on you. At first he hated it. He thought Daniel was making you weak. That wasn’t really Evan talking. It was Vale.”
Jessie looked up. “Vale was already trying to turn us against Daniel.”
“Yes. Daniel represented something Vale couldn’t control. Genuine attachment.”
“And Vale decided to use it.”
Anna nodded. “He changed the experiment. You and Evan were no longer being tested against each other. Daniel became the variable.”
Jessie hated the word.
Human beings reduced to components again.
“What did Vale want Evan to do?”
“At first? Watch you. Report what you told Daniel, where you went, what Daniel asked you to do.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
Jessie absorbed that without reacting.
“Did I know?”
“Eventually.”
“How?”
“You caught him.”
A memory arrived.
Rain against a window.
Evan standing near a desk.
Jessie holding several sheets of paper.
Her own name written across the top.
She remembered hitting him.
Not trying to.
Actually hitting him.
Jessie looked at Anna. “I broke his nose.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said I tried to break yours.”
“You were very committed to noses that year.”
Gabriel laughed before he could stop himself.
Jessie looked at him.
“Sorry.”
“You don’t look sorry.”
“I’ve known you too long to lie convincingly.”
Jessie returned her attention to Anna. “Evan betrayed me.”
“Yes.”
“But then something changed.”
“Daniel talked to him.”
“What did Daniel say?”
“I don’t know. Evan never told me.”
Jessie tried to remember.
Nothing.
Anna continued. “Whatever Daniel said worked. Evan stopped reporting to Vale. Then he started feeding Vale false information.”
Jessie stared at her. “He switched sides.”
“Yes.”
“And Vale found out.”
“Eventually.”
Jessie’s stomach tightened. “That’s why Vale ordered him to kill Daniel.”
“Partly. It was punishment for Evan and a test for you.”
“How was it a test for me?”
Anna’s expression darkened. “Vale intended for you to discover what Evan had been ordered to do. If Evan killed Daniel, Vale believed you’d turn against Evan and return completely to him. If Evan refused, Vale would punish him and make you believe he’d tried.”
Jessie stared at her.
“Either way, Vale wins.”
“That was the idea.”
“But Evan refused.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Anna’s eyes dropped to the photograph.
“Vale had him beaten.”
Jessie’s jaw tightened.
“He was seventeen.”
“I know.”
“How badly?”
“Badly enough that Vale assumed he wouldn’t survive.”
Jessie closed her eyes.
She didn’t want the details.
That surprised her too. Once, details had been protection. Knowing everything meant controlling everything. Now she understood that sometimes detail existed only to satisfy horror.
“Where did I find him?”
“In one of the storage rooms beneath the rectory.”
Jessie froze.
Cold concrete.
A bare light bulb.
Blood.
Evan lying against a wall.
The memory hit so hard she nearly dropped her mug.
“Jessie?” Gabriel moved toward her.
She raised a hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Jessie closed her eyes and allowed the fragment to come.
She was nineteen again, kneeling on concrete. Evan’s face was swollen. He was barely conscious. She was furious and terrified, and those emotions felt identical.
She heard herself say, You stupid bastard.
Evan laughed weakly.
Took you long enough.
Jessie opened her eyes.
“I found him.”
Anna nodded.
“He told me the truth.”
“Some of it.”
“He told me Vale ordered him to kill Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“And that he refused.”
“Yes.”
Jessie looked at Anna. “I believed him.”
“At first.”
There it was.
The part that mattered.
“What happened next?”
“You got him out.”
Jessie frowned.
Anna leaned back. “Vale’s people thought Evan was unconscious. You managed to get him out of the building and hid him in an empty apartment Daniel knew about.”
Jessie remembered stairs. Evan’s arm around her shoulders. His weight almost pulling them both down. Jessie whispering insults at him because every time she stopped talking, his eyes closed.
Don’t you dare fall asleep.
You’re very bossy.
I’ll leave you here.
No, you won’t.
The memory vanished.
Jessie’s throat tightened.
“He knew.”
Anna looked at her. “Knew what?”
“That I wouldn’t leave him.”
Anna’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
Jessie stared at the table.
“But I did.”
“Later.”
“Why?”
Anna was silent for long enough that Jessie looked up.
“Because Vale showed you evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“Something that appeared to prove Evan had betrayed Daniel anyway.”
Jessie felt cold. “What?”
“Recordings. Documents. I never saw them. You did.”
“Were they real?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Daniel proved they were fabricated.”
Jessie looked away.
“When?”
Anna hesitated.
“After you’d already left Evan.”
The words settled heavily.
Jessie stood and walked toward the window.
“So I rescued him, hid him, and then Vale convinced me he’d betrayed us.”
“Yes.”
“And I abandoned him.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“A motel outside the city.”
Jessie closed her eyes.
Another room.
Cheap floral bedspread.
Evan asleep.
Jessie standing beside the door with a bag over her shoulder.
A note on the table.
She remembered writing it.
Don’t come after me.
She remembered pausing.
Then adding:
You made your choice.
Jessie pressed her hand against the window frame.
“Oh God.”
Anna remained seated.
“You thought he had betrayed Daniel.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters.”
“He was seventeen and injured.”
“Yes.”
“I left him alone.”
“Yes.”
“I could have checked.”
“Yes.”
Jessie turned around sharply.
Anna didn’t flinch.
“You’re not going to make this easier for me.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Anna nodded.
“But I’m also not going to let you rewrite it into something worse because guilt feels more satisfying when it’s absolute.”
Jessie stared at her.
“You didn’t leave Evan to die because you didn’t care. You left because Vale convinced you that Evan was dangerous to Daniel.”
“I was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“And Evan paid for it.”
“Yes.”
There was no cruelty in Anna’s agreement.
That somehow made it easier to hear.
Jessie returned to the table.
“What happened after I left?”
“That is where things become unclear. Daniel discovered the evidence against Evan was false. He went to the motel.”
“And Evan was gone.”
“Yes.”
“Blood?”
“No.”
“Signs of a struggle?”
“No.”
“His belongings?”
“Most were gone.”
“So he left.”
“Apparently.”
Jessie frowned.
“Then why did everyone think he died?”
“Because three days later Vale told us he had.”
Jessie almost laughed.
“And everyone believed Vale?”
“No. But then a body was found.”
Jessie’s expression changed.
“What body?”
“A young man about Evan’s age. Badly burned. Vale made sure we heard about it.”
“Was it identified?”
“Not immediately.”
“Did anyone confirm it was Evan?”
“No.”
Jessie leaned back.
“Then we assumed.”
“Yes.”
“Vale wanted us to.”
“Almost certainly.”
Jessie looked at the photograph again.
“Evan survived.”
“It appears so.”
“And he’s had twenty-four years to decide I abandoned him.”
Anna’s face softened.
“You did abandon him.”
Jessie nodded.
“I know.”
Gabriel finally moved away from the window and sat at the end of the table.
“If Evan survived, where has he been?”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“He never contacted you?”
“No.”
“Daniel?”
“Not that I knew.”
Jessie looked at Anna. “Michael Mercer?”
Anna frowned.
“Why do you keep coming back to him?”
“Because Nathan warned me not to trust him, and Emily heard someone called Mercer saying Vale was making the same mistake again.”
Anna became very still.
Jessie saw it.
“What?”
“Say that again.”
“Vale was making the same mistake again.”
“No. The rest.”
Jessie recalled Emily’s exact wording. “‘You keep treating Jessie like she’s the experiment. She was never the experiment.’”
Anna stood so abruptly her chair scraped across the floor.
Gabriel and Jessie exchanged a look.
“What?” Jessie asked.
Anna walked toward the bookshelf.
“Vale used that phrase before.”
“When?”
“After the fire.”
Jessie followed her.
“You said Vale disappeared from your life.”
“He did. But not immediately.”
Anna removed an old notebook from behind several books.
Jessie stared at it.
“You have records.”
“I learned from Daniel.”
Anna opened the notebook and turned through pages filled with dates, names and fragments.
“After the fire, before everyone scattered, I went back to one of Vale’s offices. He’d abandoned it.”
“Why?”
“To find the candidate files.”
“Did you?”
“Some.”
Anna stopped on a page.
“I found notes about you.”
Jessie’s stomach tightened.
“What did they say?”
Anna read silently for a moment.
Then she handed Jessie the notebook.
A line had been copied carefully into Anna’s handwriting.
J.W. was never the experiment. J.W. is the proof that the model functions without continued intervention.
Jessie read it twice.
Gabriel moved beside her. “What model?”
Anna shook her head. “I never knew.”
Jessie kept reading. Another line appeared below it.
M.M. remains the control.
Jessie stopped. “M.M.”
Gabriel saw it too. “Michael Mercer.”
Anna looked at them. “Maybe.”
Jessie’s thoughts accelerated. Daniel’s younger brother, Vale’s experiment. A control. Nathan’s warning. Emily hearing the name Mercer.
“Michael was involved.”
Anna shook her head. “We don’t know that.”
“Vale wrote M.M.”
“We don’t know that’s Michael.”
Jessie almost argued, but then stopped. Anna was right.
Evidence, not assumption.
Jessie forced herself to breathe. “What else?”
Anna turned the page. There was one final note.
E. remains unresolved.
Jessie stared at the letter. “Evan.”
“Possibly.”
Three people.
J.W.
M.M.
E.
Jessie closed the notebook. “This wasn’t just about me and Evan.”
“No.”
“Whatever Vale was testing involved Michael too.”
“Maybe.”
Gabriel rubbed his jaw. “But Daniel’s brother wasn’t one of the candidates.”
Anna looked at him. “Are you sure?”
Gabriel stopped.
Jessie turned toward him.
“You said you never met Michael.”
“I didn’t.”
“You knew Daniel had a brother.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Daniel mentioned him.”
“What did he say?”
Gabriel tried to remember.
“Almost nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“He said they weren’t close.”
Jessie frowned.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Anna looked suddenly uneasy.
“What?”
Jessie noticed.
Anna didn’t answer immediately.
“Daniel once told me he had failed his brother.”
Jessie stared at her.
“When?”
“Before the fire.”
“What did he mean?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Jessie thought about Nathan’s warning again.
DON’T TRUST MICHAEL MERCER.
Then she thought about Emily’s account. Mercer wasn’t supposed to come back. Perhaps Michael hadn’t entered the story after twenty-four years. Perhaps he’d been there from the beginning.
Jessie’s phone buzzed. All three of them looked at it.
Another message from Evan. No photograph this time.
Just one sentence:
ASK ANNA WHO STARTED THE FIRE.
Jessie slowly lifted her eyes. Anna had gone pale. Gabriel looked between them.
“Daniel started the fire.” That was what Gabriel had told her. That was what Jessie remembered. Daniel creating chaos so Jessie could escape.
Jessie watched Anna carefully. Didn’t he?”
Anna didn’t answer.
Jessie’s pulse changed. “Anna.”
The older woman sat down.
Jessie felt dread before Anna spoke. “Daniel intended to start a fire.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“He had prepared one.”
“Anna.”
“But somebody started it before he could.”
Jessie stared at her. “Who?”
Anna looked at the message on Jessie’s phone and then she looked at Jessie.
“Evan.” The answer made no sense.
Jessie shook her head. “Evan was at the motel.”
“We thought he was.”
“You said Daniel went there and found him gone.”
“He did.”
“When?”
“The night of the fire.”
Jessie felt the room tilt slightly. “Evan came back.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Anna’s voice became quiet.
“For you.”
Jessie sat.
The memory came before she could stop it.
Smoke.
Shouting.
A figure at the end of the hallway.
Not Daniel.
You came back.
Evan.
Blood still visible beneath his collar.
His face bruised.
Jessie screaming at him.
I told you not to come after me.
Evan shouting back:
You always say things you don’t mean.
Jessie covered her mouth.
Anna watched her.
“He came back for me.”
“Yes.”
“After I left him.”
“Yes.”
Jessie closed her eyes. The next memory hurt more. Evan pulling her through smoke. Daniel somewhere behind them. Gabriel shouting. Footsteps approaching. Jessie stumbling. Evan refusing to let go.
“He saved me.” Anna nodded. “He started the fire to get you out.”
Jessie looked at her. “Then where was Daniel?”
“Trying to get the evidence.”
Jessie remembered. Daniel appearing through smoke with blood on his shirt. Not injured yet. He saw Evan. The two men looked at each other. Daniel shouted something. Jessie couldn’t hear it. Then there was gunfire and the memory shattered.
Jessie stood abruptly. “Someone shot Daniel.”
Anna nodded.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Vale?”
“I don’t know.”
“Evan?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because Evan was with you.”
Jessie paced. “So Daniel was shot, Evan got me out, and somehow I ended up back with Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You went back.”
Jessie stopped.
“Of course I did.”
Anna’s eyes filled.
“You wouldn’t leave him.”
Jessie remembered Daniel against the wall, the gun in her hand.
Don’t let them take me.
Now another piece fitted around the memory.
Evan had been there earlier.
Evan had saved her.
Jessie had gone back for Daniel.
Then what?
“Where did Evan go?”
Anna looked down.
“I don’t know.”
Jessie’s phone buzzed again.
A second message: SHE STILL WON’T TELL YOU.
Jessie looked at Anna. Anna’s face changed.
“What won’t you tell me?”
“Jessie—”
“What?”
Anna looked toward Gabriel and Jessie noticed.
“This involves him.”
Gabriel frowned. “Me?”
Anna stood. “Evan didn’t disappear after the fire.”
Jessie’s heart accelerated. “What do you mean?”
“I saw him three days later.”
Jessie stared. “Where?”
“With Vale.”
Silence filled the apartment. Jessie felt something inside her turn cold.
“Was he a prisoner?”
Anna’s eyes filled with regret. “No.”
Jessie couldn’t speak. “He went with Vale voluntarily.”
Gabriel swore.
Jessie shook her head. “No.”
“I saw them leave together.”
“Why?”
“I never knew.”
“He hated Vale.”
“Yes.”
“Vale nearly killed him.”
“Yes.”
“He came back to save me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why would he go with him?”
Anna’s answer was barely above a whisper. “Because Vale told Evan something about you.”
Jessie’s hands clenched. “What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know, Jessie.”
Jessie studied her. Anna was telling the truth or at least part of it. Jessie looked at the message again.
SHE STILL WON’T TELL YOU.
Evan believed Anna knew more. Maybe he was wrong, maybe not.
“Tomorrow night,” Jessie said.
Gabriel immediately shook his head.
“No.”
Jessie looked at him. “You’re not going alone.”
“I know.”
“His message specifically says—”
“I can read.”
Anna frowned. “Then what are you planning?”
Jessie picked up her phone.
“Something Vale never taught me.”
Neither answered.
Jessie looked at them. “Trust.”
Gabriel stared. “That’s your plan?”
“Part of it.”
“That is terrifying.”
“I know.”
Jessie typed a reply to Evan.
For several seconds, she stared at the screen before sending it.
I’ll come. But I decide what I believe after I hear everyone. No more games.
The reply arrived almost immediately.
YOU STILL THINK THIS IS ABOUT WHAT YOU BELIEVE.
Jessie frowned.
A second message followed: ASK GABRIEL WHY HE WAS REALLY AT ST. CATHERINE’S THAT NIGHT.
Jessie slowly looked up. Gabriel had stopped breathing. Anna closed her eyes.
Jessie stared at the man who had spent twenty-four years protecting her, lying to her and carrying pieces of her past she couldn’t remember.
“Gabriel.”
He said nothing. Jessie put the phone on the table between them.
“You told me Daniel recruited you to help expose the organization.”
“He did.”
“You told me you were at St. Catherine’s because we were all supposed to leave.”
“We were.”
Jessie watched his face. “But that wasn’t why you went there that night.”
Gabriel’s silence answered before he did.
Jessie’s voice became quieter. “Why were you there?”
Gabriel looked at Anna
Then at Jessie, then he finally spoke, all the humour had disappeared from his face.
“Because Vale called me.”
Jessie felt the words rather than understood them. “What?”
“He told me Daniel had betrayed us.”
Jessie stared.
“Us?”
Gabriel swallowed.
“The organization.”
The room went silent.
Jessie had believed Gabriel was a criminal who eventually helped Daniel bring down something worse. Perhaps that was true. But apparently it wasn’t the whole truth.
“You were still working for Vale.”
“Not exactly.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Gabriel closed his eyes. “When I went to St. Catherine’s that night, I didn’t know which side I was on.”
Jessie felt something inside her break – not loudly, not completely, but enough. For twenty-four years, Gabriel had been the one person she’d trusted with the pieces of herself she couldn’t remember. Now Evan was forcing those pieces into the light one by one.
Jessie looked at Anna, then Gabriel, then the message on her phone. Maybe Evan wasn’t simply trying to punish her. Maybe he was doing exactly what Jessie had spent her entire criminal career doing to other people. Removing every comfortable lie until only the truth remained. Gabriel sat across from her, looking suddenly older than he had at St. Catherine’s.
Jessie folded her arms. “Then we’re not waiting until tomorrow to continue this conversation.”
Gabriel looked at her. “Jessie—”
“No more edited versions. No more protecting me. No more deciding what I can handle.”
She pushed the photograph of the nine candidates into the middle of the table. “Daniel. Vale. Evan. Michael. Anna. Me. All of it.”
Gabriel stared at the photograph for a long time, then he nodded.
“All right.”
Jessie sat opposite him. Outside, police still occupied the street, and somewhere beyond them Evan was watching, waiting to see whether Jessie would follow his instructions.
She wouldn’t, not exactly. Jessie had spent twenty-two years learning how to find the truth hidden inside other people’s lies. Tonight, she was finally going to use that skill on the people she loved. Gabriel drew a long breath.
“The first thing you need to know,” he said, “is that Daniel didn’t recruit me.”
Jessie went completely still.
Gabriel looked directly at her. “You did.”
Come back tomorrow for the next part…
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