Jessie stared at Gabriel for so long that the room seemed to become unnaturally quiet.
“You’re telling me I recruited you.” Gabriel nodded.
“To help Daniel?”
“Eventually.”
Jessie leaned back in her chair. “I need you to understand that the word ‘eventually’ is beginning to make me homicidal.”
Under different circumstances, Gabriel might have smiled. He didn’t. Anna sat across from them with her tea untouched. The photograph of the nine young people remained between them, surrounded by three cooling mugs and twenty-four years of lies.
Jessie looked at Gabriel. “Start over. This time, tell me the version where you don’t edit yourself into a better person.”
He winced slightly.
Good.
“When I met you,” Gabriel began, “I was twenty-seven. I’d been working for the organization for almost three years.”
Jessie nodded. That part she already knew.
“I moved money, vehicles and people. Mostly adults. I knew there were younger people involved, but I told myself they were volunteers.”
“You believed that?”
“No.” The answer came immediately.
“I needed to believe it.”
Jessie understood the distinction. It didn’t excuse anything, but she understood it.
Gabriel continued. “I wasn’t some secretly decent man waiting for an opportunity to escape. I was making good money. I liked the people I worked with. I liked being useful. And I was very good at convincing myself that anything ugly happened somewhere else.”
Jessie glanced down at the photograph.
Collateral.
There it was again. The same mechanism wearing another face. “What changed?”
“You.”
Jessie frowned. Gabriel’s expression softened, but there was no sentimentality in it.
“You stole my car.”
Jessie blinked.
Anna covered her mouth.
Jessie looked at her. “You knew?”
Anna nodded.
“You could have mentioned this.”
“I was waiting for him to admit it.”
Jessie turned back to Gabriel. “I stole your car?”
“Technically, you borrowed it.”
“That’s unusually generous.”
“You returned it.”
Jessie stared at him.
“I returned a stolen car?”
“Three hours later.”
“Why?”
“You needed it for something.”
“What?”
“To get Anna out.”
Jessie looked at Anna as she nodded.
A memory surfaced.
Jessie behind the wheel of a dark sedan, driving too fast. Anna in the passenger seat bleeding from her forehead. Jessie swearing at every red light as though municipal traffic planning had personally betrayed her.
She remembered a man shouting from a parking lot as she drove away.
Gabriel.
Jessie’s mouth opened.
“You chased me.”
“Half a block.”
“You threw something at the car.”
“My coffee.”
“That seems wasteful.”
“It was expensive coffee.”
Despite everything, Jessie laughed.
It came out unexpectedly, and for a second Gabriel smiled too.
Then the memory darkened.
Jessie saw Anna beside her again.
“Why was Anna hurt?”
Anna answered this time. “Vale.”
Jessie’s smile disappeared.
“He found out I was helping Daniel.”
Jessie looked between them.
“So I took Gabriel’s car.”
“You didn’t know whose it was,” Gabriel said. “You saw keys in an ignition and made an executive decision.”
“That sounds more like me.”
“You drove Anna to a doctor who wouldn’t ask questions.”
“And then?”
“You brought my car back.”
Jessie frowned. “Why?”
Gabriel smiled faintly. “Because you found my wallet inside.”
“Still not seeing the motivation.”
“You found a photograph of my daughter.”
Jessie went still. Gabriel had never spoken much about family. “You had a daughter?”
“Have.”
Jessie waited. “She’s thirty-two now. She was eight then.”
Jessie looked at him differently. “You returned the car because of her.”
“You left it two streets from where you took it with a note on the windshield.”
Anna smiled. Jessie looked suspiciously between them. “What did the note say?”
Gabriel’s mouth twitched. “Sorry. Emergency. Your taste in music is terrible.”
Jessie closed her eyes. “That does sound like me.”
“You also stole forty dollars.”
“There she is.”
Gabriel’s smile faded. “The next week, you found me.”
“Why?”
“You’d gone through the rest of my wallet.”
Jessie nodded. “Of course I had.”
“You knew where I worked. You knew who I worked for. And somehow you’d figured out I was unhappy.”
Jessie looked at him.
“How?”
“I asked you that.”
“What did I say?”
“You said, ‘People who like their lives don’t sit in parked cars for twenty minutes before going inside.’”
Jessie stared at him. She could actually hear herself saying it.
Gabriel continued. “You’d seen me outside one of the organization’s properties. Apparently I’d been doing that every day for weeks.”
“And I approached you?”
“You blackmailed me.” Anna laughed outright.
Jessie looked offended. “I prefer recruited.”
“You had photographs of me meeting with someone I wasn’t supposed to be meeting.”
“Who?”
“A police officer.”
Jessie’s expression changed. “You were already informing.”
“No. I was considering it.”
“That’s different.”
“I know.”
“What did I want?”
“Information.”
“For Daniel?”
“For yourself.” Jessie frowned.
Gabriel leaned forward. “This is the part you’ve forgotten about who you were back then. Daniel was investigating the organization, but you were investigating Daniel.”
Jessie’s stomach tightened. “Why?”
“Because you didn’t trust him.”
That hurt more than it should have.
“He’d helped me.”
“That made you trust him less.”
Jessie almost smiled. Of course it had. People who wanted nothing were suspicious when you’d grown up believing everyone wanted something.
“You thought Daniel might be recruiting you for some other reason,” Gabriel continued. “So you started following him. You found me. You figured out I had doubts about the organization, and you offered me a deal.”
“What deal?”
“I gave you information, and you didn’t expose me.”
Jessie leaned back. “That’s not recruitment. That’s blackmail.”
“I’ve been saying that for twenty-four years.”
Anna looked at Jessie. “You were very persuasive.”
“Apparently.”
“But something changed,” Jessie said.
Gabriel nodded. “You discovered what Vale was doing.”
The humour disappeared. Jessie glanced at the photograph of the candidates.
“How?”
“You broke into his office.”
Anna added, “After I specifically told you not to.”
Jessie shrugged. “Apparently I was bad at instructions.”
“You’re still bad at instructions.”
“Consistency is important.”
Gabriel continued. “You found files. Not everything, but enough.”
“The candidates.”
“Yes.”
Jessie looked at Anna. “Yours?”
“Mine. Evan’s. Several others.”
“My own?”
Gabriel shook his head. “Not then.”
Jessie frowned. “Why not?”
“We never knew.”
That bothered her. Vale had kept records on everyone. Why would Jessie’s file be somewhere else?
“What did I do with what I found?”
“You went to Daniel.”
Jessie felt a fragment.
A kitchen.
Papers thrown across a table.
Daniel reading.
Jessie pacing.
She could hear herself shouting.
You knew.
Daniel answering: Not all of it.
Jessie: You knew enough.
She remembered throwing something, possibly a mug.
Jessie glanced at Gabriel. “Did I throw things often?”
“Yes.”
Anna nodded. “Constantly.”
Jessie sighed. “I’ve become remarkably well-adjusted.” Neither responded.
“Rude.”
Gabriel continued. “Daniel told you what he’d been investigating. That’s when you realized the organization wasn’t just using St. Catherine’s to find vulnerable young people. Vale was selecting specific ones.”
“For his loyalty research.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s when I recruited you.”
Gabriel nodded.
“You came to me and said I had two choices. I could help you get people out, or you would give everything you had on me to the police.”
Jessie grimaced. “Not subtle.”
“You weren’t known for subtle morality.”
“Did you help because I threatened you?”
“At first.” There was that word again.
Jessie looked at him. “And later?”
Gabriel met her eyes. “Because I saw what they were doing.” Jessie said nothing.
“I wish I could tell you I immediately became brave,” he continued. “I didn’t. I spent months terrified. I helped when it was safe. I disappeared when it wasn’t. Sometimes I gave you information. Sometimes I withheld it because I was afraid I’d be caught.”
Anna’s expression tightened.
Jessie noticed.
“One of those times hurt someone.”
Gabriel looked at Anna. “Yes.”
“Who?”
Anna answered. “Candidate Six.”
Jessie’s stomach sank.
“Name?”
“Leo.”
Another name from the hole in her memory.
“What happened to him?”
Gabriel stared at the table.
“I knew Vale was moving him.”
“And you didn’t tell us.”
“I didn’t know why.”
“But you suspected.”
“Yes.” Jessie waited.
Gabriel forced himself to continue. “Leo disappeared.”
Jessie’s voice became quiet. “Did we ever find him?”
“No.”
She absorbed that. No dramatic accusation came. No shouting.
Gabriel looked almost surprised. “You’re not going to say anything?”
“What would you like me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You already know it was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve lived with it?”
“Every day.”
“Then me yelling won’t improve Leo’s chances of being found.”
Gabriel looked at her for a long moment. Jessie understood something then. The old Jessie would have punished him. Not because punishment would fix anything, but because anger needed somewhere to go. She still felt anger, but she simply didn’t need to spend it immediately.
“Keep going.”
Gabriel nodded. “By the time Daniel decided we had enough evidence to leave, I’d chosen a side.”
“Ours.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did Vale call you the night of the fire?”
Gabriel’s face tightened.
“Because he knew I was helping you.”
Jessie frowned. “Then why would he trust you?”
“He didn’t.”
Anna closed her eyes.
Jessie noticed.
“Vale used you.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Gabriel took a long breath. “He told me Daniel had killed Leo.”
Jessie stared. “What?”
“He said Daniel had been eliminating candidates who knew too much.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It did then.”
“Why?”
“Because people were disappearing.”
Jessie looked at Anna. “Were they?”
“Yes.”
“Because we were getting them out.”
“Some of them,” Anna said. “But Gabriel didn’t know that.”
Jessie turned back to him.
“You thought Daniel was killing them.”
“For several hours that night, yes.”
“And Vale told you to go to St. Catherine’s.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said Daniel was taking you there.”
Jessie’s pulse quickened.
“For what?”
Gabriel looked at her. “To kill you.”
The room fell silent and Jessie almost laughed.
“Daniel?”
“I know.”
“No, you apparently didn’t.”
Gabriel accepted that. “I went there because I thought I was saving you.”
Jessie stared at him. “And when you arrived?”
“Everything was already happening. The fire had started. Vale’s people were there. Evan was there. Daniel was there.”
“And me.”
“Yes.”
Jessie tried to reconstruct it. Everyone converging on one building, each carrying a different version of the truth. Vale hadn’t needed loyalty, he’d needed confusion.
“What did you do?”
Gabriel’s eyes dropped. “I saw Daniel.”
Jessie waited. “He had a gun.”
Jessie’s stomach tightened. “Was that unusual?”
“For Daniel? Yes.”
“Then?”
“He was running toward the rear hallway.”
“Toward me?”
“I didn’t know.”
Jessie saw where this was going. “Gabriel.” He couldn’t look at her.
“What did you do?”
“I stopped him.”
“How?”
Gabriel’s silence became unbearable. Then Anna answered. “He shot Daniel.”
Jessie felt the world narrow. Not killed, but shot. Daniel had already been injured when Jessie found him. Blood soaking his shirt.
Jessie stared at Gabriel. “You.”
Gabriel nodded once. The movement was almost imperceptible.
“You shot Daniel.”
“Yes.” Jessie stood, but Gabriel didn’t move. Suddenly the room seemed too small.
“Where?”
“Side.”
“Once?”
“Yes.”
“Did he shoot back?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He recognized me.”
Jessie’s eyes burned. “What did he say?”
Gabriel looked up. “He said your name.”
That hurt. Jessie turned away. The window blurred in front of her.
Gabriel continued quietly. “He didn’t ask why. He didn’t threaten me. He said, ‘Jessie needs you.’”
Jessie pressed both hands against the windowsill. “He was bleeding because of you.”
“Yes.”
“When I found him, he couldn’t move because you shot him.”
“Partly.”
Jessie turned. “Partly?”
Gabriel looked at Anna, again. Jessie saw it.
“There was another injury.”
Anna nodded.
“What?”
“Daniel had already been stabbed.”
Jessie stared.
“By who?”
Neither answered which made Jessie’s anger return.
“Do not do this again.”
Anna looked at Gabriel and Gabriel shook his head.
“You need to tell her.”
Anna’s expression hardened. “Why me?”
“Because you were there.”
Jessie looked between them. “You were both there when Daniel was attacked.”
“Yes,” Anna said.
“Who stabbed him?”
Anna closed her eyes. When she opened them, she looked directly at Jessie.
“Michael.”
Jessie felt cold. “Michael Mercer stabbed his own brother.”
“Yes.”
The warning from Nathan returned.
DON’T TRUST MICHAEL MERCER.
Jessie sat again.
“Why?”
“We didn’t know then.”
“And now?”
Anna looked at the notebook.
“I have a theory.”
Jessie waited. “Michael wasn’t Daniel’s younger brother by blood.”
Jessie frowned. “What?”
“He was adopted by Daniel’s mother when he was eleven.”
“That doesn’t make him less his brother.”
“No. But it explains something Daniel once said.”
Jessie remembered Anna’s earlier words. Daniel had failed his brother.
“What?”
“Michael had been at St. Catherine’s before Daniel ever worked there.”
Jessie’s stomach tightened.
“How?”
Anna pushed the notebook toward her. “Because Michael Mercer was one of Vale’s first subjects.”
Jessie stared. “M.M. remains the control.”
Anna nodded. “Michael wasn’t Candidate Eight.”
“No.”
“He predates the candidates.”
“Yes.”
Jessie looked at Gabriel. “Did Daniel know?”
“Eventually.”
Again. Jessie was beginning to hate that word on principle.
Anna continued. “Daniel started investigating Vale because of Michael.”
The pieces shifted. Not vulnerable teenagers leading Daniel to Vale. His own brother leading him there.
“Vale got to Michael when he was a child.”
“We think so.”
“How old?”
“Eleven or twelve.”
Jessie felt sick.
“And Daniel blamed himself.”
“Yes.”
“What was Michael the control for?”
Anna shook her head. “That I never learned.”
Jessie looked at the note. J.W. is proof that the model functions without continued intervention.
M.M. remains the control.
“If I’m proof and Michael is the control, then Vale was comparing us.”
“Probably.”
“But why?”
Nobody answered.
Jessie looked toward Evan’s photograph and then she remembered something.
“Evan said Vale was making the same mistake again.”
Anna nodded. “Treating me like the experiment.”
“Yes.”
Jessie’s mind worked through the wording. “You don’t call someone proof unless you’re proving something that happened somewhere else first.”
Gabriel leaned forward. “What are you thinking?”
“Michael.”
Anna understood.
“Vale did something to Michael first.”
“And whatever happened to me demonstrated the same result could happen without Vale continuing to control it.”
Gabriel frowned. “What result?”
Jessie looked at the photograph of the candidates.
Loyalty. Attachment. Obedience. Identity. Then Daniel. Jessie had loved Daniel enough to kill him because he begged her not to let him be taken. Michael had stabbed Daniel. Two people connected to the same man. Two completely different forms of loyalty. Or perhaps not.
Jessie’s phone buzzed. Nobody moved at first. Then she picked it up.
Evan.
NOW ASK THEM WHO GAVE YOU THE GUN.
Jessie stared at the words.
Her heart began beating harder.
The gun. Daniel against the wall. Smoke. Footsteps. Don’t let them take me.
Jessie remembered holding the weapon, but she had never asked where it came from. She looked at Gabriel.
He shook his head immediately. “Not me.”
Anna’s face had gone pale again.
Jessie looked at her.
“Anna.”
“I didn’t give it to you.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Jessie slammed her hand against the table. “No more.”
Anna flinched.
“Jessie—”
“No more I don’t know. No more missing pieces. Someone put a gun in my hand, and minutes later Daniel was dead. Who was close enough to do that?”
Anna began listing them.
“Vale. Gabriel. Me. Evan. Michael. Several of Vale’s people.”
“Daniel?”
“He had a gun earlier.”
Jessie stopped.
Gabriel frowned.
“Could it have been Daniel’s?”
Anna considered it. “Possibly.”
Jessie closed her eyes.
The memory came slowly.
Her hand empty.
Smoke burning her lungs.
Someone grabbing her wrist.
Cold metal pressed into her palm.
Fingers closing hers around it.
A voice.
You know what you have to do.
Jessie opened her eyes. She knew that voice. It wasn’t Daniel, Vale, Gabriel or Anna.
Jessie looked at Evan’s photograph. “No.”
Anna saw the recognition. “What?”
Jessie’s mouth went dry. “Evan gave me the gun.”
Silence.
Gabriel shook his head. “Are you sure?”
“No.” Jessie closed her eyes again.
The memory sharpened.
Evan’s bruised face.
Blood on his collar.
His hand around hers.
The gun between them.
Jessie saying: What are you doing?
Evan answering: If they take Daniel, he’ll give them everything.
Jessie staring at him, Evan leaning closer.
Including you.
Jessie’s eyes opened. “He knew.”
Anna stared at her. “Knew what?”
“What Daniel would ask me to do.”
Jessie felt suddenly cold. Evan hadn’t simply handed her a weapon, he had prepared her for the choice. Twenty-four years later, Evan wanted her to remember that. But why?
Her phone buzzed again.
This time the message was longer.
YOU THINK YOU KILLED DANIEL BECAUSE HE ASKED YOU TO. YOU DIDN’T. YOU KILLED HIM BECAUSE I TOLD YOU WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU LET HIM LIVE.
Jessie read it twice.
Gabriel moved beside her and read over her shoulder.
“That bastard.”
Jessie didn’t respond.
Another message arrived.
VALE DIDN’T MAKE YOU CHOOSE DANIEL. I DID.
Anna whispered, “Evan…”
Then the final message appeared.
AND DANIEL KNEW I WOULD.
Jessie stared at the screen. For the last twenty-four years, she had believed the worst moment of her life was a desperate act of mercy. Daniel, dying and terrified of capture, had begged her to prevent the organization from taking him alive. That was still true, but apparently it wasn’t the whole truth. Evan had given Jessie the gun. He had told her what would happen and Daniel had known he would.
Jessie looked at the photograph of the nine young people. Vale had spent years studying loyalty. Daniel had tried to destroy his work. Evan had been paired with Jessie. Michael had been the control. Jessie had been the proof. And suddenly Jessie understood something that frightened her more than anything Vale had said.
“What if Vale wasn’t the only person running an experiment?”
Gabriel stared at her. Anna went completely still. Jessie looked at Daniel’s photograph.
“What if Daniel was testing something too?”
Anna shook her head. “No.”
“You said Daniel kept files on everyone.”
“For protection.”
“That’s what we assumed.”
“He was trying to expose Vale.”
“I know.”
Jessie stood. “Both things can be true.”
Gabriel frowned. “What are you saying?”
Jessie looked at the message again.
AND DANIEL KNEW I WOULD.
“Daniel knew Vale was studying loyalty. He knew Evan had been paired with me. He knew Michael’s history. He knew how Vale thought.”
Anna’s face tightened. “He would never have used you like that.”
“I don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“No. You loved him too.”
Anna stopped. Jessie had seen it, that tiny shift.
Pain.
Not romantic love necessarily.
But love.
Loyalty.
Daniel had inspired it everywhere.
Maybe that was exactly what Vale had been studying.
Jessie sat again.
“We’ve spent days asking what Vale made us do. Maybe we need to ask what Daniel asked us to do too.”
Gabriel looked uncomfortable.
Good.
Comfort had hidden enough.
Jessie’s phone buzzed one final time.
TOMORROW. 11:00. BRING ANNA. LEAVE GABRIEL.
Jessie read it aloud.
Gabriel frowned. “Well, that’s insulting.”
Anna looked frightened. “Why me?”
Jessie studied the message.
Evan had changed the rules.
First he’d told Jessie to come alone.
Now he wanted Anna but specifically did not want Gabriel.
Jessie looked at Gabriel. “It’s because he wants us separated.”
“Obviously.”
“Maybe.”
She looked at Anna.
“Or because there’s something he wants you to see.”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I.”
“You’re still going.”
“Yes.”
“With me.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel folded his arms. “And apparently without me.”
Jessie looked at him. “No.”
Gabriel blinked. “No?”
“I’ve spent half my life believing I work better alone. Vale counted on it. Evan is counting on it now.”
“So?”
“So I’m done letting other people decide who’s allowed in the room.”
Gabriel’s expression softened.
Jessie immediately regretted saying anything remotely emotional. “Don’t make that face.”
“What face?”
“That ‘touched’ face.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
Anna looked between them. “This is exhausting.”
Jessie ignored her.
“We’re all going.”
“Evan said—”
“I don’t work for Evan.”
Gabriel smiled. There she was.
Jessie looked down at the photograph again.
Tomorrow night, she would meet the boy she’d abandoned. Except Evan wasn’t seventeen anymore, he was now a man in his forties who had survived Vale, survived Jessie and apparently spent twenty-four years preparing for her return. Jessie didn’t know whether he wanted revenge. She didn’t know if he wanted forgiveness. She wasn’t even sure Evan himself knew. But she knew one thing: She would not arrive as Candidate Nine, she would not arrive as Vale’s proof, she would not arrive as Daniel’s frightened girl and she certainly would not arrive alone.
Jessie picked up her cold tea and finally took a sip.
She grimaced. “This is terrible.”
Anna stared at her. “It’s chamomile.”
“Exactly.”
Gabriel laughed. For one brief moment, the room felt almost ordinary, then Jessie looked again at Evan’s final message.
Tomorrow at eleven, she would finally meet the person who remembered the part of her life everyone else had spent decades trying to erase.
And this time, Jessie wasn’t going to ask what happened to her, she was going to ask why so many people had needed her to forget.
Come back tomorrow for the next part…
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