Page 3

Boone’s knees popped like bubble wrap as he lowered himself to the floor with an audible groan. He would regret sitting on the hard wood come morning, especially with the uncomfortable brown leather sofa at his back, but it was more comfortable than sitting in his bed or at the kitchen counter. At least this way, he could sit at the coffee table, drink a beer, and put something on the television as he trudged through this report.

He dreaded the work ahead. He was finally sitting down after the world’s longest fucking day. Lucy had blown Boone’s whole routine out of the water, leaving him scrambling to complete his work before tomorrow’s deadline. He scrubbed his hands over his face. His twenty-five-year-old self would barely recognize Boone now. That Boone had lived on pure adrenaline, never knowing where he was going or how he would get there or who his target might be once he arrived. He’d slept on dirt floors in huts, in cramped attic spaces, in the back of moving trucks over deserted desert roads. He used to find it thrilling.

Now, he could sprain his neck by yawning too hard. He was only in his mid-forties but he felt positively ancient. He leaned into it, considering this school his retirement gig. Since leaving the field work behind, his life had grown very regimented. Work until five-thirty, hit the gym, eat dinner, bed by ten, jerk off thinking about Payton’s smart mouth and all the dirty ways he could shut him up, then—hopefully—sleep.

It wasn’t an exciting day by most people’s measure. But those people weren’t charged with keeping fifty plus baby assassins and their co-dependent handlers in check. Those people also weren’t wrangling a round-the-clock staff of psychopaths and horny retired spooks, most of whom couldn’t seem to keep their hands off their students or each other. He dropped his head to the coffee table, quietly thumping it on the hard surface again and again. Then, he groaned loudly.

He’d spent three hours this afternoon getting his ass handed to him by a bunch of bureaucrats who had never even met one of his students, much less knew how to manage them. That didn’t stop them from lecturing him about what was quickly becoming known around school as “the Lucy incident.” They’d made their usual threats. He was replaceable. He wouldn’t like the Watch’s retirement program. Blah. Blah. Blah. He’d responded by reminding them that he’d been forced to take this job and he’d be more than happy to give it back at their earliest convenience.

The meeting ended shortly after, but, by then, the damage was done. His whole day was thrown off track. He lifted his head once more, rubbing his temples, willing his brain to stay online for just another hour or so. They’d given him a headache.

The sun was setting over the sprawling campus when Boone had finally left his office, forced to decide whether he should skip dinner or the gym. He’d chosen the former. He’d needed to beat the shit out of something and the heavy sandbag would have to do. He’d pummeled the bag until his arms burned, then went back to his room, standing under the steamy water of his shower for far too long.

Now, he was there at his coffee table, barefoot in thin pajama pants and a sage green hoodie he’d had for so long he couldn’t even remember where or how he’d acquired it. He snagged his glasses from beside his laptop, slipping the black frames on his nose before snatching the remote. He quickly navigated to YouTube, clicking the first video he landed on: a pretty dark-haired girl applying makeup while talking animatedly about John Wayne Gacy.

It would do. It was just noise, something to drown out his thoughts so he could finish what he’d started before Lucy—and, by extension, Payton—had derailed his entire afternoon. He cracked the beer, taking a long swig, his swallow audible. He opened his laptop and pulled up the digital file of the report he’d left in his office.

The report Payton had sat on when he’d hopped up onto Boone’s desk, spreading his legs and simpering at him. Boone thought about the way he’d perched in his lap, combed his fingers through his hair, talked in a low tone, forcing Boone to lean in so he could concentrate. He shook his head, trying to Etch A Sketch the gender-bending little succubus from his mind. But it was no use. Payton never strayed far from his thoughts.

He’d barely typed three words when there was a sharp knock at the door. Boone’s responding sigh came from his toes. Maybe, if he ignored it, they’d go away. He just wanted to get his shit done. Was that too much to ask? He ripped off his glasses, tossing them onto the table as he got to his feet.

He crossed the room, yanking open the door. “This better be fuc?—”

His words died in his throat when he saw the demon himself leaning against his door frame, a filthy smile playing at the corners of his generous mouth, which was currently covered in cherry red lip gloss. How did Boone know it was cherry? Payton was close enough to smell it. Was it sticky to the touch? What would it feel like sliding up and down his dick? He clenched his teeth, willing himself to get it together.

“Hey, Daddy,” Payton purred.

“I swear, you’re part boomerang,” Boone muttered, raking his gaze over Payton’s lithe body entirely against his will. He wore a black jersey with a white number one emblazoned across the chest and yellow stripes on the sleeves. It stopped just above his ribs, leaving miles of skin on display between it and the baggy jeans he wore. They sat so low on his hips that the hot pink elastic of his Tom Ford underwear was on full display. The bold lines of the Xs tattooed on his belly were a stark contrast to his pale skin. His hair was as wild as it ever was, and he’d lined his eyes with black and smudged a golden shadow over his lids that highlighted his hazel eyes.

Boone’s gaze snagged on Payton’s two accessories: a strand of pearls knotted against his sternum that dangled so low it almost hit his belly ring. Boone’s mouth went dry as he realized even the smallest movement caused the stone dangling from Payton’s belly button to sweep across his soft skin.

Was that the same strand of pearls from that photoshoot? Boone pressed a hand to the door frame, barring his entrance, hoping Payton would take the hint.

“Like what you see?” Payton asked, letting his tongue dart out to wet the corner of his mouth.

I rebuke thee, demon.

Boone snorted at his own thoughts, forcing his wandering eyes back to Payton’s amused ones. Never in his life had he ever wanted to fuck someone and kill them in equal measure.

Until Payton.

“That’s…uh, most definitely a dress code violation,” he heard himself say, voice raw.

Payton batted sooty lashes at him, then quickly ducked beneath Boone’s arm, entering his quarters uninvited. Boone stumbled back like he’d been burned, giving Payton the opportunity to shut the door behind him and lean against it. Fuck. Boone was embarrassingly hard and Payton hadn’t even touched him. What the fuck was it about this kid that affected him so deeply?

Boone gave another long-suffering sigh. “What are you doing in here?”

Payton shoved his hands deep in his pockets. Boone’s breath hitched as he watched those jeans slide down another inch, revealing enough of Payton’s pretty pink underwear for Boone to realize the boxer briefs were covered in a muted pink and yellow floral design. Boone wanted to run his tongue from his belly button all the way down to the bulge behind Payton’s zipper. Fuck, he wanted to know what his skin tasted like, wanted to drag his teeth over his hipbones, wanted to fuck him until he screamed, until he cried. Could he make Payton cry? Maybe not in pain, but possibly in pleasure.

Payton flicked his gaze upwards, chewing on his full bottom lip like he could hear Boone’s inappropriate thoughts. The younger boy’s freckles seemed to kick Boone directly in the balls. The little shit let his lip go with a pop, leaving it all swollen, wet with gloss and saliva. Payton’s fingers came to rest on his own stomach, fingertips caressing the bare skin there, causing him to thud his head against the door, lips parting, eyes falling shut.

Boone watched, transfixed, as Payton’s fingers landed on the button of those baggy jeans. “I thought you were going to punish me for the dress code violation. Did you want to do it out in the hallway where everyone can watch? I bet the program is big on corporal punishment.” He flicked his button open, those long, nimble fingers reaching for his zipper next.

“What are you doing?” Boone asked, words thick.

“You can’t punish me through all these layers. I’m just being helpful.” His eyes were guileless, his tone taunting.

“Behave, Payton,” Boone managed, though just barely.

“I am behaving.” He pouted. “I’m admitting my crimes, turning myself in. Do your worst.” He clasped his wrists together like he was waiting to be arrested. “How do you want me, Daddy?”

Naked and tied to my bed with a gag in your smart mouth, you little monster.

Boone’s tongue clung to the roof of his mouth, his cock tenting the thin material of his pants. Luckily, his hoodie hid his interest…for now.

He forced himself to give a bored sigh. “Payton, you shouldn’t be in my room.”

Payton reached up and tugged one of the drawstrings on Boone’s hoodie. “Why?”

“Because you’re a student?” Boone said, sounding uncertain even to himself.

“And you’re the headmaster,” Payton reminded, gripping the hoodie and dragging Boone forward.

He made a good point.

With almost no space between them, Payton’s scent filled Boone’s nose, making his head spin. Rosemary, eucalyptus, and something slightly floral, something so uniquely Payton that Boone could pick his scent from a line-up, blindfolded. He wanted to rub his face over Payton’s neck, like some kind of animal. Make him smell like him so the other predators knew he was taken.

“What are you going to do? Report yourself?” Payton taunted.

The only thing Boone planned on doing was admitting himself into a mental institution if this kid didn’t stop fucking with him.

“Payton,” Boone said sternly. “What do you want?”

Payton curled a hand around the back of Boone’s neck, tugging his head lower until they were inches apart. “I thought I made it pretty clear this morning, but I’ll happily review it again.”

“Payton.” Boone said his name like a warning.

The boy stomped his foot like a toddler, his pout twisting Boone’s insides despite how phony it was.

“I just wanted to tell you about my day,” he said, widening his stance, like he was trying to make himself look smaller. “I don’t have anyone else to talk to.”

“Please, if this were high school, you’d have won both prom king and queen. There’s not a single person in this place who isn’t charmed by you. Stop trying to play me, little monster,” Boone warned. “Besides, I just saw you a few hours ago.”

“I know. It’s been almost six hours since I touched you. I almost died .” Payton flung himself into Boone’s arms, making himself dead weight, leaving Boone no choice but to catch the boy or let him slide to the floor. He was tempted to do the latter.

Boone rolled his eyes, even as he pressed his nose into Payton’s hair and inhaled. “Payton…”

“Okay, fine,” Payton said around a groan. “I just wanted to tell you that Gift and I managed to annihilate the whole class in Suri’s little game today.”

“Little game?” Boone repeated, trying to keep up with the sudden swing in topics.

Payton flopped back against the door. “Yeah, the propaganda and misinformation game.”

Boone frowned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Once more, that sinful smile spread across his face. “Oh, then, maybe I shouldn’t have told you. I could have just used my top secret manipulation skills to my advantage and seduced you before you even knew it.”

Boone snorted. “There’s nothing top secret about your manipulation skills, kid.”

Payton flexed his fingers, fake hurt leaching into his voice. “I’m a psychopath. We’re all manipulative.”

“But you’re the most manipulative of them all,” Boone said, his voice coming out far lower than intended.

Once more, Payton flicked his gaze upwards, expression coy. “Aw, thanks.”

Boone fixed him with a flat stare. “That…wasn’t a compliment.”

That full lower lip pooched out. “Now you’re just hurting my feelings.”

Even though Boone knew Payton was playing him, he still couldn’t bring himself to dismiss the boy. Not yet, anyway. “Like you have any feelings.”

Just like back in his office, the boy’s expression grew stormy, but before Boone could question it, he slammed that mask of indifference back into place. “Of course, I do. At least the important ones.”

“Important ones?” Boone echoed.

Payton’s fingers started to walk their way down Boone’s chest to his stomach. “Mm. Lust. Attraction. Arousal.”

Boone snatched Payton’s wrist as the boy’s fingers dipped beneath his pajama pants, holding him in an unforgiving grip. “Being horny isn’t really a useful tool in the spy game.”

“Oh, I bet that’s not true.” Payton said silkily, lifting his other hand to let his fingertips tease across Boone’s bearded jaw. “I bet you seduced plenty of people to get information out of them…or to get close enough to kill them.”

He wasn’t wrong. While being a sniper required little to no social skills, the other part of his job—extracting information from uncooperative assets—did require a bit of finesse and, yes, that sometimes included seduction. But admitting that to Payton was the equivalent of slicing open an artery in shark-infested waters.

All he could manage was a half-hearted, “That’s not the same thing.”

“No? How come?” Payton asked, shaking his wrist from Boone’s grip and sliding both hands up under Boone’s hoodie, palms soft as they smoothed over his torso. “I knew you’d have a happy trail,” he murmured almost to himself.

Why wasn’t Boone stopping him? Stopping this ?

Because he was weak when it came to Payton. Boone could barely keep track of the conversation, especially with Payton rubbing his thumbs over his pebbled nipples. “Because that’s not lust, it’s strategy.”

Payton sulked prettily. “Why is it that when you do it, it’s strategy, but when I do it, I’m a manipulative little monster?”

Boone couldn’t stop himself from lifting his hand, running his thumb along Payton’s full bottom lip, his voice raspy as he said, “Because I did what had to be done. You manipulate people because you enjoy treating them like your puppets.”

Payton kitten-licked over the pad of Boone’s finger. “I’d let you treat me like a puppet. Or maybe a ventriloquist’s dummy. I’d let you put your hand up my?—”

Boone slapped his palm over Payton’s dirty mouth. He made a noise that was all complaint, his lip again pooching out adorably as soon as Boone’s hand fell. Boone wanted to bite that lip, wanted to suck on his tongue, wanted to work Payton open with his fingers, then split him open on his cock, fuck him until he screamed.

He mentally shook himself. Get it together.

“Payton, manipulation and misinformation have real world consequences. Especially, on a global scale,” he mumbled on auto-pilot.

Payton scoffed, sliding one hand free while the other continued to roam Boone’s bare skin. “I don’t recall signing up for an ethics lesson, professor. But if you want to roleplay, I’m all for it.”

“Payton—”

Payton cut him off. “Do you think I care about what happens to this world? It could all burn to the ground and I’d roast marshmallows in the flames. This world is a cesspool. We’re all just Sims in some kind of dystopian apocalypse mod. None of this is real. Nothing matters.”

“I…don’t know what that means.”

Payton’s fingers threaded through Boone’s hair, tugging him closer. “Life’s just a game, Daddy. Usually, a boring one. But being the hand that pushes the chess pieces around the board…now that… that is interesting.”

Boone licked his bottom lip. “You sound like a megalomaniac right now.”

“You’re so flirty today,” Payton murmured, as if Boone had paid him a compliment, now close enough for Boone to feel his breath with every word. “I like it.”

Me too.

“Payton, I have work to do,” Boone said, trying to sound irritated, but instead sounding like he was willing to negotiate.

“Payton. Payton. Payton,” the boy mocked in a much too low impression of Boone’s voice, pressing their foreheads together as he viciously twisted one of Boone’s nipples, sending a jolt of heat and fury through him. “Don’t be mean. Didn’t we have a good time earlier?” When Boone said nothing, he huffed. “Well, I did.”

Boone groaned inwardly, the boy’s clever fingers soothing over his abused nipple. He was now leaking into his underwear, his voice gravel as he said, “You need to start taking your classes more seriously before someone gets hurt.”

Payton gently stroked his nose against Boone’s cheek, then slid a hand around him to dig his nails into his back until he hissed.

“I have almost a 4.0. What more do you want from me?” Payton reminded.

So many things.

Dirty, disgusting things.

Fuck.

“I want you to not just memorize the information we teach here, but to absorb it. To care about it.”

Payton’s soft, wet tongue darted out to drag against the seam of Boone’s slightly parted lips, then disappeared. “You can’t will me into caring about the world, Booney. I’m a psychopath. Nothing matters to me.”

This time, it was Boone who let his hand thread into Payton’s wild hair, gripping it hard and twisting, forcing his head back against the closed door, putting some much-needed distance between them and dragging a debauched moan from the boy. “Not even Gift?”

Payton flinched, voice growing sullen. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Boone tugged Payton’s hand from beneath his hoodie and pinned it against the wall, hoping to keep from losing any more ground to his desire for the boy. “Exactly what I said. Does Gift not matter? Does his safety not matter?”

“I can protect Gift just fine,” Payton said, leveling a glare at Boone. “He’s my handler.”

Boone took a step closer, using their closeness to remind Payton just how much bigger he was, forcing his head back with the grip on his hair. “Yeah, and your cavalier attitude about your assignments is going to be what gets him killed some day.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Payton said, flustered for the first time ever. “Besides, nobody would dare come after Gift. They know better.”

“Your enemies will be just as fearless as you are. They will go for your weakest link. And that’s Gift.”

Payton’s furious gaze burned a hole through Boone. “And if they do, I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all.”

“This is why people think you’re not suited for the program,” Boone said, releasing Payton’s wrist to caress his fingertips along the edge of the boy’s cropped jersey, his stomach jumping when Boone stroked his bare skin. “You have an impulse control problem and an uncontrolled rage.”

Payton’s lids fluttered, a broken noise leaving his lips as Boone played with the jewel on his belly ring. “You don’t know me at all. In order to be angry, I’d have to care about something. I just like chaos. I like killing. I like being the only thing between a weak, fragile human life and their ceasing to exist. Maybe you’re right. Maybe that does make me a megalomaniac…but it also makes me an efficient killer. There’s a reason I was never caught and it wasn’t luck.”

“I just want you to stop manipulating people for fun.” Especially me. “Why is that such a hard concept to grasp?”

“It’s not hard, it’s boring,” Payton deadpanned, then glanced down at Boone’s crotch still hidden beneath the hoodie. “Do you want some help with that?” Payton’s other hand finally left his back but only to grope the length of Boone’s dick through his pants, squeezing hard. He made an overly exaggerated surprised expression, tone mocking. “Oh, wow. You really are…proportional. Lucky me.”

Boone stepped back, dropping Payton’s arm. “That’s enough. Go to your room. It’s almost curfew.”

Payton’s giggle sounded almost maniacal. “Did… Did you just try to send me to my room, Daddy?”

Boone didn’t answer, just reached for the doorknob.

“Don’t be like that,” Payton simpered. “I know you want me. You can still punish me. Tie me up. I know you’ve thought about it. I think about it, too. We could have so much fun together. You have no idea the things I’d let you do to me. You just have to ask.”

Boone’s cock throbbed at the boy’s bold offer, but he forced himself to stand his ground—mentally, anyway. Physically, he dragged him far enough from the door to wrench it open before gently pushing him over the threshold. “Go to bed.”

Payton sighed. “Fine, Booney. But you’re only fighting the inevitable.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Payton fluttered his dark lashes. “I can’t call you Booney, I can’t call you Daddy. Should I just call you sir? How about master? No? Your majesty seems a little over the top, but anything for you.”

Boone was so distracted by the thought that he simply shut the door in Payton’s face, then leaned against it.

Fuck that kid, for real.

Boone was finishing up the report when his cell phone chirped. It was a text from Park telling him to meet him in the library. He scrubbed his hands over his face, then made his way to his closet to pull on a pair of jeans, his brain cycling through a number of disastrous scenarios that could have Park summoning him at this hour. He was tempted to ignore it, but, honestly, if he did, he’d just end up lying in bed all night thinking about how close he’d been to letting Payton convince him to take him up on his discipline offer.

When he entered the library, he expected to find Park sitting in one of the plush leather chairs in the center, which he was. He didn’t expect to find the majority of the staff there as well. West, Brogan, and Pike all sat on an overstuffed antique sofa, looking like children who’d been put in time out. Archer sat in one of the four Queen Anne chairs in the room with his husband, Mac, on the floor between his knees. Justice, the new weapons and tactics instructor, was perched on one of the many tables surrounding the small sitting area.

“If this is an intervention, I’m leaving,” Boone grumbled, seriously contemplating turning tail and running.

Mac snorted, holding up a bottle of top shelf bourbon. “Hardly. We were commiserating over Lucy and felt bad not inviting you.”

Boone glowered at Park, but flopped into the chair opposite him. “I don’t know why you’re here. This is all your fault. Where’s your fiancé? Icing his asshole?”

Pike, Brogan, and West snickered in unison but, as always, Justice just observed, her face impassive.

She was their most recent hire, replacing Aspen. She was not at all what Boone had expected when Jackson Avery had called from Elite, saying they’d finally finished vetting a candidate. But she was good at her job. And she didn’t gossip like the other instructors. Something Boone was starting to appreciate greatly.

Justice looked at him, then gave him a graceful nod. She was beautiful in an intimidating way, with umber skin and brown eyes so dark they were almost black. She was nearly six-feet tall and had long black box braids that stopped just above her ass. She was currently wearing what Boone had started to think of as her uniform. Yoga pants, a sports bra, and a cropped hoodie that showed off just how fit she truly was. If Boone had to place a bet, he’d put good money down on Justice not only out-smarting and out-shooting every man in that room, but also besting them in hand-to-hand combat.

“My guess would be he’s curled up with your boy-toy. But I can find out for sure if you’re so desperate to know the state of my fiancé’s asshole,” Park countered.

Boone raised a hand, possibly a little too quickly. “No, please, don’t. It took me long enough to get him to leave my room an hour ago.”

That earned a few raised brows, but nobody looked truly shocked.

“You still haven’t sealed the deal with that kid?” Pike asked, running a hand through hair that was almost as gray as Boone’s.

“Is that what we interrupted?” Archer asked with a smirk.

“Cut him some slack,” Mac said with a grin. “It’s hard navigating a relationship with a psychopath. I would know. It’s likely even harder when he’s the scariest psychopath in a school full of psychopaths.” He looked at Archer. “He’s the school’s August.”

Justice scoffed. “I think we can all agree that, right now, Lucy is the scariest psychopath in the school,” she said, then hopped down from the table, swiping the bottle from Mac before returning to her perch. They all watched as she twisted the cap and took a healthy slug.

“Yes, this,” Boone said. “I thought we were here to talk about Lucy?”

“I want to talk about you and Payton,” Brogan said. Black Irish—that was what they used to call the Irish with dark hair and light eyes. It fit Brogan perfectly. He and Boone had known each other for decades, but he knew very little about the other man outside of his employment history. All Boone knew was Brogan was charming and affable and told one hell of a story. But the man was also nosey as fuck, just like the other two stooges sitting on either side of him.

As if reading Boone’s mind, Brogan threw an arm over Pike and West’s shoulders. West tried to shrug off the man’s arm but had little luck. West was another of the men who’d worked under Kendrick, someone Boone knew, but not really. He only knew his strawberry-blond hair and freakishly pale eyes contrasted sharply with the harsh planes and angles of his face. It made him look both mean and bored at the same time. Anyone attracted to men fell all over themselves to get him to smile. They rarely succeeded.

West somehow still looked intimidating even in his pajamas and fuzzy black slippers. “How are we having this conversation again so soon? Weren’t you the one telling Park to just bang Gift and be done with it?”

“That’s different,” Boone muttered, rising to snag the bottle from Justice, taking a gulp, letting the liquor burn its way through him.

“How?” Park asked, amused.

“Because you were in love with Gift,” Boone said, pointing the bottle at him. “Payton isn’t even capable of loving someone.” Boone froze when he received a chorus of aww from the group. “I’m not saying I want him to be able to love me—” He cut himself off. “You know what, this is none of your business. I’m going back to bed.”

Before he finished speaking, the door opened and Suri floated inside. She’d exchanged her usual work attire for pants, a v-neck shirt, and a long, flowy cardigan all in the same saffron yellow color.

“There you are,” Pike said. “I was starting to think you were ignoring my texts.”

Suri turned her sharp gaze to Pike, her voice deceptively calm. “I wasn’t ignoring you,” she said in her lilting accent. “I was tweaking my lesson plan for the rest of the week.”

“Ah, yes. I heard all about your Secret Hitler game,” Brogan said around a laugh.

“I’m sorry?” Mac said. “Her what?”

“It is not Secret Hitler ,” Suri countered, her tone clearly meant to reassure them. “It’s similar, sure. I find it’s the most effective way to teach propaganda tactics and misinformation. And it’s working beautifully. They all took to it quickly.” She gave a knowing look to Park then Boone. “Your boys did especially well.”

Before Boone could correct her about Payton being his anything, West snorted. “You just taught a bunch of psychopaths how to manipulate people on a global scale. Do you truly think that’s wise? Maybe you should have saved that class for the neurotypicals?”

“As the only certified psychopath in the room,” Archer cut in, “I’m inclined to agree. I don’t think they’re old enough or disciplined enough to truly understand the consequences of their actions.”

“You made your first kill before you were old enough to vote,” Mac pointed out.

“Yes, but my father had been putting the fear of God into me for years. These kids may have been raised with the Thomas Mulvaney playbook, but they weren’t raised by the man himself. If one of us fucked up, we would have taken down the whole family. If one of these kids fucks up, they could destabilize a whole fucking country.”

“Thomas Mulvaney and your own mother designed the curriculum themselves,” Suri said to Mac.

Mac’s mother, Molly Shepherd, literally wrote the book on psychopathy in children and had, along with Thomas Mulvaney, created the program to help raise other neurodivergent children—now adults—to become deep cover operatives.

“I know people like to treat my mother and my father-in-law like they’re infallible, but they’re not,” Mac said. “They are humans and they are scientists and this is all a glorified lab to them, and those kids out there are their rats. You cannot trust them to remain cautious when their only true interest is the science.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Suri asked. “The assignments have been handed out, the game has already been played. If I abandon the lesson now, who will teach them that there are consequences to their actions?”

“That’s not the question you should be asking,” Justice said, shaking her head. “It’s not about who will teach them…it’s can you teach them? Can you teach a bunch of psychopaths—who care about nothing—to care about the consequences of their actions?”

“That’s not exactly true,” Park said.

They all looked to Park.

“Which part?” Boone asked, too tired to continue following along.

“That they don’t care about anything,” Park clarified. “Payton cares about something… someone …very deeply.”

Boone’s shoulders went back, jaw tensing. “I hope you’re not suggesting I’m?—”

“Gift,” Park interrupted, exasperated. “Payton cares about Gift. During the week, he sleeps curled up around my fiancé sometimes more than I do. He uses him like a teddy bear. ”

“That’s not caring, that’s possession. Payton doesn’t want to share Gift like a toddler who doesn’t want to share his favorite toy,” Boone corrected.

“No, I think Park’s right,” Suri said. “If there’s one thing these assets care about, it’s their handlers. They’re fiercely protective of them. They consistently put themselves between their neurotypical counterparts and danger. Ask Justice.”

Justice shrugged. “It’s true. They are very…something…when it comes to their handlers. The assets often sacrifice their safety for their partners.”

“Sure, now , when it doesn’t matter,” Brogan said. “It’s easy to be possessive and protective here in the bubble where nothing can truly hurt the handlers. When the assets don’t have to choose between saving themselves or saving them. When they have nothing to lose.”

“My point is, if they can care about one person, they can likely exercise caution when it comes to things like manipulating entire nations,” Park said.

“Seems like a pretty big gamble,” Archer muttered.

“Then let’s prove it,” Pike suggested. “Prove that the assets will protect their handlers when there are real world consequences on the line.”

“Are you suggesting that we put the handlers in harm’s way for real? Like…military field exercises? Because I’m not putting a target on my fiance’s back,” Park growled. “Payton will protect Gift, but the kid isn’t bulletproof.”

“ The Hunger Games ,” Boone muttered under his breath, remembering his conversation with Payton earlier.

“I’m sorry?” West said. “Did you just say The Hunger Games ?”

Boone nodded. “Earlier today, Payton said that we should make the pods compete against each other?—”

“That’s a hard pass,” Mac interrupted. “It would be a bloodbath.”

“We don’t need weapons and we don’t need battles,” Suri said. “If you want to know if the assets care enough about the handlers to not want to cause global destruction, then show them just how powerful information can be when used as a weapon.”

“And just how do you propose we do that?” Boone asked warily.

Suri looked at West. “I have an idea…”