Page 18

eighteen

Rowan

“ W e don’t know what it is,” Matthew Kutcher, the president’s doctor, tells me.

I look at him, unblinking, the sentence barely registering. He clears his throat, folding his arms as he leans his hips against the desk in my office.

“We ran every possible panel for common contagious diseases. There wasn’t anything matching. And based on the blood work we performed on you and her brother, it appears to be non-transmissible.”

I keep silent while he continues, carefully choosing every word before speaking it out loud.

“They must’ve injected her with some genetic or…” he shakes his head, “or biochemical marker beforehand to latch itself onto her specifically. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before.”

A muscle tightens in my jaw, wrath scorching through me like a blazing wind.

Two nights ago, after bringing Dove home, I called Matthew in to check her and see why she was so weak when we found her. I lied to myself— and to her—that it was nothing. But her face was so pale… so gaunt with the early signs of an illness that I couldn’t make myself believe it. Matthew implanted the tracker I asked for under her earlobe, then drew her blood and tested everything. Now the test results are back. And I’ve never felt more helpless in my entire fucking life.

My words are a low growl as I force them past the lump in my throat. “What is it doing to her?”

Matthew hesitates, then scans the papers that had been dangling from his folded hand against his ribcage. When he glances up, my heart sinks at the look on his face.

“Right now, it’s attacking her cardiovascular system. That explains the lightheadedness, the excessive fatigue. But the effects are progressive. If it follows the pattern that I suspect, it will start destroying her organs one by one until…”

My eyes snap to his, and he presses his lips into a thin line, silencing himself. He shifts uncomfortably under my gaze, and I grit my teeth, my heart slamming against my ribs. I want to tell him to get the fuck out, but his words pin me in place.

“It’s impossible to predict the symptoms knowing nothing more about this virus. We can manage them for a while, but…” He sighs. “There isn’t much time. Whoever made this, they designed it to kill. And if we don’t find the antidote soon, I’m afraid it will do exactly that.”

A wave of nausea churns my insides. I fall back into the armchair behind me, propping my elbows on my parted thighs as I bury my head in my palms. Getting her out of that fucking town was too easy.

Too easy.

Too easy.

I should’ve seen this coming.

Why didn’t I?

A knock at the door of my office gets my attention. I straighten up, thinking it might be Dove. I don’t want her to know about any of this until I fix it. Fuck, if one more ounce of worry shows up on her pretty face, I’m going to fucking lose it.

The door opens and Cole steps inside, hair in disarray, and eyes still exhausted from the fight. I drag a hand down my face and pull myself together. He and I need to sit down and talk—he might even know where they keep the fucking cure. Maybe this isn’t as bad as I’m making myself believe.

I look at Matthew. “Do whatever you need to do to buy us time. I’ll take care of the rest.”

He nods, adjusting his eyeglasses before leaving us alone. The silence is long and tense, and I’m the first one to break it.

“How could you let this happen?”

His eyes burn through mine. “I tried, Rowan…”

His voice is exactly the same articulated, careful voice it’s always been. The kind that made our superiors in the army think he was defying them because he was always a solid, impenetrable rock others could rely on. For a moment, it transports me there, into the cold barracks where we lived. Back when things were so simple. Easy.

“She was right fucking there, under your eyes. If you couldn’t get her out, you could’ve reached out to me. Could’ve told me where she was before they put that thing inside her. I wasted so much time trying to figure out where she was—”

He shakes his head, and it makes me want to punch the nearest wall.

I’m sick of hearing it can’t be done.

I’m sick of hearing they’re winning and we’re losing.

I’m so fucking sick of all of this, and no matter what we do, it’s never enough.

He says, “I know what it looks like, but I… You don’t know the full story. You don’t know about how they silenced me. They had me trapped, just like they’re trying to trap you right now. But I had no one, Rowan. No one.” His lips stretch into a bittersweet smile. “Everyone I loved thought I was dead. No one was looking for me, so I had to do what I could to survive and protect you all from the inside.”

I scoff, but instantly regret it. He’s been through more shit than any of us can handle. Throwing my rage at him isn’t just unfair, but it also isn’t going to help us. I take a second to reel back my control, but all I can think of is Dove’s frail body and her dying in my arms. The image makes my blood boil and my desperation return.

“The break-in at Dove’s apartment… was that you? I saw the orange.”

“You remembered.” He blinks, taken aback. “That day I took an enormous risk to get into her apartment. They were already planning to take her, but they didn’t know that I knew. That’s why I could break in and make a mess, knowing it would force her to move in with you. Or, rather, that you would give her no other choice. It was the only thing I could think of in such a short time to keep her safe. If I had reached out and made myself known to you, they would’ve killed someone… someone very important to me.” He stares into the void, fury simmering in what used to be a warm hazel color in his eyes. “I couldn’t risk it. And there wasn’t another way—believe me, there wasn’t .”

“Where is that someone now?”

“She’s safe, for now.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve been planning this rebellion for the past two years. The EFW is crumbling from the inside. They’ve wronged so many of their own people that it wasn’t hard to turn some of them against the cause. But he’s smart, Salister. And they’ve been butchering people left and right, then recruiting new soldiers. Starting this rebellion… it wasn’t simple. And it took time.”

I listen and nod, because I don’t know what else to do. I’m lost for words, and I know that no amount of killing is going to fix me this time. Just when I thought I was gaining the upper hand, my entire world crashes down on me knowing Dove is in more danger now than when I found her. And that I’m the reason she’s infected with a deadly virus with no fucking cure in sight.

“This virus…” My breath leaves my lungs in a rush. “What do you know about it?”

Just like me, he exhales and plops down in the chair next to mine, groaning from the pain in his abdomen.

“Not much. They have two labs outside the country, but their location is secret, even to the ones with my rank. It’s probably where they engineered it, and I don’t think it was made just for Dove. There’s a bigger plan at play—a pandemic, I imagine. They want to change the system, and… I mean… it’s not hard to do it when an entire country is suddenly preoccupied with keeping their loved ones alive.”

Fuck.

“But?” I ask, sensing that there’s more.

He dips his head. “I think I know who has this kind of information. About where the labs are, and how to get our hands on the cure. I just need to—”

“You’re planning to go back,” I deadpan. “You were never going to remain here.”

“I have to. Without me, the whole plan falls apart. And everything we worked for goes down the drain.”

I open my mouth to protest, but the ringing phone on my desk gets both of our attention. I get up, thinking it might be Maddox on the other end. I gave him a quick rundown of what happened, and he sent his doctor, then said he’d come meet us here today.

Except… the number flashing on my screen isn’t from the White House. I don’t recognize it, and very few people have my personal contact details. I look outside at the willow tree in my backyard, watching it sway with the wind. The sound coming through the cracked window is eerie—less the rustling of leaves and more of a hollow, rasping hiss, as if the tree exhales despair with every gust.

Slowly, I turn around with the phone in my hand, eyeing Cole as I tap the speaker button.

I pick up the call, and silence meets me from the other end

Cole and I hold each other’s stare, a tacit understanding flowing between us.

This isn’t some random number calling me, and we both know that.

My hand tightens around the phone as the words finally come out.

“Hello, Rowan.” A low, sinister voice fills the room. “Have we got your full attention now?”

Dove

Rowan’s colonial house looks spotless as always when I walk out of his bedroom on wobbly feet. The lights are dimmed all the way into the open living room, and the sun is almost gone from the sky. I don’t know how many hours have passed since he and I talked—my body is still clinging to sleep every chance it gets. But I need to see my brother. My brother… who lives and breathes under the same roof as me.

The sound of cutlery and vessels clinking together draws me into the large kitchen. I trudge toward it, expecting to see either Rowan or Cole, but I see the back of another man’s head instead. One that I recognize.

“Saint?” I call out.

He turns to face me, his brows raised before he clears his throat, looking me up and down. I still don’t know why he’s here and what kind of work he’s doing for Rowan. Last time I saw him, he was driving me back to my apartment after Odette Chevrier showed up to mess with my head. He got in trouble because of that, so I’m not exactly sure where we stand.

“Miss Finnegan,” he says, surprised. “I am… glad that you’re back.”

I smile, but the action makes me tear up a bit. Seeing Saint here, in this house, reminds me I’m safe and back where I belong. In Rowan’s world, around him, and with him.

“It’s good to be home. How are you doing?”

“Me?” he asks, as if no one ever asks him that.

My brows quirk up, expecting a response—one that never comes. Instead, he clears his throat and jerks his head toward Rowan’s office door. “He’s in there.”

I eye him for just a moment longer, but Saint goes back to doing his work as if our conversation never happened. I don’t have the energy to push him on it right now, so I take a big breath in and trudge toward the office. Without bothering to knock this time, I push the door ajar, seeing both my brother and Rowan through the crack. They both turn their heads to look at me.

Rowan’s hair is disheveled, jaw clenched and nostrils flared, the way he always looks when he’s raging inside. Cole is sitting with his head in his palms, his eyes strained at an invisible threat that haunts the four walls surrounding us. It’s a strange sight considering the fact that Cole has always been a rock for me and our family. No matter how bad things got when our father was still living at home, he never broke. Not once. But now… sitting there with his broad shoulders hunched and his brawny forearms supporting the weight of his troubled mind sends a sharp pain through my heart.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Rowan pushes his arms off the desk he was leaning against and saunters over to me. I follow him with my eyes, afraid he’s going to tell me to go back to bed so that I don’t hear what they’re talking about. I want to be here; I want to help them in whichever way I can. But when he comes near me, he wraps one arm around the small of my back and the other behind my knees, lifting me up.

“You should’ve called out for me to bring you here, angel,” he murmurs.

I smile, grateful that he isn’t shutting me out. That he trusts me to be here with the two of them. “I can walk just fine,” I say, but let him hold me anyway.

“How are you feeling, Dove?” my brother asks.

The sound of his voice still feels foreign to my ears. I still can’t believe he’s here, back in our lives. Rowan carries me to the armchair opposite from him, then lowers me back down and places a taut kiss on top of my head. The press of his warm lips lingers.

“Fine,” I lie, not wanting to talk about my current state. “So? What’s going on?”

Neither of them says anything, and that’s how I know that whatever it is, it’s bad.

“This is about what they did to me, isn’t it?”

My question seems to take Rowan by surprise, but not Cole. Although he hasn’t said it explicitly, I think my brother knows exactly what happened to me. He leans back in his seat, watching Rowan, letting him speak first. A shared bond of pain seems to pulse between the two of them.

Rowan’s voice is raw as he says, “Salister called.”

Nausea swamps me, and if I were standing, I know I’d take a step back. That name… that face… Salister’s eyes gleam in the darkness of my mind, promising nothing but horrors and destruction and the death of everything I’ve ever loved in this world.

“A-And?” I ask.

Rowan meets my gaze. “We know why he took you. And what he wants from us.”

Before I get to ask more, the sound of cars approaching the house steals our attention. I brace myself on the armrests and try to stand up, but Rowan calmly tells me there’s no need for that. Minutes later, when the president and the First Lady walk into the room, I jolt upright anyway.

“Mr. President,” I gasp, still not used to seeing him, to seeing both of them so casually, like we’re old friends getting together for a glass of wine. My face burns as I look down at my pink pajama pants and Rowan’s T-shirt I put on. But before I have time to feel the depth of my shame, sweet, sophisticated perfume enters my nostrils as I feel Cam’s arms snake around me.

She pulls me close into a warm embrace, muttering, “Oh my God, Dove! You’re okay. Oh, my God…”

I hug her back, my nerves dissipating when I’m hit with the informality of her demeanor. She might be the First Lady, but she’s every bit human and shows it every chance she gets.

“I didn’t know you were coming.” I smile, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I would’ve… changed.”

She laughs softly, but a sob interrupts that laugh. “You’ve just been through hell and back, and you’re worried about changing your clothes for us?” She pulls back, taking my hands in hers as she stares me down with tears in her eyes. “Dove, I am so, so sorry. You have no idea—”

“It’s okay,” I tell her, sniffling. “This isn’t your fault, Cam. None of it. We don’t get to choose our parents.”

Based on our previous conversations, I now know how hard this must be for her. Salister is her father. And everyone she’s ever loved has been under his thumb her entire life. Cam falls silent, her ashy green eyes looking vacant for just a second before she blinks and life returns to them. Her lips press together in a faint smile, as if to please me, as if to make me believe she agrees with what I said. Pretending is part of what we do , she once told me. I make a mental note to call her out for it later, if or when we have time to talk more. She has nothing to feel guilty about.

Next to us, the president—Maddox—and my brother greet each other again for the first time in years. Rowan steps in, and the energy in the room shifts completely. They stand tall and in control, all three of them, their bond and their power pulsing around us like the steady drumbeat of war. Cam and I watch as they smile faintly at each other, the first sign of hope either of us has seen in a long, long time.

“Please,” Rowan says, breaking the silence. “Have a seat. It’s gonna be a long night.”