Page 153 of Viper

“I never understood why.”

“Does it matter?”

I huff. “Yes.”

Clyde leans back, looking around the diner. “Maxim betrayed Fallon. He sided with Rune. He was furious after—” His head dips to his plate, then he meets my eyes. “Maxim helped train them.”

“The girls?” I don’t know why I’m whispering. The gravity of everything, maybe. I take a sip of the milkshake and lean back, staring blankly down at my fries.

“The school was hard for the girls. Lonely. Hard on their bodies, their minds,” he says. “When your mother got sick, she begged to go home to Scotland. Finally, at the end, he allowed it. We didn’t know for a long time that she had passed. The second he discovered you’d been placed at Saint Theresa’s, he went to get you.”

My stomach dips, thinking of the day he arrived.

“Did he take me because I was hers?” I ask, the information swirling in my head.

He dips his chin slightly, snatching up the ketchup bottle and squeezing some onto his plate. It squirts wetly and splatters on the table. Clyde drags his napkin over the red dots slowly, like he’s thinking. Or maybe remembering my mother.

“Did you know who I was that day?” I ask, and when he meets my eyes, I know it’s true. “When you saw me in that clearing?”

I wonder if that’s why he let me go. Maybe not the entire reason, but partly. What we saw was so heinous, I think he knew if Rune captured me in those dark woods outside his lodge, what he did to her, to that man tied to the tree, would happen to me.

“You look just like her,” Clyde says. “She was one of our best. Smart. Fast. Mean.”

“She said I looked like my father,” I say, watching for his reaction. When I see the subtle shake of his head, it’s confirmed. “You know who he was?”

“A soldier,” Clyde says, and looks out the diner window. Outside, people move along oblivious to the fact that chaos rains down on me. Life just continues to go by like I’m not in this small diner, having my world turned upside down. “He was like you, trained at the school.”

My chest heaves, air leaving my lungs. “How long has Fallon run the school?”

“The smaller group—the one before you and your brothers—was his first set of soldiers at the new school. He transferred them from one to the other.” Clyde fingers the corner of the napkin on the table, seeing things I can only imagine. “Before that, when your mother and father were there, we kept them all housed together. Became an issue after a while.” He gestures to me. “Hence, how you came to be.”

“They fell in love?” I ask. “My parents? While in that school?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.” Clyde crosses his arms, looking down at the picture. “Fallon was furious she got knocked up, but your mother was good. Too good to remove, so we kept her.”

“And my father?” I ask, “She told me he died.”

“On a mission before you were born,” Clyde confirms. “Nothing tragic or noble. Just a stray bullet and that was it.”

“What was his name?” I ask.

Clyde smiles. “She named you after him.”

My chest squeezes.

“Bryce?” I whisper. It’s been years since I spoke the name out loud. Fallon refused to call me by my name. Refused to acknowledge I had one other than the name I earned at the school that awful day in a moldy bathroom.

“Wait,” I say, realizing he has saidwe. We kept them all housed together. I lean forward, gripping the tabletop. “You said ‘we.’”

Clyde looks up, meeting my eyes. “Before I joined Rune in the States. I was the one who trained the girls to kill.”

Chapter 48

Delilah

Fallon’sthreatechoesinmy head all the next day. It settles in my joints, heating my muscles against the chilly morning air, while Striker and I run along the cliffs.

The threat thrums through my fingertips at the range where Breaker and Striker take turns instructing me. It drives me during the afternoon training session with Viper, and continues to propel me through awkward dinners, as I sit between Viper and Breaker, while Reaper feeds me food from the tray as their father watches. The bitter reminder of his threat crashes through my skull every time I spot Fallon, always only a few feet away, watching my every move.