Page 159 of I Will Mend You

She snorts. “Camila has a powerful right hook. But if you need to talk to anyone about what you’re experiencing, I’m here.”

Swallowing, I nod my appreciation and take a large spoonful of my soup. While I appreciate the gesture, talking only gets me upset. The only thing that seems to make an impact is Xero’s presence. And his touch.

And shedding the blood of my enemies.

“Think about it,” Isabel says.

“Thanks,” I murmur. “I will.”

I tune back in to Xero’s conversation with the doctor. An older woman has joined them; she seems to oversee this facility. They’re already discussing curriculums and ways to ease the children back into society.

“Tyler told me how you helped us locate Three Fates,” Isabel says. “What percentage of your memories would you say have returned?”

I pick up my sandwich. “There are still major holes. Sometimes it’s hard to know what I’m supposed to remember.”

She nods. “Understandable. What do you recall about the day of your abduction?”

I pause, the sandwich halfway to my mouth. Those memories exist in my mind in vivid technicolor, every gruesome detail etched into my subconscious. They don’t haunt my thoughts because I keep myself busy, and Xero’s presence beside me overwhelms that darkness.

“Everything, unfortunately,” I say with a sigh.

She stills, her gaze sharpening. “Then perhaps you can tell me whether it was you or Dolly who started the fire that gave my brother permanent lung damage?”

SEVENTY-SIX

AMETHYST

The past few days have been a whirlwind of data gathering. Tyler and his team unearthed the names of everyone who ever rented a movie from X-Cite Media or became a member, while Jynxson and Camila extracted a list of wealthy families who adopted children from Dad’s old agency, as well as the version Charlotte ran with Becky.

It turned out that Becky knew what was happening to the children, yet she allowed it to continue because each recruit earned her a thousand-dollar bonus. Camila shot her between the eyes and handed Tyler her bank details for him to plunder.

While Xero follows leads on Delta, I help interrogate the instructors Jynxson captured about their training methods. Two of the men who molested me are in the cells and have already given us names of the other men who turned little girls into Lolita assassins.

I also spend time with Charlotte, going through every manipulative tactic she and Dad used to break up our family. When I’m not torturing my personal demons, I’m training with Camila and any other female operative about my size.

My priority right now is avoiding Isabel. The other night, her question caught me off guard, and I nearly choked. Xero rushed in and saved me from further interrogation and changed the subject by volunteering for another round of tests. It only distracted his sister for a short time before her eyes were back on me with silent accusation.

I barely tasted my soup and sandwich after that, and the apple pie slid down my throat like cement. That single question has left me riddled with guilt.

Every time I bring up the morning I tried to set Xero on fire, he cups my cheek and tells me it wasn’t my fault. Then he blames himself for the underhanded way he plagued my life, pretending to be a vengeful ghost.

One afternoon, days after Isabel confronted me about attacking Xero, I sift through Dolly’s social media page. She’s added three additional videos since the one where she pretended to be me and confessed to killing Mom.

They’re all similar in format: her, dressed in a black corset, sitting in front of a green screen of my previous videos. She sips champagne, taunting the internet with names of other men I supposedly murdered.

My former fans leave hateful comments, asking why I haven’t been arrested. Others try to siphon traffic by replying to those comments with think-pieces speculating that I was Xero’s accomplice in the murder of his stepfamily all along.

It’s infuriating how everyone’s getting clout from something I built up with Xero.

“What are you doing?” asks a deep voice.

My heart leaps to the back of my throat. I whirl around, meeting a pair of smiling blue eyes. “Shit, Xero, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

Chuckling, he massages my shoulders and peers at the screen. “Why are you watching that?”

“Looking for clues,” I mutter.

He shuts the laptop. “My father is an expert in staying hidden. And in psychological warfare. Those videos exist to manipulate your state of mind.”

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