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She finally glanced over at me, face white and brows drawn expectantly, as if she were silently begging for me to tell her it was all a dream. All a sick joke.

But I couldn’t. All I could do was support her.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the little travel-sized mouthwash bottle I stashed in there before I left my suite. “Have a few mouthfuls of this,” I said. “It’ll get rid of the bad taste.”

She did as I said. After spitting it on the ground a moment later, she glanced up at the sky again. “Eleven years,” she whispered. “I’ve been living underground for that long.”

“Yes.”

“And no one knows about us?”

“A few people have suspected over the years that something weird is happening out here, but no one ever knew anything for sure. Your dad keeps almost everyone out. Plus I’m pretty sure he has some sort of connections with the local police to make sure no one ever sniffs around.”

“But it just… it doesn’t make sense,” she said, voice quavering. “I know the attack which came before the Great Reckoning really happened. I was there. I saw my mom get shot in front of me. I saw all the blood and the…” She stopped abruptly as tears welled in her eyes, melancholy choking her throat.

“I know that happened, but I think your father and his cronies made it happen. They must’ve hired a professional hit squad to get rid of anyone old enough to speak out against their plan for New Eden once it went into effect.”

“And we just blindly believed that the rest really happened when they told us.”

“You were kids. You didn’t know they were lying. You were all traumatized, too. Your mothers and older siblings were shot in front of you.”

“What about Elena?” she asked in a hollow voice.

I swallowed hard. I knew this question was coming. “I think they did something to her,” I said as gently as possible. “She was close to realizing the truth, and someone snitched on her after that meeting she called for all of you. The men had to get rid of her, or else their existence would be threatened.”

Jolie didn’t say anything else. She covered her face with her hands and crumpled to the ground, wracked with hysterical sobs interrupted only by the need to draw breath. She cried as if her brain was being shredded from the inside, emotional pain flowing from every pore. It was a primal sound, a sharp jab in my guts which made me want to cry too. For Jolie. For all she’d gone through. For all she’d lost.

Her sobs grew louder, her shaking more violent. It was like every atom of her being was screaming in unison, as if she wished the ferocity of her grief would bring Elena and her mother back, along with all the others who’d been lost to the cruelty of the Path of the Covenant cult.

This was enough pain to break her, but she was strong. She would get through it, and I would be there to guide her and help her, if she let me.

The cries finally subsided, as if Jolie had no more tears or breath to give. I held her in my arms, gently stroking her back, trying to calm her as much as possible.

She pulled away and hastily got to her feet, her movements shaky. Her eyes were puffy and her face was tearstained, but she was still the most gorgeous woman in the whole world to me.

“I’m so stupid,” she said in a ragged whisper. “You always tell me I’m smart, but look how dumb I am.”

I shook my head. “You aren’t.”

“All this time, I could’ve walked out the door and discovered the truth,” she said insistently. “But instead I stayed down there like a stupid cow, doing what I was told.”

The anger was setting in, but she was turning it inward, aiming it right at herself.

I grabbed her arm. “Jolie, listen to me,” I said urgently. “You were drugged almost every day of your life since you were a kid. Those vitamins you’re given all the time—they contain a sedative. It makes you calm and docile, and it makes you foggy too, so you can’t think properly.”

Jolie sniffed. “So Elena was right about that too,” she said. She licked her dry lips. “I stopped taking them two weeks ago, you know. Just in case.”

“Well, that explains why you’ve changed so much,” I said with a faint smile. “You’ve been daring lately, and you’ve let me in so far. You have no idea how proud I am of you.”

She frowned. “Proud? That I was still too stupid to walk out of here even after I stopped taking the drugs?”

“You were fucking brainwashed for over a decade. No one would ever think you’re stupid, baby girl. Besides, you should see the fence around the ranch. Even if you realized the truth and tried to leave, you wouldn’t make it far. The men would get you.”

Her shoulders slumped. “We’re just slaves to them,” she said. “Aren’t we?”

I nodded. This was good. Her anger was turning toward the men now, not herself. “Basically, yeah. All that shit about protecting you from the Wastelands… all bullshit.”

“They made us feel guilty. Like we owed them,” she said. “They tortured us. They killed us.”

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