I was scrolling through TikTok when the text came in.

  Be ready at 5. First oversight. Appropriate attire required.

  My thumb froze mid-swipe over a makeup tutorial I'd been planning to try later. For a split second, I considered pretending I hadn't seen the message. But this wasn't some random party invitation I could ghost. This was Uncle Augustus. And in my family, you don't ignore Uncle Augustus.

  I'm Clementine Jeune-de-Ville Kennedy. Yes, those Kennedys—though not exactly the ones you're thinking of. The branch you know is just our public face, the acceptable version we present to the world. My family operates deeper, in shadows so dark that most people couldn't comprehend them even if they tried.

  I sighed and closed TikTok, tossing my phone onto my silk duvet. My room looked like any wealthy 20-year-old's bedroom—Mac laptop plastered with stickers from my "semester abroad" (actually three months at a facility in Switzerland where they "reinforced my programming"), a vanity cluttered with Rare Beauty and Glossier products, Polaroids of me with "friends" (mostly children of other families in our circle) tacked to a corkboard, LED light strips set to a moody purple. Normal rich-girl stuff.

  Only the small scars at my temples—usually hidden beneath my curtain of dark hair—hinted at anything unusual. That, and the locked drawer in my desk containing the little black book where I documented things I wasn't supposed to remember.

  I sprawled back on my bed, staring at the ceiling. First oversight. I knew what that meant. For years I'd been trained for this moment—"educated" through methods that would make CIA black sites look like kindergarten. Electrodes, drugs, hypnotic conditioning, implanted triggers. All to prepare me for active participation in what my grandfather solemnly calls "the family business."

  What they didn't know was that something had gone wrong with my programming. Some core part of me had survived the conditioning, had watched and waited and learned to pretend compliance while maintaining a secret self they hadn't managed to erase.

  I pulled myself up and moved to my vanity, studying my reflection in the mirror. I looked so fucking normal. Dark hair with money highlights that cost more than most people's rent. Clear skin maintained by medical-grade treatments. The practiced neutral expression of someone born to wealth and its accompanying expectations.

  BeReal chimed on my phone—the daily prompt to post whatever I was doing at that moment. I snorted at the irony. BeReal. As if I'd ever been allowed to be real about anything.

  Still, I picked up my phone and snapped a dutiful mirror selfie with the appropriate amount of casual boredom on my face. The algorithm was probably monitoring my social patterns, and any deviation might flag attention. I added a meaningless caption about being bored and tagged my location as home. Posted it to my carefully curated public profile that maintained the fiction that I was just another rich girl with too much time and money.

  Appropriate attire required. I opened my closet and pushed past the Reformation dresses and vintage band tees to the back section—the Kennedy work clothes. Black tactical pants that looked like designer cargo trousers to the uninitiated. Compression top with specialized fabric that regulated body temperature and blocked certain scanning technologies. Boots that cost more than a car and contained emergency supplies in hidden compartments.

  As I dressed, I slipped in my AirPods and put on Boygenius, letting the music drown out my thoughts. For a few minutes, I could pretend I was just a normal girl getting ready to go out.

  Not a Kennedy preparing for her first "oversight" of whatever horror my family had scheduled for today.

  The black SUV hummed quietly along winding forest roads, its specialized tires barely making sound on the packed dirt. Uncle Augustus drove with the practiced precision of someone who had made this journey many times before. Beside him sat Aunt Rebecca, her cybernetically enhanced eyes glowing faintly in the dim interior, scanning constantly for threats or surveillance.

  My cousins, Henry and Priscilla, sat across from me in the rear compartment, dressed in the same dark tactical clothing I wore. Their expressions conveyed the cold professionalism we'd all been taught since childhood—emotional detachment as fundamental as proper Instagram aesthetics in our world.

  "First oversight, huh?" Henry said with a thin smile that didn't reach his eyes. At twenty-six, he had already overseen three processing facilities and participated in countless "acquisitions." "Nervous, Clem?"

  "Nope," I lied, keeping my voice even while scrolling through Spotify to find something—anything—to make this situation feel less surreal. I settled on a playlist I'd made for dissociating through family functions and kept one AirPod in, volume low enough to hear conversation but high enough to provide some psychological barrier.

  "You should be," Priscilla said, not looking up from her phone where she was almost certainly not checking Instagram but reviewing facility specs on a secure app. "First time changes you."

  I resisted rolling my eyes. Priscilla was only two years older than me but acted like the gap was decades. She'd fully bought into the family ideology, had excelled in her conditioning where I had secretly resisted. She wore her Kennedy legacy like a designer label she was proud to display.

  "I've been prepared for this my entire life," I replied, scrolling to the next song. "It's fine."

  Indeed I had been prepared. Years of what they called "specialized education"—what the rest of the world would call torture. The electrodes at my temples while they showed me images designed to desensitize. The drugs that made my mind malleable while they implanted the family doctrines. The programming sessions where the same phrases repeated for hours until they burrowed into my subconscious like parasites.

  "We're approaching the perimeter," Aunt Rebecca announced, her voice flat and mechanical. "Expected acquisition count is seventeen units. Processing team is already on-site below."

  Units. Not children. Never children. We were trained never to use that word in this context.

  I glanced out the window as we approached what looked like a summer camp—log cabins arranged around a central lodge, a swimming pool, even a volleyball court. It could have been the set of a teen coming-of-age Netflix show. The carefully crafted appearance of normalcy concealed its true purpose—a temporary holding facility before the "units" were transferred underground.

  I slipped my AirPod into my pocket as we exited the vehicle. Now wasn't the time to get caught not paying complete attention. Guards dressed as camp counselors nodded respectfully as we approached. They recognized the Kennedy sigil discreetly embedded in our clothing—a sign that provoked either reverence or terror depending on one's position in the hierarchy.

  "Clementine will lead the final inspection," Uncle Augustus announced. "It's time she experienced the full operational procedure."

  My cousins exchanged glances I pretended not to notice. I'd heard through family gossip channels (because even ancient evil organizations have their own version of Drama TikTok) that they had a betting pool on whether I would throw up during my first oversight. Whether I was "weak" like my mother, who had suffered a convenient "nervous breakdown" after seeing too much. Who now lived in a perpetual drug-induced haze in our family's private asylum, updated on Instagram daily by a social media team to maintain the fiction that she was living her best life at an exclusive wellness retreat.

  I had promised myself long ago that I would not share her fate. Which meant never showing the revulsion that clawed at my insides like a living demon.

  "This way," directed the site manager, a bland-faced man whose name badge read "Director Archie." His eyes held the vacant look of someone who had undergone MKUltra-derived conditioning, though less refined than what family members received. "We've prepared the units as specified."

  We followed him into the central lodge, its rustic charm immediately giving way to clinical efficiency once past the entrance. The log walls outside were mere facade; inside was a medical facility that would have impressed most hospitals.

  And there they were. Seventeen children sat on benches along the wall, their eyes glazed from chemical sedation. Ages ranging from approximately six to thirteen, both boys and girls, all dressed in identical gray clothing. Each wore a barcode bracelet on their right wrist. None looked up as we entered.

  My stomach clenched. Until this moment, some part of me had maintained the desperate fiction that maybe the whispered conversations I'd overheard, the documents I'd glimpsed, the training I'd endured—maybe it had all been exaggerated. Maybe our family business was just normal rich-people evil: financial manipulation, political corruption, environmental destruction. Bad, sure, but comprehensibly bad.

  Now that comforting delusion evaporated like morning fog under a harsh sun.

  "The latest shipment arrived yesterday," Archie explained, consulting a tablet. "All units have been processed through initial screening. No communicable diseases, all within optimal physical parameters."

  "Origin points?" Priscilla asked, examining the children with the clinical detachment of someone inspecting items at Sephora.

  "Varied," Archie replied. "Six from Eastern Europe via the usual channels. Four from domestic foster system diversions. The remainder collected through our South American network."

  Henry nodded approvingly. "Good distribution. Genetic diversity enhances the quality."

  I forced myself to walk along the line of children, examining them as I'd been taught. Looking for signs of awareness that might complicate processing. Checking physical characteristics that would determine their eventual placement in the extraction geometry. All while trying not to think about how, just this morning, I'd been deciding whether to do a green or blue eyeshadow look while watching beauty tutorials.

  The cognitive dissonance was so extreme it felt physical, like my brain was splitting horizontally.

  "This one seems more aware than the others," I noted clinically, stopping before a small girl with auburn hair. Her eyes, though unfocused, tracked my movement slightly. She was wearing a faded t-shirt beneath the gray processing garment—I could just make out a Billie Eilish logo at the collar. "Sedation level may be insufficient."

  "Good catch," Uncle Augustus said, nodding to Archie. "Adjust before transfer."

  "Yes, sir," Archie responded, making a notation. "We'll increase the dosage immediately."

  The girl's eyes found mine for the briefest moment—a flickering connection across an impossible gulf. Something in them reminded me of myself at that age, before I learned to hide my awareness beneath layers of pretended compliance. Before I figured out how to seem like the perfect Kennedy daughter while secretly dancing to Mitski in my room, crying over sad anime endings, and documenting the horrors I witnessed in a journal hidden where they'd never find it.

  I looked away first, pulling out my phone to check the time as if I had somewhere more important to be. A notification from Snapchat glowed on my screen—my friend Alyssa from school asking if I wanted to go to a party Friday night. The sheer normalcy of it hit me like a slap. While I stood here, people my age were planning weekend parties, stressing over finals, posting thirst traps on Instagram.

  I locked my phone without responding. There was a growing divide between those two worlds, and I felt myself straddling an ever-widening chasm.

  "The transport shaft is prepared for descent," Archie continued. "We can begin transfer whenever you're ready."

  "Let's proceed," Uncle Augustus decided. "The new extraction protocols require precise timing."

  In the center of the room, Archie activated a concealed mechanism. The floor irised open, revealing a circular platform large enough to accommodate twenty people. A transport shaft—one of hundreds that connected the surface world to the vast underground network my family, and others, had constructed over generations.

  This was it. The moment I had dreaded since receiving this assignment. Until now, I had managed to avoid direct involvement with the underground facilities. Had maintained the fragile fiction that my role could be limited to the administrative side of the family business. That pretense was about to end.

  The platform dropped smoothly into darkness, the opening above us sealing with mechanical precision. Lighting panels activated along the shaft walls, revealing polished stone passing by at increasing speed as we descended.

  I focused on my breathing, on appearing calm and collected while we sank deeper and deeper away from the surface world where things made sense, where the most complicated moral dilemma I'd faced this week was whether to text back a guy who was definitely using me for my family connections.

  "We're heading to Processing Level Three," Aunt Rebecca explained, her cybernetic eyes adjusting to the changing light conditions. "The new Nephilim extraction protocols have been fully implemented there."

  "Nephilim protocols?" I asked, seizing the opportunity to gather information I hadn't been privy to before. "I wasn't briefed on that."

  "Recent upgrade," Henry replied with evident pride. "Incorporates genetic modifications into the extraction process. Enhanced yield, extended viability of the subjects."

  The descent took nearly four minutes—far deeper than I had imagined these facilities extended. When the platform finally slowed to a stop, we had reached a vast underground chamber that stole my breath despite my preparation.

  The central space stretched at least five hundred meters in all directions, its ceiling lost in shadow despite powerful lighting arrays. The architecture combined brutalist concrete with what could only be described as alien geometries. And everywhere, evidence of technology beyond conventional human development.

  But it was the central extraction apparatus that dominated the space—a massive, geometric arrangement of platforms radiating outward from a central spire. Each platform contained multiple extraction pods, transparent chambers where subjects could be seen connected to the apparatus through dozens of filaments that connected to their bodies.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "Impressive, isn't it?" Priscilla said, mistaking my horror for awe. "This facility processes approximately one hundred and twenty subjects simultaneously. Generates enough loosh to supply three Council members and our family's needs."

  I forced myself to nod, to maintain the mask that had become second nature. "The efficiency is... remarkable."

  "You'll be overseeing the integration of today's units into Sector Seven," Uncle Augustus instructed, pointing toward a section of the apparatus where several pods stood empty. "Priscilla will guide you through the protocol."

  We followed the staff members who were already guiding the sedated children toward the preparation area—a series of examination tables where they would be processed before placement in the extraction pods. The methodical efficiency of the operation struck me as more horrifying than any chaos could have been. This wasn't the frenzy of madmen; it was the calculated precision of an industrial process.

  "First, they're connected to the primary filaments," Priscilla explained as we watched a technician insert needles into specific points along a boy's spine. "These establish the bioenergetic circuit that allows for extraction."

  The boy showed no reaction to what must have been excruciating pain. The sedatives, I knew, blocked physical response while leaving consciousness intact. Part of the process—they needed awareness for optimal loosh production.

  "Then the Nephilim genetic modifier is introduced," she continued as a purplish fluid was injected directly into the base of the boy's skull. "This enhances cellular regeneration while amplifying emotional response."

  I watched as the child's body spasmed briefly, his eyes flying open in silent agony as the foreign genetic material began integrating with his system. The technicians worked with practiced indifference, securing monitoring devices to his temples and chest.

  I thought about how I'd spent thirty minutes this morning trying to perfect a cat-eye liner, about the unboxing video I'd filmed yesterday for my "public" YouTube channel when my new Skims order arrived. The absolute banality of my surface existence compared to what happened below ground felt like some cosmic joke. While I'd been deciding between lip gloss shades, children were being processed for some group of evil alien gods by my family.

  "Once initial integration is complete, they're transferred to the extraction pods," Priscilla concluded. "The real work begins there."

  I followed as they moved the boy to one of the empty pods, sealing him inside the transparent chamber. Immediately, additional filaments extended from the interior surfaces, penetrating his flesh at precisely calculated points on top of his skull. A soft blue glow began to emanate from his skin as the extraction process initiated.

  "Each subject will remain viable for approximately six days with the Nephilim enhancement," Priscilla stated. "During that time, they'll experience a precisely calibrated emotional cycle designed to maximize loosh production. Hope, terror, despair, and back to hope—the highest quality energy comes from that oscillation pattern, specifically the ratio of hope to despair."

  I could see other children in nearby pods at different stages of the process. Some freshly installed, their eyes wide with confusion and fear. Others further along, energy visibly flowing from them into the collection apparatus. And some nearing completion—little more than husks, desiccated forms barely recognizable as human.

  "Your job," Priscilla continued, "is to monitor efficiency metrics and make adjustments to the cycle as needed. Too much fear depletes the subject prematurely. Too much hope reduces quality. The storyline in their dream must be perfect."

  She handed me a tablet displaying real-time data from each pod in our sector. Vital signs. Energy output. Emotional state indicators. Projected viability duration. All the metrics needed to maximize the harvest.

  "Questions?" she asked, her tone making clear she expected none.

  I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

  "Good. I'll check back in an hour. By then, all seventeen new units should be installed and producing."

  She left me standing there, surrounded by the extraction pods, the tablet cold in my trembling hands. I forced myself to breathe evenly, to maintain the mask I'd perfected over years of survival within my family. To anyone watching—and someone was always watching—I appeared to be calmly reviewing the data, a promising young Kennedy performing her assigned duties with appropriate detachment.

  Inside, something was breaking.

  I moved between the pods, pretending to check readings while fighting the nausea that threatened to betray me. In each transparent chamber, a child's suffering was being converted to energy—harvested, quantified, and distributed to feed beings that considered humanity little more than cattle. And my family were the willing ranchers, growing fat on whatever scraps fell from their masters' table.

  The auburn-haired girl from earlier was being prepared nearby. The technicians had increased her sedation as I'd instructed, but something had gone wrong. She was convulsing on the examination table, her body arching in silent agony as the primary filaments were introduced to her head.

  "She's rejecting the initial connection," a technician reported dispassionately. "Neural pathways showing unusual resistance patterns."

  "Increase integration catalyst by twenty percent," ordered the supervising technician. "If resistance continues, implement Protocol Omega."

  I knew what Protocol Omega meant. Termination and disposal. A "unit" that couldn't be processed had no value.

  The girl's eyes suddenly found mine across the room—fully conscious, fully aware despite the chemicals flooding her system. They held none of the glazed confusion of the others, only a piercing clarity that cut through all my carefully constructed defenses.

  I saw myself in those eyes. The self I'd buried beneath years of conditioning and compromise. The self that had never stopped screaming, even as I posted carefree TikToks and pretended to care about celebrity drama.

  Something broke inside me then. Not dramatically—no sudden movement, no outward change that security monitors would detect. Just a quiet, irreversible fracture in whatever had allowed me to witness such horrors while maintaining the fiction that I was separate from them. That my hands weren't equally stained.

  I looked down at the tablet in my hands, at the data harvested from children's suffering, and made a decision I'd been avoiding for years.

  I could not do this anymore. Could not be this anymore.

  The next hour passed in a blur of performed compliance. I checked readings. Made notations. Adjusted extraction parameters as instructed. All while my mind calculated angles, timings, blind spots in the security system that I'd been taught to manage but now intended to exploit.

  When Priscilla returned to check my work, I had already formulated the beginning of a plan.

  "Excellent progress," she approved, reviewing my adjustments. "You have a natural aptitude for extraction management. The family will be pleased."

  "Thank you," I replied, the words ashen in my mouth. "I find it... fascinating."

  "You'll oversee the remainder of this shift independently," she decided. "Consider it your initiation to field operations. We'll be observing, of course, but the decisions will be yours."

  Another test. Everything was always a test in my family. Performance evaluated, loyalty measured, compliance assured through constant observation. But they had taught me too well—taught me every method they used to monitor and control. Knowledge they never expected I would turn against them.

  The hours that followed were the longest of my life. I performed my role perfectly, making the calibrations that would extract the maximum suffering from children while maintaining plausible production efficiency. Careful not to be too perfect, including minor errors that would appear as the understandable mistakes of a novice rather than deliberate sabotage.

  All while mapping my escape.

  The facility operated on rotating shifts, with personnel changes occurring at six-hour intervals. During these transitions, security protocols briefly adjusted to accommodate authentication sequences for incoming staff. A small window—approximately ninety seconds—when certain monitoring systems recalibrated.

  I would have one chance.

  When the shift change approached, I positioned myself near a maintenance corridor that connected to secondary transport shafts. These narrow passages, used primarily for equipment transfer rather than personnel, were less heavily monitored than the main access points.

  As the facility announcements signaled the approaching shift change, I deliberately created a minor alert in my assigned sector—adjusting a subject's emotional calibration just enough to trigger a system flag that would momentarily draw attention from security monitors.

  The moment the shift change protocol initiated, I moved.

  The maintenance corridor was cold and narrow, designed for utility rather than comfort. I moved quickly, counting steps as I'd been taught, navigating without hesitation. One wrong turn would trap me in a dead end where security would find me within minutes.

  I reached the secondary transport shaft exactly as planned, overriding the access panel with authentication codes I wasn't supposed to know. The small platform inside was designed for equipment transfer, not human transport, but it would serve my purpose.

  As the platform began its ascent, I took out my phone—one last look at what had been my portal to normal life. Instagram showed my friends at a rooftop bar in the city, taking selfies with expensive cocktails. TikTok's algorithm suggested videos about makeup trends and relationship drama. BeReal wanted another authentic moment from my thoroughly inauthentic life.

  I dropped the phone down the shaft, watching it disappear into the darkness below. There would be no more pretending. No more straddling two incomprehensible worlds.

  The ascent seemed to take forever, the darkness of the shaft pressing in around me. When the platform finally stopped, I found myself in a small equipment shed approximately two miles from the main compound. Far enough that immediate detection was unlikely, close enough that my absence wouldn't yet have been noted.

  I stepped out into the night, the cool air against my face feeling like the first real thing I'd experienced in years. Stars glittered above the forest canopy—the same stars that hung over the facility below, over the children whose suffering continued unabated by my small rebellion.

  But I couldn't save them. Couldn't save anyone except possibly myself. And even that remained uncertain.

  I ran. Through the forest, away from the compound, away from the only life I'd ever known. My tactical training served me well—moving quietly, leaving minimal trace, maximizing distance while conserving energy. I had no destination beyond "away," no plan beyond putting as much distance as possible between myself and my family before they realized I was gone.

  By dawn, I had covered nearly fifteen miles, following game trails and streams to minimize tracks. I knew what would happen next. My family would not tolerate a rogue Kennedy—particularly one with knowledge of operations. They would find me. The only questions were when and what would happen afterward.

  I reached a small town as the sun broke fully above the horizon. A nowhere place whose name I didn't bother to learn, its few streets just coming alive with morning activity. I stole clothes from a residential backyard—jeans and a hoodie left on a line to dry—and changed in the woods, burying my Kennedy tactical gear beneath a fallen tree. The civilian clothes felt strange against my skin, like a costume I wasn't qualified to wear.

  The hoodie had a faded UCLA logo on it. Some normal person's college hoodie, probably worn to football games and study sessions at coffee shops. I ran my fingers over the letters, trying to imagine what it would be like to have normal concerns: finals, student loans, which party to attend. Instead of: extraction protocols, loosh quality metrics, neural pathway resistance patterns.

  At a gas station convenience store, I purchased a cheap baseball cap and sunglasses with cash I always kept hidden in my boot. Basic disguise elements, ineffective against serious pursuit but sufficient to avoid casual recognition. I bought a bus ticket to anywhere, not caring about the destination as long as it was far.

  The bus was scheduled to depart in an hour. I sat in a small park across from the station, trying to appear as though I belonged there. Just another young woman waiting for transportation, nothing unusual or noteworthy about me. I watched people pass by—normal people living normal lives, unaware of the horrors existing beneath their feet. Unaware of the true purpose they served in a cosmic hierarchy they couldn't comprehend.

  A teenager walked past, completely absorbed in her phone, probably doing exactly what I'd been doing yesterday—scrolling mindlessly, worrying about likes, posting carefully curated glimpses of her life. I wanted to grab her, to shake her, to make her understand that everything she thought mattered was a distraction, a carefully designed illusion to keep her from looking too closely at the mechanisms of the world.

  But I didn't. I sat silently, watching her pass, knowing she would never understand. How could she? How could anyone? The reality I had grown up in and the one she inhabited were fundamentally different universes that only appeared to occupy the same space.

  I was still contemplating this when I noticed the black sedan parked at the curb. I hadn't seen it arrive, hadn't heard an engine or doors. It simply was there, as if it had materialized from the air itself. The windows were tinted dark enough to be illegal, but no small-town police officer would stop such a vehicle. They would feel the wrongness of it instinctively, the way prey animals sense predators.

  I knew what the car meant. Who it contained. How this would end.

  Still, I ran. Abandoning any pretense of normalcy, I bolted from the park bench toward the tree line beyond the town's small commercial district. Running as I'd never run before, legs pumping, lungs burning, the animal desperation of survival overriding all else.

  I reached the trees, plunging into their shelter without looking back. I could hear nothing over my own labored breathing, no indication of pursuit, yet I knew with cold certainty that I was not alone. My family employed hunters who moved like shadows, who could track a subject across any terrain. Who never failed to retrieve Kennedy property.

  And that's what I was to them. Property. An asset gone rogue.

  I ran until my legs gave out, collapsing in a small clearing miles from the town. My lungs felt shredded, my muscles burning with exertion. Still, no sound of pursuit reached me. No indication that death approached on swift, silent feet.

  Then I saw him. Standing at the clearing's edge as if he had been waiting patiently for my arrival. Uncle Augustus, immaculate in his tailored suit despite the wilderness setting, his expression one of mild disappointment.

  "Clementine," he said, his voice carrying the same tone he might use to scold me for posting an unflattering family photo on Instagram. "This is beneath you."

  I tried to stand, to run again, but my body betrayed me. I could only stare at him, hatred and fear mingling in equal measure.

  "You knew better than this," he continued, stepping into the clearing. "Knew the consequences. The protocols for family members who violate security parameters."

  "I know what you do," I managed to gasp out. "What we do. The children—"

  "Resources," he corrected calmly. "Necessary components in a system that sustains us all. That grants our family privileges beyond ordinary human conception."

  "It's wrong," I said, the words feeling insignificant against the weight of generations of calculated cruelty. "All of it. Everything we are."

  Uncle Augustus sighed, genuine regret crossing his features. "I had such hopes for you, Clementine. Your aptitude scores were exceptional. Your programming integration nearly perfect." He shook his head. "But it seems you inherited more than just your mother's looks."

  He withdrew a small silver device from his pocket—similar to a pen but with a glass chamber containing dark liquid. I recognized it immediately. The same instrument used on my mother when her programming failed. When she began asking the wrong questions, seeing too clearly.

  "This doesn't have to be unpleasant," he said, approaching slowly. "One injection, and you'll return home. We'll adjust your programming, correct whatever flaw allowed this... aberration of judgment."

  I knew what the injection meant. Not death—the Kennedy bloodline was too valuable for that—but something worse. The same living death my mother had endured for years. A body animated by Kennedy will, any independent thought or resistance chemically suppressed until nothing remained of Clementine Jeune-de-Ville Kennedy except the flesh-suit that bore her name.

  With the last of my strength, I lunged sideways, rolling away from him. My hand closed around a fallen branch—a pitiful weapon against what he represented, but my only option.

  Uncle Augustus didn't hurry, didn't show concern at my feeble resistance. He simply adjusted his trajectory, approaching with the calm confidence of someone who had never faced meaningful opposition.

  "Your father said this might happen," he remarked conversationally. "He observed certain... hesitations in your development. Moments of inappropriate emotional response during your training. He will be disappointed to have been proven right."

  I swung the branch as he came within range, putting every ounce of my remaining strength behind the blow. He caught it effortlessly, wrenching it from my grasp with a single twist. Not even a hint of exertion showed on his face.

  "This changes nothing, Clementine," he said softly. "Your knowledge dies with your consciousness. The family continues. The Symphony plays on without interruption."

  I tried to crawl away, my body moving on pure instinct now, but he knelt smoothly beside me, the silver injector pressed against my neck. I felt the cold sting as the needle penetrated, the burning sensation as whatever corruption it contained entered my bloodstream.

  "It will be easier if you don't fight it," Uncle Augustus advised, his voice already sounding distant through the rushing in my ears. "The transition is smoother if you surrender."

  The paralysis spread rapidly, my limbs growing heavy and unresponsive. I collapsed fully onto the forest floor, dead leaves pressing against my cheek. Above me, tree branches swayed gently in a breeze I could no longer feel, the sky beyond them impossibly blue and distant.

  As darkness crept inward from the edges of my vision, a memory surfaced with cruel clarity—my father standing over me during one of my conditioning sessions years ago, electrodes attached to my temples, my body rigid with pain I wasn't permitted to express. I'd been caught trying to warn a girl at school about what my family really did, a desperate thirteen-year-old attempt at rebellion that had been quickly contained.

  "You can't run," he had said, his voice gentle despite the cruelty of what he was doing. "Not from what we are. Not from what you are. The blood of my blood. The darkness of my darkness."

  As consciousness slipped away for the final time, I understood the truth of his words. There was no escape from what my family had created. No redemption for what I had been part of. No filter pretty enough to mask the reality beneath the surface. The children in those pods would continue suffering whether I lived, died, or existed in the twilight realm that awaited me.

  My last thought before the darkness claimed me completely was of the auburn-haired girl's eyes. The recognition I had seen in them. The silent accusation that would follow me into whatever oblivion now beckoned.

  You can't run.