Page 96 of Reverie

Four hundred and thirty-two people.

Four hundred and thirty-two people were slaughtered because of me.

I peel away from Leo while he talks to the officers. Their voices sound like I’m listening from underwater. I try to focus, but I can’t because even from two hundred yards away and behind the crime scene tape, I see a body. A thin arm, an angular face, brown hair. Most of the body hides under rubble, but still.

I see it.

And the corpse morphs into August and?—

I don’t fight against nausea rising up my esophagus. Instead, I puke into one of the rubble-clogged sewer drains.

“Fuck,” I mumble, stumbling away from my vomit. I feel drunk off…something. This energy, maybe. Or maybe it’s the knowledge that these people, The Legion, want so badly to control me that they’d hurt innocent people.

Four hundred and thirty-two people—one of which looks like my son.

Before I found Winter at our bedroom door, I was searching for Leo, determined to tell him that the time for bullshitting around with Misha was over. I planned to tell him that I was going to take matters into my own hands and annihilate Morris Winthrope.

Morris Winthrope is just one man. I can get rid ofoneman. Then we’d leave Misha and all this shit behind. Because what do I really care about? Getting rid of the immediate threat to my family—and that threat is Morris Winthrope. So Misha and his wants and desires can get fucked.

After all, Misha might be my half brother, but I’m not convinced he has any familial feelings for me.

And that’s fine. I don’t need more people to care about in my life.

I won’t let them—The Legion, Morris Winthrope, Benjamin Fucking Brigham—steal another thing from me. So my plan becomes simpler: step one, get rid of Morris Winthrope. Step two, leave the rest of Misha’s bullshit behind.

One man.

Morris Winthrope is just one man.

The Architect is an abstract concept that, up until this moment, seemed almost benign. Inconsequential.

I’d resolved to let it all go as I allowed myself the privilege of intimacy with Winter, even if I could only let it go for just a moment.

But as I lost myself in Winter, four hundred and thirty-two people took their last breaths.

And I cannot allow any truth to exist except this one: My inaction led to this massacre.

Because this is The Legion, and the dread in my stomach is because I know this is only the beginning.

“H, they want to talk to you,” Leo says, coming up behind me. He hands me a bottle of water, and I chug it. Two agents who look like they work for the Department of Justice come up beside us. The shorter, blonde one looks like he’s a two-pack-a-day smoker, and his suit jacket looks a little small on his frame. His partner is his opposite—dark-skinned, tall, and a woman.

“Hunter Brigham,” I say, sticking out my hand to the woman first, then her counterpart.

“We’re sorry for your loss,” the woman says.

“My loss?” I say, incredulous. “What I’ve lost is minimal to what the families of all those people are experiencing.” I look past them.

Four hundred and thirty-two.

From the best we can tell, a string of dirty bombs were placed inside BwP’s basement floor. But whoever put them there didn’t stop just at my building. They placed bombs around the whole city block.

They went off at lunchtime on.

While four hundred and thirty-two people milled around the greenspace, stopping at one of the six food trucks, a countdown started to their deaths.

Too quickly for anyone to run or hide, the explosives went off. And then, what remained of the labs in my building caught fire.

I focus back on the agents. “My apologies. Leo and I just wanted to see everything for ourselves, but I’m sure if you have questions for us, we can meet you at your office, correct?”