He laughed once, brokenly. “Together? You hate me.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“That’s worse.”
The heat pressed against my face.
A voice shouted from above. “Colonel! Out now!”
Ryan tightened his grip on the box.
“She said you’d destroy it,” he said. “She said you’d destroy me.”
“You did that yourself.”
His eyes filled with tears he seemed ashamed to have.
Then he whispered, “There were others before me.”
I froze.
“What?”
“She tried before me,” he said. “Other boys. Other names. Other families. I was the one who survived long enough to become useful.”
The basement seemed to tilt.
“Ryan, what is in the box?”
He looked down at it.
“Proof she didn’t start with me.”
A beam cracked overhead.
The shout from upstairs came again, closer.
Ryan shoved the lockbox through the window first, then tried to pull himself out. For one terrible moment, his sweater snagged on a bent latch. He thrashed, coughing, panic destroying what little coordination he had left.
