“Wrong?”

“Yes. Wrong. I don’t mean physically. He was a beautiful little baby. And smart. It was so strange, because I worried that I would prefer him to Sam because he was bigger and so alert and so beautiful.”

Darius set aside his now-empty beer. He popped another.

“Then the accident. The meteor.”

“Heard about that,” Darius said with interest. “Like, twenty years ago, though, wasn’t it?”

“Thirteen years ago.”

“Must have been something to see. A meteor smashes a nuclear power plant? People must have freaked.”

“You could say that,” Connie said dryly. “You know they still call Perdido Beach ‘fallout alley.’ Naturally they told us everything was fine.... Well, they didn’t tell me that. In fact, what they told me was that my husband, the father of my two little boys, was the only person killed.”

Darius sat up, tilting his head, and leaned in. “The fallout?”

“No, the actual impact. He never suffered. Never even knew what was coming. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Killed by a meteor.” Darius shook his head. Connie knew he had seen death in Afghanistan.

“After that the depression came back. Worse than ever. And with it this conviction, this powerful belief that there was something wrong with David. Something very, very wrong.”

The memory of those days swept over her, making it impossible to speak. The madness had been so real. What had begun as a symptom of postpartum depression came to be something like a psychotic symptom. Like there was a voice in her head, whispering, whispering that David was dangerous. That he was evil.

“I was afraid I might harm him,” Connie said.

“Harsh.”

“Yeah. Harsh. I loved him. But I was afraid of him. Afraid of what I would do to him. So.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “I gave him up. He was adopted immediately. And for a long time he disappeared from my life. I gave all my attention to Sam and told myself I had done the right thing.”

Darius frowned. “I’ve read through the Wiki. There’s no David Temple. I would have noticed because of the last name.”

Connie smiled slightly. “I never knew who had adopted him. I never knew where he was. Until one day I was at work, at Coates. I wasn’t even employed there at the time; I was filling in while their regular nurse was on maternity leave. And this boy was brought in. I knew immediately. Never any doubt. I asked him his name. He said he was Caine.”

“How had he turned out? I mean, you had this idea he was going bad....”

Connie lowered her head. “He was still beautiful. And very smart. And so charming. You should have seen the girls flock to him.”

“He got his looks from his mom,” Darius said, trying to be gallant.

“He was also cruel. Manipulative. Ruthless.” She spoke the words with great care, considering each one. “He scared me. And he was one of the first to begin the mutation. The same time as Sam, actually, but Sam was a totally different person. Sam lashed out with his power, lost control of himself, and was devastated by it. But Caine? He used his power without the slightest concern for anyone but himself.”

“Same mother, same father, and so different?”

“Same mother,” Connie said, her voice flat. “I was having an affair. I never had a DNA test, but it is possible that they had different fathers.”

She could see that this shocked Darius. He didn’t approve. Well, why should he? She didn’t approve of herself.

The room suddenly felt cold.

“I’d better get going,” Darius said. “You cooking some ribs on Friday?”

“Darius. I told you my secret,” Connie said. “I gave you everything. What is it you aren’t telling me?”

Darius stopped at the door. Connie wondered if he would ever come back. He’d seen a side of her he had never expected.

“I can’t tell you anything,” Darius said. “Except that the military loves acronyms. Just saw a new one the other day I didn’t recognize on some vehicles that came into camp. NEST. Sounds innocent, huh?”

“What’s NEST?”

“Look it up. See you Friday if I can.”

He left.

Connie opened her laptop and tied into the hotel’s wi-fi. She opened Google and typed in NEST. It took a few seconds to find that NEST stood for Nuclear Emergency Support Team.

They were the scientists, technicians, and engineers who were called in to deal with a nuclear incident.

A nuclear response team.

And the colonel threatening to quit.

Something was going on. Maybe some controversial new experiment. Something dangerous. Something involving a possible radiation spill.

Which may have been how this whole thing had started to begin with.

EIGHTEEN

18 HOURS, 55 MINUTES

FULL NIGHT.

Sam had recalled Brianna when the sun went down. The darkness was deadly to her. One stumble and she’d be a bag of broken bones.

Brianna raged and demanded to be turned loose again. But she knew better. Sam sent her below to take one of the unused bunks and get some sleep. Mere seconds later he heard her snoring.

The guards were changed. Edilio sat blinking sleep away. Dekka brooded. Sam hadn’t seen Astrid in a while. He assumed she was down in his bunk. Maybe she was mad at him. Probably. And maybe he deserved it. He’d been curt with her.

He wanted to go down there and be with her. But he knew if he gave in to that need, if he found peace and forgetfulness, he might not have the strength to come out again.