Page 157 of Villainous Rise

She knew.

The implications cascaded through my mind like dominoes falling. If she knew, if she’d known all along...

“What?” I said again, as if hearing her say the words a second time would change their meaning.

Annie took a deep breath, her eyes never leaving mine.

“There’s a long list of reasons why I know,” she said, her voice calm and matter-of-fact. “Dread’s shadows didn’t kill you permanently, and they absolutely should have. You killed Dread with your bare hands, which should have been impossible since he was a Trueborn and you were supposedly only serum-based.”

Every instinct screamed at me to deny it, to craft some elaborate explanation, to do what I’d done my entire fucking life—hide.

“You flew away without your suit being powered up,” she continued, ticking off the evidence on her fingers. “Which I see you’ve given an explanation for now, but I don’t buy it.”

I opened my mouth to interrupt, to salvage this somehow, but Annie raised her hand, cutting me off.

“There’s one more thing,” she said. “Something you can’t explain away with secret serum powers.”

My throat went dry. “Annie⁠—”

“I felt you.” She tapped her chest, right over her heart. “After you came for me on the rooftop. You felt different.”

Fuck.

“I felt what you are, and we both know it wasn’t serum-based power I was sensing.” Her voice was steady, certain. “However you hid yourself from me before, it stopped working in the Crucible. I felt you. The real you.”

The Tinkerer’s Hammer. The fucking goddamn Hammer.

It had turned off everything about me that night, not just my suit, but all of my implants. The ones that masked my Trueborn signature.

I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Hadn’t considered what it meant that Annie had been there, that she would feel the difference. That she would know.

I’d never felt more exposed, more fucking naked, than I did right then.

I could deny it. I could laugh it off. I could threaten her. I could run. I could⁠—

I just stood there, frozen, as the foundation of my entire existence crumbled beneath my feet.

Seconds stretched into an eternity as we stared at each other. The muffled sounds of the gala faded to nothing. There was only Annie, me, and the truth I’d spent my life burying.

“What are you going to do?” I finally asked, my voice a rasp.

The question contained multitudes. What are you going to do with this information? With me? Will you report me? Turn me in? Expose me? Destroy everything I’ve built? Destroy who I am as a person?

“Nothing,” she said simply.

I blinked. “Nothing?”

“Nothing,” she repeated.

I searched her face for signs of deception, for the trap I was certain must be there. People don’t just discover your darkest secret and do nothing with it. That’s not how the world worked. That’s not how people work.

“Why?”

“Because it’s not my secret to tell,” she said. “And because...” She trailed off, looking away.

“Because what?” I pressed, needing to hear it, whatever it was.

“Because I did the research.”