Cold metal taps the base of my skull, stirring me from my delirious slumber.

It is familiar, this feeling. The heaviness in my body. The barrel of a gun rapping against my head. But it is the smell of earth that I remember most.

The urge to wretch is strong, and I am still hungover from whatever it is I ingested. When my eyes finally open, everything is blurred.

The room is dark and small. Cold. Underground. I'm trying to piece it all together. Trying to make sense of it.

I see Bella's face in my mind. Her screams. Her fear. A surge of adrenaline has me attempting to launch myself upright, but I am swiftly rejected by the confines of my restraints.

"Easy there, tiger.”

The voice is muffled, but familiar. The build of the man is too when he comes into view. And then I remember.

Bella's father. His house. The whiskey. This man is the one. The one who took me from my Bella. I try to lunge at him. To kill him. But my movements are still sluggish. My body is still weak. And I am still chained.

"There's no need for dramatics.”

It’s his shoes that I notice first. The same shoes I have seen a hundred times before. Shoes that have graced my own home. Shoes that belong to the man I trusted with my life.

With Bella's life.

When he sees the stark conclusion on my face, he removes the mask and retrieves an apple from his pocket.

"Sorry old pal," River says. "Just the way these things go sometimes, isn't it?"

I look up at him. My oldest friend. My only friend. I thought I had known betrayal before. I thought that nothing could be worse than what Ray Rossi did to me.

But I was wrong.

I still can’t accept it. I want to be logical.

River has taken issue with Isabella. He thinks me weak. Perhaps this is his way of trying to make me remember. To continue down the course of revenge that he helped me plan so meticulously.

This is what I tell myself.

“Release me,” I demand.

He looks at me, apologetic, but does not move to help me.

“I think you already know, Javi, that I can’t do that.”

His words cement the doubts in my mind. Years of memories, skewed as I try to make sense of them. I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know how. River gives me time to process. He has always been good about that. He knows me so well.

"How long?" I ask.

He paces around the room. Looks at me twice while he chews his apple. And then paces some more.

"Since the sanitarium."

The sanitarium.

He was only ten then. It doesn't seem possible. But I know better. I know with the agency, anything is possible. But still, I reason that there must be another explanation. River could never betray me. It never even crossed my mind.

Except for once… when I quickly dismissed it.

Now I know better.

“Luke,” I say. “It was you. You were the one who told him I was coming that day. You were the only one who knew.”

He looks away again.

“It wasn’t me,” he mumbles. “But I know who did. And the leak did come from me.”

Fucker.

Lying, filthy, scum.

It is the only thing I can think, and River knows it. He won’t even meet my eyes.

"You were never unstable," I accuse.

He stops. And now he looks offended.

"I'm as unstable as they come," he assures me. "The back story was true. I wouldn't lie about that, Javi."

"No?" I question. "So only everything else then?"

"I know it might seem that way," he says. "But you should know better than anyone that things are not always how they appear."

"So then tell me how they really are," I demand. "Tell me the truth for once. If you can even bring yourself to do that much."

River appears hurt by my words. His eyes flash before he turns away again.

"I need you to do something for me," he says. "And it isn't sanctioned by the agency."

This much, I believe. If the agency were involved in this, it would not be only River and me in this room. He is desperate. And I have never seen River desperate.

"There is a girl," he begins.

"A girl," I scoff. "You are lying."

This has to be the agency's doing. There must be more to this than what I can see.

River turns to me. Discards the apple core onto the ground. His eyes narrow and sharp.

"It's the truth.”

"The truth is that you are a coward and a liar.”

River is unfazed by my accusations now, and determination has strengthened his resolve as he continues.

"The program. I was a part of it too."

And now he has my attention. I look up at him. I still don't want to believe him. He is a traitor. A liar. He is no friend of mine.

But then he recites his thirteen-digit code number. The same numbers we all had. The numbers we were assigned upon entrance into the program.

It can't be true.

"I would have known," I tell him. "You were the same age."

"Yes, but I was in a different sector. And they started me earlier."

"How early?" I press.

"Nine."

I shake my head.

River ignores my doubt and goes on to explain.

"I graduated from the program with top marks. Killed three men before the age of ten. I was quite proud of myself."

"Until they sent you to the asylum because you had imagined it all.”

He ignores my jab and continues on to his point.

"My first assignment was easy," he says. "Just a man. I do not even remember his face, to be honest. They all blend together after a while. Even the second and the third. I didn't care to know them, or what they had done to earn their deaths. I believed what the agency told me. I followed my orders. I earned my stripes."

He paces again. Looks at me again.

"But then there was the girl."

And now it is me who has tired of his dramatics.

"What girl?"

"She was just a girl," he makes a point to say, as though he hasn't told me three times already.

"There was nothing special about her, really. She was nice to look at as most girls are. She had a pretty face. I thought she would look very pretty when she was dead, and I told her I wouldn't ruin her face because I intended to take her heart."

I think of my Bella. My beautiful Bella. So many times, I had imagined her dead myself. I had imagined how good I thought it would feel to see her that way. Until I tasted her. And she poisoned me. I could not have it any other way.

Before River even admits it, I can tell that he has been poisoned too.

"Those were my instructions," he says. "Cut out her heart. It should have been quite easy. None of the others were difficult."

He struggles with acknowledging his defeat. River has always been too proud. Too arrogant.

"There was something about her face though," he declares. "I thought she was lovely alive. It seemed a shame to watch the life drain from such a pretty face."

He downplays the words, but he cannot hide his true emotion. Not this time. It is clear that River disobeyed his orders long before he ever knew me.

He was a traitor before I ever trusted him. And not only to me.

"You let her live?" I question.

"I let her live," he confesses. "I thought I could fool them. I have always been smarter than most of them."

That much, he does believe.

"It worked, for a while," he says. "I kept her hidden for four years. And I got careless. I thought I could not be touched. That I could do no wrong. They believed I was doing so well. I had made progress with you after all."

I glare at him again. Recalling those initial conversations we used to have. And it is abundantly clear to me now why they paired me with River.

He was sly. He was cunning. And he was so easily able to convince me he was nothing more than a boy. Just like me. A boy who I related to. One who I trusted.

"Before you get angry," River interrupts my thoughts, "Just know this, Javi. My friendship with you was real and sincere. That was not a lie."

"Everything you have told me is a lie," I sneer.

"Not that," he insists. "You were the only friend I had. They made me kill all my others."

I do not feel bad for him. Even when he goes on. Because it doesn't matter. Nothing he says matters anymore. I do not care about this girl or his plight. I only care about his reasons for bringing me here. For keeping me here.

"This story is boring me," I tell him. "If you have a point, River, get to it."

He nods. Retrieves another apple from his pocket and tosses it between his hands.

"They were watching me," he says. "Surreal, I know. It's the agency. But you get comfortable. You get it in your head that you are not the one they don't trust. That you are one of them. You do everything they ask of you. Why would they need to watch you?"

"So they found the girl," I say.

"They found the girl."

He turns away so that I cannot see the emotion on his face. Emotion that is rare for River. I thought he was a sociopath, and I did not judge him for it.

All those times he told me I was weak with Bella, I thought he was right. But I judge him for this because he is the one who is weak now. I tell him as much, but he ignores me.

"When they discovered her, they decided to make an example of me," he says. "They put her into the program. The assassins program."

They turned her into a killer.

Before he even tells me, I know how this story will end. The agency is predictable, at least in this one respect.

"She will come for you," I say.

"She will," he agrees. "And she will try to kill me. They've turned her against me."

"Then she was weak too," I observe.

This time, it is River who sneers in my direction.

"As weak as your Isabella?"

"My Bella has more strength in her little finger than you will ever possess.”

"You should hope so," he tells me. "Since you have abandoned her."

His words enrage me. I fight against the chains again, but it is no use. River is a skilled assassin. He would not do anything halfway. And most especially not with the likes of me.

“I did what was best for her,” I snarl. “I was wrong. I was wrong to listen to you. To use her for my revenge. She does not deserve to be tortured anymore. She deserves to live in peace.”

River stops. His face is serious now. So serious I know that he is not fucking with me this time.

“How can she ever live in peace when she carries your child?”

My limbs grow heavy, and my heartbeat sluggish.There is an ache in the back of my throat. A chill in my spine.

My child?

Isabella carries my child. I need to get to her. I was wrong. So wrong. She believes I am dead. That I have abandoned her. My Bella.

It is pure agony to imagine her, swollen with my baby. Crying in her bed with nothing more than her vile father to comfort her.

“I must go to her,” I tell River. “Let me go.”

“Sorry,” he says again. “But I was making a point before if you’d let me get back to it. This information will only serve to hasten my purpose for you now. And perhaps make you more willing to help.”

I thrash against the chains again until I am bloody, screaming out my loathing for him. He waits until I am calm before he explains.

"I am doing you a favor," he insists. "I know you will see this in time."

"You need not worry about your girl," I tell him. "Because I will kill you myself."

"Think of her father," River says. "Of what he did to you, Javi. Are you really ready to let that go?"

I do not answer him. But I can feel the vein in my throat, throbbing. The desire is still there.The desire to kill Ray. I don't know if I can let it go. River knows this. And he is using my own methods on me, quite effectively.

The agency may train us in the art of psychological warfare, but they cannot make us immune to our own methods.

"You only ever had two options, Javi," he says. "In the worst-case scenario, Isabella would have been poisoned by her father. He would have turned her back against you if he hasn't already."

"No," I argue.

"You are a skilled manipulator," River acknowledges. "I will give you this, Jav. But Ray is even more skilled than you or me. It is how he fooled you before. How do you think his own daughter will respond to his tactics?"

I shake my head and try to deny it. I don’t want to accept that it could be true. I don't want to believe it. River knows that everyone I have ever cared for has betrayed me, and he is exploiting that in the same way I exploited Isabella's fears.

"Trauma bonding," River continues, "is a powerful weapon. But the bond must remain for that relationship and dependency to flourish. You know as well as I do that Ray would not allow that to happen."

"No," I say again. "Isabella is not like us. She can forgive. She can..."

"That's the lie we all want to believe," River cuts me off. "Just as my girl's feelings were real too. Until the agency got a hold of her. Until they turned her into a killer. Just as our friendship was real, even as I lied to you, Javi. Even as I betrayed you like all the others before you."

"Bella is not that way," I insist.

But even I am starting to doubt myself. I am uncertain if she hates me now, just as I predicted. It was her hope for survival. She had only convinced herself that she cared for me to survive the circumstances of her situation.

"I don't think I need to remind you of the second scenario," River goes on. "But let's be hypothetical for a moment. Say that your Bella is as strong as you insist she is. Say that despite the odds and well documented psychological evidence to the contrary, her feelings for you endured in your absence. Would those feelings sustain even when you murdered her beloved father?"

I do not answer him because I already know the answer. The answer is no. Bella could not love me if I killed Ray. She could not forgive me for that.

"It is bound to happen," River says. "You know it, Jav. I know it. Let's not lie to ourselves anymore, okay? You would have to kill him. It's the only way."

"No," I argue.

"It's not so bad. You have accomplished what you set out to do. You have destroyed Ray by destroying his daughter. And now he must live with those consequences."

"You will not sway me," I tell him. "There is nothing you can say that will stop me from killing you and going back to Bella."

River sighs. Then he stops tossing the apple between his palms to meet my gaze.

"Nothing?" he repeats. "Oh but Jav, I'm afraid you're wrong about that."