David's throat felt like sandpaper.
He sat on the edge of a concrete planter outside the Pathlight compound, watching the sun creep over the police tape like it was afraid to fully commit to the day.
His hoodie still smelled like bleach and fear-sweat.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking—not violently, just a constant tremor like his body was still running on last night's adrenaline.
The kiss at the baseball field felt like a dream now.
Something too soft for the harsh morning light and the news vans already circling like vultures.
Johnny sat three feet away on the same planter, close enough to touch but not touching.
Not here.
Not with cameras sprouting from every corner like mechanical flowers.
He'd found a clean ROTC shirt somewhere, but David could still see the ghost of blood at his collar where the fabric had been scrubbed.
"They're setting up," Abby murmured, appearing at David's shoulder with two cups of what might generously be called coffee.
"Looks like Jez is going first." David accepted the cup, grateful for something to do with his hands.
The liquid was lukewarm and bitter, but it was real.
Normal.
A tiny anchor in a morning that felt anything but.
Across the courtyard, reporters jostled for position like kids at a carnival.
Someone was bolting a podium to the concrete—no seal, just raw wood and metal.
Like even the stage knew this wasn't going to be pretty.
"You okay?" Johnny asked, so quiet only David could hear.
David almost laughed.
Okay?
He'd broken into a government-funded conversion camp, watched his boyfriend—boyfriend, God, could he even think that word yet?—crack his mentor's skull with a baseball, and kissed said boyfriend in the ruins of their past while the world burned around them.
"No," he said honestly.
"You?" Johnny's mouth quirked.
"Not even close."
Somewhere behind them, a boom mic swung into position like a predator scenting blood.
The show was about to begin.
Before the coffee had even cooled, Jez was on trial—camera clicks the only gavel.
She emerged from the compound's side entrance like she'd been waiting there all along.
No rushing.
No hesitation.
Her blazer was the same one from last night, but somehow it looked fresh—like exhaustion was just another thing she could command to wait its turn.
David watched her cross the courtyard, each step measured.
She looked smaller in daylight, without the shadows and chaos of the raid to amplify her presence.
But there was something in the way she moved—a kind of bone-deep certainty that made the reporters step back without being asked.
"Ms. Feinstein, is it true you used minors to bait a federal raid?"
It hit like a thrown stone—loud, deliberate, meant to bruise.
Every camera lens jerked toward her.
Boom mics dipped like weapons.
Jez didn't flinch.
David did.
The accusation scraped against something raw in his chest.
Used.
Like they were props.
Like their fear had been choreographed.
Behind her, the Pathlight compound still steamed in places where fire suppression foam had dried.
Yellow tape flapped in the breeze like surrender flags.
A broken gurney leaned against a stairwell, one wheel spinning slowly—a discarded cross for whatever faith had died here last night.
She stepped up to the podium someone had bolted to the concrete half an hour ago.
No flag behind her.
No agency logo.
Just the morning sun at her back and a hundred hungry questions aimed at her chest like arrows.
"I didn't bait anything," Jez said, voice low and surgical.
Each word placed with precision.
"The only trap was already here—built by men who called themselves shepherds."
A ripple moved through the crowd—some skepticism, some silence. David felt Johnny shift beside him, just slightly.
A tightening in his shoulders that said he was listening to every word.
She let it hang.
"Those kids walked into hell long before I did."
Her eyes swept the crowd, and for just a moment, they found David's.
Held them.
"They got out because they're brave—not because I used them."
David's throat tightened.
He wanted to believe her.
Wanted to think they'd been partners, not pawns.
But the tremor in his hands suggested his body wasn't quite sold on the distinction.
Another question, fast and sharp: "So you're saying they consented? That this was their idea? They're minors."
Jez slid her sunglasses off.
Eyes like flint catching the morning light.
"I'm saying they told the truth when no one else would. And I listened."
A different reporter, sharper, leaned forward. "Agent Feinstein, what brought a federal agent to Giant Faith in the first place?"
Jez paused. The question hung in the air like smoke.
"Same thing that brings anyone to church," she said finally. "I was looking for something real."
She let that breathe. David found himself holding his own breath.
"Two years ago, their youth programs looked impressive on paper. Trauma counseling. Community outreach. Good numbers." Her voice stayed level, professional. "But when you've worked trafficking cases, you learn to read what kids can't say out loud."
The reporter pressed: "When did you realize—"
"When I started asking questions about SoulWatch compliance rates." Jez's mouth curved, but it wasn't a smile. "Same patterns I'd seen before. Too much control. Too little choice. Amazing how many doors close when you ask the right ones."
Patterns.
David felt something click into place.
All those perfect emotional readings at school. The way Johnny's eyes had gone blank after the church "counseling." The systematic way kids like Noel just... disappeared.
It wasn't random cruelty.
It was a system.
And Jez had seen it before.
And then she stepped down, before the follow-up could land.
No fanfare.
No dramatic exit.
Just Jez walking away from the podium like she'd said exactly what she came to say and not one word more.
The reporters scrambled, shouting questions at her back.
She didn't turn.
"Badass," Abby murmured appreciatively.
David wasn't sure if he agreed. But he couldn't deny the way something in his chest unclenched, just a little, at hearing someone say out loud that they'd been brave.
Even if brave still felt an awful lot like terrified.
The press hadn't even cleared their notepads when Pastor Goldrick stepped up to the podium.
David's stomach turned. He'd seen enough of Goldrick's performances to know what was coming—the holy theater of it all. The man moved like he was walking to his own crucifixion, shoulders back, chin lifted. A martyr in a $3,000 suit.
Cameras turned back like prayer wheels. The bodies in the courtyard focused with an almost religious intensity.
Johnny went rigid beside him. Not obviously—just a subtle locking of muscles that David felt more than saw. Like watching a door seal itself.
Goldrick's voice was low but tuned for reach. Built for arenas and hearts that wanted to be told what to feel.
"Yesterday, agents stormed a house of worship. Today, they want to sell you a story."
David tasted bile. House of worship. As if Pathlight's basement full of broken kids was some kind of sanctuary.
He let the silence breathe. One beat. Two. The kind of pause David recognized from every sermon he'd been forced to sit through—that calculated hesitation that made people lean forward, desperate for the next word.
His gaze swept the crowd. Not hurried. Not uncertain. Measuring. Like he was counting souls.
"Truth is not always pretty. It doesn't always fit in a headline. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it disciplines. Sometimes it says no."
Sometimes it locks kids in basements, David thought. Sometimes it mines cryptocurrency with their exhausted bodies.
"But the truth of the Lord—" Goldrick paused, let the words hover, "—remains truth."
He folded his hands on the podium. The gesture was probably meant to look humble. To David, it looked like a card dealer stacking the deck.
"We don't apologize for that. Not now. Not ever."
From somewhere in the crowd, a teenage girl's voice rang out: "Amen!"
David's head turned before he could stop himself. There she was—Chastity Rose, positioned just behind the press line like she'd been planted there. Halter top cut low enough to make her flashing purity ring seem like mockery, skirt exactly knee-length to satisfy the church's modesty rules. The perfect billboard for how the system wanted girls to be: sexy but sexless, devoted but decorative.
She stood with hands clasped, eyes wide with the kind of awe David had seen in converts and addicts. Same difference, maybe.
Goldrick didn't look at her, but his voice swelled slightly, like her faith was fuel and he was running on fumes.
"What the so-called authorities call indoctrination, I call protection."
David felt Johnny flinch—so small anyone else would have missed it. But David knew his tells. Knew how that word 'protection' must land when you'd been protected nearly to death.
One reporter raised a hand.
Goldrick didn't call on them. Didn't even acknowledge the gesture. The hand slowly lowered.
"This is not the end. This is a beginning. A test. And we know how God uses fire—not to burn the faithful, but to refine them."
Tell that to Noel, David thought. Tell that to every kid who went into Pathlight whole and came out in pieces.
"They come with handcuffs and headlines, not because we are guilty—but because we refused to bow."
David's hand clenched around his coffee cup. The lukewarm liquid sloshed, a few drops escaping onto his already-ruined jeans. Because they refused to bow? No—because they'd been caught. Because someone had finally looked under the rock and seen what crawled there.
"Let them come. Let them sneer. They forget what happens when you crucify the innocent." Goldrick's voice rose now, finding its rhythm. "Resurrection always follows."
He turned slightly toward the cameras, knowing exactly which angle made him look most pastoral.
"To our congregation watching from home: do not be afraid. The righteous are always tried. And always vindicated."
"We were tested. We were tried. And we did not falter. That's not guilt. That's grace."
He paused. Then, with the timing of someone who'd practiced this in the mirror:
"Some who once knelt in these pews now stand with our enemies. We do not hate them. We mourn them."
The words hit David like cold water. He felt exposed suddenly, like Goldrick could see through the crowd and find him, mark him as one of the mourned. One of the lost.
Chastity wiped a tear from one cheek—whether real or performed, David couldn't tell. She nodded, lip trembling, holding the pose like she knew at least three cameras were on her.
"Give me a break," Abby muttered, just loud enough for their small circle to hear.
Micah didn't speak. His jaw was clenched so tight David worried he might crack a tooth.
But it was Johnny's reaction that made David's chest ache. He'd gone somewhere else—eyes fixed on the middle distance, body present but spirit fled. When Goldrick said "we mourn them," something in Johnny's expression cracked—just a flicker at the corner of his mouth, like he was about to laugh or sob and couldn't decide which.
His fingers drifted to his collarbone, where the blood had been. Clean now—but his skin still remembered. The gesture was unconscious, automatic. The way you touch a scar when someone mentions the knife.
He looked down, shoulders curving inward. He'd heard enough sermons to last a lifetime. Had been the subject of too many to count.
David wanted to reach for him. Wanted to grab his hand right there in front of God and everybody, cameras be damned. But he couldn't. Not here. Not with Chastity watching and reporters circling and the whole world waiting for them to prove Goldrick right about corruption.
So he just shifted slightly closer. Let their shoulders brush. A touch so small it could have been an accident, but wasn't.
Johnny didn't pull away.
Goldrick touched the podium once, like a blessing, and stepped down.
No fanfare. No spin. Just calm assurance as he walked away, leaving his words to fester in the morning air.
Behind him, the compound kept standing. Yellow tape and all.
And wasn't that always the way? David thought bitterly. The buildings survived. The institutions endured. Only the kids got broken.
Jesse Shefeld wove through the press line like he didn't care whose camera he blocked.
David saw him coming before anyone else did—that particular combination of urgency and exhaustion that meant his father had been up all night.
Probably pacing the shelter, calling hospitals, wearing a groove in the floor while David was breaking into buildings and kissing boys on baseball fields.
Someone called his name—twice—but Jesse didn't look up. He held a printout in one hand—creased, bent, ink smudged from sweat.
David recognized it even from here: his last school photo, the one where he'd almost smiled. From the district newsletter that Jesse definitely didn't subscribe to but somehow always had copies of.
The sight of it made David's throat close.
How many hours had his father spent staring at that photo, wondering if he'd see the real thing again?
Jesse's eyes locked onto him across the courtyard, and David watched something break and rebuild in his father's face.
Relief.
Anger.
Love.
Fear.
All of it at once, too fast to separate.
David stayed frozen on the concrete planter, suddenly feeling every one of his sixteen years.
Part of him wanted to run to his father like he was six again and had skinned his knee.
Part of him wanted to run away, because how could he possibly explain where he'd been, what he'd done, who he'd become in the space of one impossible night?
Jesse stopped a few feet away.
Close enough to touch.
Far enough to give David the choice.
They looked at each other—father and son, separated by three feet and a lifetime of things they'd never learned how to say.
Jesse's eyes were red-rimmed, his usual calm cracked down the middle.
He looked older than he had yesterday. Or maybe David was just seeing him clearly for the first time—not as the invincible father, but as a man who'd spent the night terrified he'd lost the only family he had left.
Then Jesse opened one arm.
Just one.
An invitation, not a command.
And David broke.
He was of the planter and in his father's arms before he could think about it, face pressed into Jesse's shoulder, breathing in the familiar smell of the shelter—dog shampoo and coffee and that particular brand of soap they bought in bulk.
No words at first—just a hug that seemed to hold the weight of everything.
Jesse's chin rested lightly on David's temple, and David could feel the tremor in his father's chest.
Could feel how hard he was working not to fall apart.
"I'm sorry," David whispered into his father's shirt.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
"Shh." Jesse's hand came up to cradle the back of David's head, the way he used to when David was small and the world was too much.
"You're here, Jisoo-yah. That's all that matters."
He said something else, too quiet for anyone else to hear. Something in Korean—not fluent, Jesse had been trying to learn for David's mother but never quite managed—but the meaning was clear.
My son.
My boy.
You're safe.
David nodded into his shoulder, not trusting his voice.
He wanted to stay here forever, in this bubble where he was just a kid who'd scared his father, not a reluctant hero or a symbol or whatever the morning was trying to make him. Movement in his peripheral vision.
Abby stood a few feet away, arms crossed tightly like she didn't want anyone to notice she was shaking. Her usual armor of sarcasm and strategy had cracked, leaving her looking exactly as young and scared as David felt.
Jesse didn't hesitate.
Didn't even pull away from David. Just extended his other arm, creating space.
"Come here, Abby." She froze—that particular stillness of someone who wasn't used to being included in family moments.
Someone who'd learned to stand on the edges and be okay with it.
"It's okay," David said, voice rough.
"He gives good hugs."
That broke something in her.
She stepped forward, let Jesse pull her into the circle.
Her face pressed against his other shoulder, and David felt her shake once—a full-body tremor like she'd been holding it in too long.
"You brave, brilliant idiots," Jesse murmured.
"What were you thinking?"
"We weren't," Abby said, muffled against his shirt.
"That was kind of the point." David felt his father's chest rumble with something that might have been a laugh or a sob.
David felt his father's chest rumble with something that might have been a laugh or a sob.
Johnny stood three feet away, shoulders rigid, watching them like he was seeing something impossible. His hands hung at his sides, fingers twitching like he wanted to reach for something but couldn't remember how.
Jesse's eyes found his over David's head.
"Johnny."
Not a command. Not a question. Just his name, spoken the way Jesse said David's name when he was hurt and trying to hide it.
Johnny's breath hitched. His eyes darted toward where his father would emerge any moment, then back to Jesse's face.
"I don't—" he started, voice rough. "My dad's—"
"Not here," Jesse said quietly. "And even if he was."
He shifted slightly, creating space without releasing David or Abby. The invitation was clear but not pressured.
For a heartbeat, Johnny stood frozen. Then something cracked in his careful composure.
He stepped forward—not into the hug exactly, but close enough that his shoulder brushed David's. Close enough to be included without being consumed.
Jesse's hand found the back of Johnny's neck—light, careful. The kind of touch that said you're safe here without demanding anything in return.
Johnny's eyes squeezed shut. He leaned into the contact for just a second, like someone remembering what comfort felt like.
Micah stood apart, bruised and tight-lipped, watching them like he was seeing something in a foreign language. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched. The loneliness rolled of him in waves.
Jesse looked up, caught his eye.
Didn't say anything. Just tilted his head slightly—an invitation that didn't require words.
Micah shook his head once, sharp. But Jesse didn't look away. Just waited, patient as always, until Micah's walls started to crack.
"I don't—" Micah started, then stopped. Swallowed.
"My family doesn't really do the whole—"
"I know," Jesse said simply. "Doesn't mean you have to stand there alone."
For a moment, Micah looked like he might bolt.
Then Jesse stepped back from the kids, moved to stand beside him instead.
Didn't touch him—Micah clearly wasn't ready for that—but close enough to matter.
Jesse's hand rested briefly between Micah's shoulder blades, so light it could be ignored if needed.
Micah flinched, then relaxed.
Just slightly.
Like a feral cat deciding maybe humans weren't all bad.
"You did good in there," Jesse said quietly.
"Your parents should be proud."
"No," Micah said, with a bitter laugh.
"They really wouldn't."
"Then I am," Jesse said.
"That enough?"
Micah didn't answer, but something in his face softened.
He let Jesse's hand stay where it was.
Michelle lingered at the edge of their strange circle, trying to look like she just happened to be standing there. Her usual perfect composure was frayed—hair escaping from her ponytail, makeup smudged, holding a coffee cup like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
Jesse caught her eye.
She lifted the cup slightly, defensive.
"I brought you a real coffee," she said, like that explained everything.
"The stuff they're serving here is basically battery acid."
Jesse studied her for a moment—this girl who'd grown up in Saul Ashford's house, who'd been shaped by the same forces that had tried to break her brother.
Who'd risked everything to help save him anyway. He took the coffee with a smile that made Michelle blink in surprise.
"Thank you," he said, and somehow made it mean more than just the coffee.
She ducked her head, but David caught the pleased flush on her cheeks. Like she wasn't used to adults thanking her for anything.
It wasn't a statement.
It wasn't a speech.
Just a huddle of broken kids and the man who'd fought for them in city council meetings no one watched.
The man who'd stood up to Saul Ashford when it mattered. Who'd never stopped warning this was coming—and had shown up anyway, to see it through.
For one breath, they stood like a family. Messy and complicated and held together by choice rather than blood, but family nevertheless.
"Whatever happens next," Jesse said, looking at each of them, "you don't face it alone. Understood?"
David nodded.
So did Abby.
Micah managed something that might have been agreement.
Michelle clutched her empty coffee cup and tried not to cry.
And then the wind shifted, carrying the sound of expensive shoes on concrete.
The moment fractured.
New footsteps cut across the square—measured, deliberate, designed to be heard. David didn't have to look to know who it was.
Only one person in Stricton walked like he was expecting applause. Commissioner Saul Ashford had arrived.
Commissioner Saul Ashford stepped to the podium with the air of a man already in control.
David watched Johnny's father approach with the same measured stride he used in their house—each step calculated to remind you who owned the ground.
No rustling papers.
No false humility.
Just the city seal projected behind him and the silent expectation that this, finally, would be the official word.
Beside David, Johnny had gone still.
Not the dissociated blankness from Goldrick's sermon, but something sharper.
Like watching a storm you knew was coming finally touch down.
Saul adjusted the mic with one gloved finger.
The leather was probably worth more than a month at the shelter.
"Yesterday," he began, voice calm as lake water, "a city-sanctioned operation concluded with the rescue of multiple at-risk minors from an illegal underground facility."
Chastity, near the front, flinched.
The first crack in her perfect faithful facade.
"No child should ever be subject to confinement, coercive therapy, or unregulated medical intervention," Saul continued. Each word landed with the weight of tested polling.
"Let me be clear: Pathlight Youth Recovery was a violation—of rights, of trust, and of decency."
David almost laughed.
Saul saying those words was like hearing a wolf lecture about vegetarianism. This was the man who'd signed of on expanded SoulWatch requirements. Who'd pushed FaithCoin integration through the school board. Who'd built the very system that made Pathlight inevitable.
Chastity's eyes narrowed. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, purity ring catching the light like a tiny accusation.
"And yet," Saul pivoted, tone warming with practiced modulation, "we must not allow the failings of one rogue program to indict an entire community of faith. Giant Faith Church, as an institution, has contributed to this city in countless measurable ways— community outreach, disaster response, spiritual care."
There it was.
The escape hatch.
The careful line between condemning the crime and protecting the system that enabled it.
"The church remains a vital partner in this city's renewal."
That flicker of anger in Chastity's eyes softened. Her spine straightened like a flower turning toward sun, and David noticed something new—sleek frames perched on her face, so thin they almost disappeared.
Already, David thought.
They're already wearing the next cage.
"This administration will not be in the business of dismantling what works simply because some exploited that structure for personal gain."
From his position of to the side, Johnny exhaled through his nose—somewhere between relief and disgust that his father wasn't going to burn down the whole system.
David leaned just slightly closer, their shoulders touching.
A risk, but a calculated one.
In the chaos of the crowd, who would notice two boys standing together?
Saul's gaze swept the assembled press like a king surveying his holdings.
"However," he continued, and David felt the word hang in the air like a blade, "this tragedy has shown us where our current systems fall short. Children disappeared. Parents were left wondering. That ends now."
He reached into his jacket—smooth, practiced—and pulled out something that caught the morning light. A pair of glasses, but not quite.
Too sleek.
Too integrated.
The frames seemed to pulse with their own subtle illumination.
"SoulLenses," Saul announced, holding them up like a communion wafer.
"The next evolution in community safety and spiritual accountability."
David's stomach dropped.
Beside him, Abby made a sound like she'd been punched.
"These devices will ensure no child goes missing again. Real-time location services. Environmental monitoring. And yes—" his smile was a father's smile, warm and terrifying, "—visual documentation to protect our youth from predatory influences."
Visual documentation.
The words hit David like ice water.
Every glance.
Every moment.
Every stolen second between him and Johnny would be recorded, analyzed, judged.
"Parents will have peace of mind. Children will have protection. And those who seek to corrupt"—his eyes swept the crowd, and for just a moment, David swore they found him—"will have nowhere to hide."
More of the crowd were wearing them now that David looked.
Not just Chastity.
A handful of teens, a few young adults. Early adopters or test subjects, their eyes hidden behind thin glass that reflected the world back doubled.
"The Pathlight victims have shown us the cost of incomplete surveillance," Saul continued.
"We failed those children by not seeing enough. That changes today."
Johnny made a sound—small, pained. His hand twitched like he wanted to reach for something.
David fought the urge to grab it.
"Thanks to the swift seizure of illegal FaithCoin assets, we are reallocating over $40 million in laundered funds to direct service initiatives." He held up a finger for each point, the SoulLenses still gleaming in his other hand: "Public trauma response units for Stricton schools."
"Permanent youth housing programs."
"Expanded mental health clinics." "Full SoulLens integration across all youth programs by end of year."
Then, after a pause—just long enough to imply what he thought of it: "...and a modest grant to Haven Animal Shelter."
The last bit was thrown in like table scraps, but David couldn't help it—his lips curled into a smile. The shelter would survive another year.
In this morning of horrors, that was something. Johnny caught the smile and his mouth twitched in response. For just a second, they shared something warm and private and theirs.
They didn't speak, but the moment said everything: We're still here. We're still us. Even if they're about to make it impossible.
Saul didn't notice.
But Chastity did.
Behind those new lenses, her eyes tracked their shared look with the precision of a targeting system. Her expression darkened—just briefly. Then, as if remembering she was on camera, or that the cameras were now in her eyes, she schooled her features back into serene faithfulness.
David felt the future closing in like a fist.
Every moment from now on would be watched, recorded, judged.
The SoulLenses would see what the SoulWatches could only guess at. No more stolen glances. No more secret meetings. No more quiet rebellions. Unless they found new ways to hide in plain sight.
Saul stepped back from the podium, still polished, still unflustered, the SoulLenses disappearing back into his jacket like a magic trick completed.
"We do not burn down temples to save a city," Saul concluded.
"We preserve what is sacred, we prosecute what is criminal—and we move forward. Together. With clear eyes and full vision."
He adjusted his cufflinks with deliberate ease, then added, almost as an afterthought: "Of course, whether Ms. Ruiz acted within the bounds of her authority is no longer a political matter. It's a legal one—and city attorneys are reviewing potential charges."
Then he stepped away.
No applause.
Just the sound of wind teasing the corners of the police tape, and the soft electronic hum of a dozen pairs of SoulLenses already recording everything.
Chastity whispered something to herself—maybe a prayer.
Maybe a threat.
Through her lenses, the green glow pulsed once, logging the moment. And in their corner of the compound, Johnny let the sun hit his face for the first time all morning. His eyes were closed, but David could see the tension in his jaw, the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
"We're fucked," Micah said quietly, voicing what they were all thinking.
Jesse's hand found David's shoulder.
Squeezed once.
A reminder: You're not alone.
Not yet.
But David could already feel the walls closing in. Could already imagine those lenses turning toward them, recording every heartbeat of deviance, every moment of love that didn't ft the approved pattern.
The revolution hadn't ended.
It had just gotten harder.