“Yourbest friendChester Locke?” Cass cuts in, dread flooding through him. “He interrogated you?”
JJ’s posture is rigid. “Yes.”
Alarm bells clang in Cass’s head. He and JJ have talked about the Sanctum before, of course. JJ has been actively trying to unravel a lot of their conditioning, wrestling with the worldview that was drilled into him from ten years old, and sometimes, he uses Cass as his sounding board.
But they’ve never talked about JJ’s time in the Sanctum’s prison. JJ hasn’t brought it up, and Cass wasn’t about to push him. In fact, this is the first time JJ has mentioned it, even obliquely.
It’s certainly the first time he’s mentioned that Chester Locke—the blond hunter who teased JJ about his nonexistent boyfriend while they trained together—was one of his interrogators. Dutifully, Cass opens his mouth to give JJ his usual line, that he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to.
Instead, what comes out is, “Please talk to me.”
JJ’s eyes fly up to meet his, startled. Cass holds his breath, praying that he said the right thing.
For a few long seconds, silence stretches out between them.
And then, slowly, JJ leans against the counter. Stares down at the floor. “It wasn’t the first time.”
Cass swallows hard. Matches JJ’s pose, putting them shoulder to shoulder. Not touching JJ, not even looking at him, but staying close. “Not the first time…?”
“That he interrogated me. Tortured me.” JJ’s voice is quiet. “When we were sixteen, we had our final exams—vocation-specific rites of passage to be accepted into the adult hunting community. Strike teams are usually given a high-priority mission, so—so the Sanctum sent us after the demons who murdered my family. We succeeded.”
Cass remembers reading that in JJ’s file. He didn’t realize it was a test, though. Somehow, the knowledge leaves a bad taste in his mouth. “How’d you feel about that?”
“Relieved. Numb. Disappointed.” JJ’s fingers clench and relax. “I knew that killing them wouldn’t bring my family back. But I—I think part of me expected more than what I got.”
Cass’s chest hurts. “That’s hard.”
“I survived.Wesurvived.” He takes a deep breath. “Chester’s final exam was less than a week later. For interrogators, there are usually three options: a high-profile demon, a high-profile dissident, or—or a hunter whopretendsto be a dissident. Someone who volunteers to test their mettle under torture.”
Bile rises in Cass’s throat. “You volunteered?”
JJ hesitates. “Yes and no. The Council told me it would reflect well on both meandChester if I agreed, so—so I did. But I also felt like I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“You didn’t.” When JJ’s eyes flicker over to Cass, confused, he adds, “They purposefully created a situation where you had to prove your worth—and refusing would’ve been unthinkable. That wasn’t a choice. It was the illusion of one.”
Slowly, JJ nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I think that was it. So I told them I’d do it, and—” He cuts himself off. “When you volunteer as a fake dissident, the interrogator doesn’tknowyou’re faking it. They think it’s real. And the timing was perfect—Sawyer and Naomi disappeared just after Kappa’s final exam, so the Council told Chester that they’d brainwashed me. That I’d been caught trying to defect and join them. Councilwoman Nasir gave me a fake address to hide and everything.”
Cass doesn’t even want to ask. “And then?”
“And then Chester tortured me for nine hours straight.”
Tears sting behind Cass’s eyes. “JJ.”
“It wasn’t his fault.” JJ’s eyes find Cass’s again, cracked and desperate. Begging him to understand. “Okay? It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t want to. But the Council ordered him to, and he thought Sawyer and Naomi were manipulating me, and—and he had to do it. Hehadto.”
Cass’s stomach roils. He wants to be angry at Chester,furiousthat he hurt JJ, livid that he tortured his best friend just because his superiors told him to?—
“Just following orders” wasn’t enough to escape punishment during the Nuremberg trials, and it certainly isn’t enough to earn Cass’s forgiveness.
But after everything JJ has told Cass about how he and Chester were treated in the Sanctum, there’s part of Cass that can understand it. Understand Chester’s warped loyalty to the very system that was oppressing him, understand his grief and panic at the thought of JJ being tricked into leaving him behind.
Cass can understand why a scared, brainwashed teenager would torture his best friend. He doesn’tlikeit, but he can understand it. “It was the illusion of a choice,” he says eventually. “Just like with you. You both did what you had to do to survive.”
Relief flashes across JJ’s face. “Yes. Yes, exactly.”
“And afterward?” Cass searches JJ’s face. “After the nine hours were over?”
JJ’s soft expression falters. “Chester passed his final exam. The spellcasters in the infirmary healed me. And wedidget more respect after that, but—” He lets out a short, bitter laugh. “But it didn’t last long. The next time either of us stepped a toe out of line, we were right back where we started. It takesyearsto build up a reputation in the Sanctum, but only seconds for it to come crashing down.”
