“Wait,” he said, his voice tight with urgency. “You have to tell me more. I have no clue what really happened in there—I need to understand. What kind of tests were they?”

His question hung in the air, thick with the weight of unanswered truths.

Brigid met his gaze, her expression unreadable, and for a long moment, she simply studied him, as if deciding just how much he was ready to hear.

Brigid exhaled slowly, her gaze fixed on Jayden with the weight of someone ...