“Rejection of reality. Your father, out there running around with other women while his son runs around with boys. An obvious pattern. A weakness that’s part of your emotional map, and it should be the first thing you tackle during Expulsion.”

Mom refused to admit to her own mother about Dad’s girlfriends and drinking, but she told Briggs? She is so desperate for me not to be me—desperate for any explanation other than the truth—that she has drawn this absolute stranger into our family’s most painful, private moments. I don’t even know what to say back to him other than “NOPE.”

“Expulsion is about recognizing patterns so you can break them,” Briggs adds. “Which is why, in the end, you’ll need to take responsibility for your son.”

“My…what?”

“Avery Woodbine. You’ve let him go, haven’t you?”

The baby. The Goddamn baby again.

I drop the Expulsion Diary to the floor with a thwap. Briggs glances at the notebook, then at me before withdrawing a piece of crisply folded paper from his Evidence Folder of the Damned. He unfurls it in front of me like a magician would present the Ace of Spades—nothing up my sleeves!—and when I recognize the paper, my hands shake with rage.

Ink-dark baby footprints adorn the official document: a birth certificate.

Avery Woodbine’s birth certificate. His name is clearly visible beneath the footprints.

My head throbs, as Briggs’s next instruction confirms my worst, plummeting, odious fear: “Before this is over,” he says, “you will sign this as Avery’s father.”

“Vicky gave this to you…?” I gasp, choking on the very thought that my best friend in the world is in on this relentless conspiracy against me. Who else is left to betray me—is Ario next?

“No, this is a copy. Your mum got the original from Vicky’s mum, who is equally eager to see her grandson have a father. This won’t be an official record of your paternity of the child; that’ll come later once you’re home. But consider this a symbolic gesture of your commitment.”

“So, does Vicky know anything about this...? Me coming here?”

“No, but your mum is positive that when you return with the signed copy, Vicky’s relief and gratitude will have made this whole ordeal worth it.”

A sip of breath returns to my lungs. Vicky isn’t part of my kidnapping. Thank God for small favors. “The baby’s already born,” I say. “Isn’t it late to be signing that? Don’t you have to kinda do it, I don’t know…on the day?”

“Mums don’t sign. Obviously, they gave birth, the hospital saw it for themselves. But when the couple isn’t married, signing a birth certificate is how they establish who the dad is. The sooner the better, but it can be signed any time. One signature from you, and the deal is done.”

Briggs waves Avery’s birth certificate like some enticing coupon. A white-hot headache grips my skull. I can almost hear it thudding in my ears. Mom literally snuck a picture of a little boy’s birth certificate, copied it at FedEx, and then handed it to a man whom she’d just paid a fortune to kidnap her own son to a Costa Rican island. She has finally crossed the line—the lengths she’ll go to support this idiotic conspiracy theory have officially surpassed my ability to understand. How long am I going to be arguing this?