Chapter 38 Unstable Variable My Arse #2
Valentine’s voice stays level, but the air shifts. “Truth makes you irrelevant. We tried it your way, it didn’t work. Your teams have not only failed to bring her back, you have failed to remove her from the Arks’ memories. You failed. And now we do things my way.”
For a second, Seytan looks like she might tear his throat out with her teeth.
Then her smile returns, thinner. “Enjoy your delusions of control.”
Valentine faces us again. “Here are your conditions.”
He gestures and a staff member wheels in a tray.
Metal. Sterile. Needles.
A click in my skull like a lock turning.
Ghost makes a small sound – fear, anger, both.
“Chips,” Bones murmurs. Not surprised. Just confirming.
Valentine nods once. “Tracking. Biometric monitoring. Compliance enforcement.”
“What’s different to the ones currently embedded in our skulls?”
“Version 2.0. Additional…perks.”
Honey stands so fast his chair scrapes. Guards surge.
I don’t move.
Because I recognise the shape of this.
This is the leash.
Valentine continues as if Honey didn’t exist. “You will not travel outside designated zones. You will not contact unauthorised parties. You will not attempt to remove the implants.”
Snow’s grin widens. “And if we do?”
Valentine looks at him. “You already know.”
Snow’s grin falters. So he’s seen it too. The roof click. The shutdown. The pain behind the eyes like a bomb.
Ghost swallows hard. “You’ll…do that?”
Valentine’s voice is calm. “If required.”
Seytan watches us with interest now, like she’s enjoying this part.
“This is barbaric,” Honey snaps. “You can’t—”
Valentine’s gaze flicks to him. “Sit.”
Honey bristles.
Hatchet’s hands flex once, slow, like he’s imagining the easiest way to split a skull.
Bones’s voice is quiet. “You’re deploying us to find Kayla.”
Valentine doesn’t answer immediately.
That pause is loaded.
It’s either confirmation, or it’s a trap to see who bites.
I bite anyway.
“Say it,” I growl. “Use us. Admit it.”
Valentine’s eyes meet mine. “Yes.”
The word is clean. No apology. No shame.
Seytan exhales through her nose, amused.
Valentine continues, voice even. “We have reason to believe Kayla is alive. We have reason to believe she is being held off-grid. We have reason to believe the people who took her have resources we cannot match alone.”
Bones tilts his head. “And you think we can.”
Valentine’s gaze sweeps over us. “I know you can.”
He gestures again. “You will receive limited information. You will work through designated channels. You will report to me.”
Honey laughs, sharp. “Fuck off.”
Valentine looks at him as if he’s watching a predictable machine. “You will.”
Seytan steps forward finally, unable to resist. Her voice is silky. “And if you find her…you bring her back.”
My blood goes hot.
I lunge.
Two guards catch my arms.
Not fast enough to stop me from leaning forward, eyes burning into Seytan’s face.
“You don’t touch her,” I snarl.
Seytan smiles like she’s being flirted with. “She is my daughter.”
Valentine’s voice cuts in. “She is not returning to this facility.”
Seytan’s smile falters.
“What?” she says, too sharp.
Valentine doesn’t look at her. “That is not the plan.”
Seytan’s composure cracks for a heartbeat. “You don’t get to decide—”
Valentine turns his head. “I do.”
The silence that follows is thick.
Seytan’s hands clench at her sides. Her eyes glint with something dark.
Valentine speaks to us again, as if she isn’t there. “Your job is identification and retrieval. Locate and confirm.”
“Confirm what?” Bones asks.
Valentine’s gaze holds steady. “Confirm who has her. Confirm what they want. Confirm whether she is compromised.”
The word compromised lands wrong. Cold. Clinical. Not ‘hurt’ or ‘safe’. Compromised.
I pull against the guards until their grips bite into muscle.
“If she’s hurt—” I start.
Valentine’s eyes don’t move. “Then we respond.”
“How?” Ghost whispers.
Valentine’s expression is unreadable. “With force.”
Honey’s smile returns, bright and savage. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
Valentine’s gaze flicks to Honey. “Don’t confuse permission with friendship.”
Honey’s grin widens. “Don’t confuse yourself with God.”
Valentine holds his gaze a beat too long. Then, very quietly, he says, “I don’t.”
And in that moment, I believe him.
Because gods take credit.
Valentine takes orders.
That is somehow worse.
The implant is done in a side room.
One by one. Not together. Never together. They understand group cohesion is a threat.
They do mine last.
Valentine is there when I sit in the chair.
No restraints. No need.
The clinician wipes my neck with antiseptic. The smell makes my stomach twist.
Valentine speaks without looking at me. “You can make this easier.”
I bare my teeth. “By cooperating.”
“By not killing my staff,” he says calmly. “The others look to you for their cues. You could lead by example.”
My laugh is low. “You keep calling Kayla an objective. Don’t pretend you care about your staff.”
Valentine turns his head slightly. “This isn’t about caring.”
“Then what is it about?”
Valentine’s eyes meet mine. For the first time, there’s something raw behind the control – faint, fast, immediately buried. “Not losing her twice,” he says.
The words hit me like a fist.
Before I can speak, the clinician injects. Pain blooms at the base of my skull – sharp and white – then fades into a deep ache. A leash clicking into place.
I breathe through it, slow, controlled, refusing to give them the satisfaction of a reaction.
Valentine watches.
When it’s done, the clinician steps back.
Valentine leans closer, voice low enough that only I can hear.
“You will get one thing straight,” he says. “You are not the only one who will burn the world for her.”
My pulse hammers.
He steps away as if he never spoke.
As if he never revealed anything.
And that’s how I know I can’t trust him.
Because he just proved he is capable of feeling.
And yet he is still choosing function.
They move us through private corridors. Service lifts. Locked doors that open with Valentine’s access, not Seytan’s.
We emerge not onto the roof, but onto a lower landing where a helicopter waits behind fencing and floodlights.
Not the same pad. Not the same theatre. This is extraction, not escape.
The wind hits my face like a slap. Salt air. Cold metal. Rotor wash. Freedom-shaped. But still a leash.
Guards funnel us toward the chopper in pairs.
Honey goes first, practically vibrating with the desire to fight the sky. Snow follows, grinning like he’s already planning something stupid. Ghost limps, jaw clenched, eyes darting. Hatchet moves like a shadow. Bones pauses just long enough to scan the perimeter, then boards.
I’m last.
Valentine stops me at the threshold with one hand, light on my chest. Seytan stands a few metres back, watching like she’s at a viewing gallery. Her smile is a promise.
Valentine’s voice is calm. “Do not mistake this for release.”
I lean in close, teeth bared. “Do not mistake me for controllable. You may have leashed me, but I’m nobody’s tamed pet.”
Valentine’s eyes hold mine. “I don’t.”
He steps back and I board.
The cabin is tight. Six men packed together with the smell of oil and metal and restrained violence. Valentine climbs in last, settling opposite us like he’s taking a seat in a meeting. Not a flight. A deployment briefing.
The rotor whine rises. The island falls away beneath us. For a second, the water is all I can see – black and endless. And then the mainland appears on the horizon, a smear of lights like a mouth full of teeth.
Ghost whispers, barely audible over the engine, “We’re actually leaving.”
I know why he seems so shocked. It felt like this day would never come. I thought Seytan was going to keep us locked up until we died. Or at least until she found Kayla and brought her back here herself.
Honey laughs softly. “Yeah. For now.”
Bones watches Valentine. “Where are we going?”
Valentine doesn’t look out the window. Doesn’t watch the island shrink. Doesn’t watch Seytan become a dot and then nothing.
His focus is forward.
“Containment quarters,” he says. “Designated shelter. You will be supervised.”
Snow tilts his head. “So a new prison but on solid ground.”
Valentine’s gaze flicks to him. “Call it whatever helps you behave.”
My hands flex on my knees. The implant aches like a bruise under bone. It hums under my skin like a reminder: hell doesn’t need walls if it’s inside your body.
I close my eyes and breathe and let my emotions sharpen to a point, planning what I’ll do the moment I find her.
Kayla is out there. She is not a variable. She is not an objective. And she is mine.
If Valentine is truly on our side, he’ll help me get her back…if he isn’t—
Then he’s just another thing in my way.
Because if they think they’re deploying monsters and controlling the direction they’ve forgotten something basic: Monsters don’t hunt on command.
They hunt what they want.
And what I want is Kayla.
Everything else can burn.