Chapter 68 Showed You The Seams
SHOWED YOU THE SEAMS
Empires - Ruelle
Kookaburra
Twenty-four hours later Valentine’s knock seems like he’s doing me a courtesy. Apparently he had sent a message to Bones’ burner phone from Tex to tell us he was coming, and so we all gathered together to wait and see what he has to say.
Two taps. A pause. One more. Measured, patient, inevitable.
He was always going to catch up to us eventually, and I don’t doubt for a second that he’s known where we are this whole time. So the question remains, what has he been doing in the days that have passed since our ‘escape’ from the facility?
I intend to find out.
The room has been wrong since yesterday.
Too tidy. Too quiet. Like the hotel itself is holding its breath.
Honey is on the bed nearest the door with a takeaway coffee he hasn’t touched.
Ghost is by the window, watching the street like it might explain something.
Nightshade and Bones are sat on one of the double beds, playing cards.
I don’t ask where they got them. Hatchet stands up before the third tap lands, already moving.
Snow is still MIA, which becomes more worrying each day.
Hatchet checks the peephole. His shoulders don’t rise. His breathing doesn’t change. He turns to me once, waiting. Not asking. Tracking.
I don’t want this. But that doesn’t matter. I nod and Hatchet unlocks the door.
Valentine steps in without hesitation, as if the threshold is an administrative detail. He carries nothing. No bag. No folder. No visible weapon – though of course that doesn’t mean he isn’t armed. He doesn’t scan the room like someone expecting trouble. His eyes settle on me immediately and hold.
“Kayla,” he says, voice even. But my name sounds like a label when he says it. Something printed. Something filed.
Hatchet closes the door behind him, controlled, quiet. Then he moves the pad of paper closer to the edge of the table. The pen lies across it, straight as a rule.
Valentine’s gaze flicks to Hatchet and away, a brief acknowledgement that feels like a professional courtesy. I hate him for it.
“Thank you for allowing me in,” Valentine says.
He doesn’t mean it. It’s form. It’s bureaucracy wearing skin.
“What do you want?” I ask.
Valentine’s mouth shifts, almost relieved. Not because I’m hostile. Because I’ve removed the need for small talk. No more dancing around the issue. And – I hope – no more bullshit.
“To correct a misunderstanding,” he says. “I believe I have some intel that can fill in the blanks for you. And we can work together to figure out next steps.”
Honey’s posture tightens by a fraction. Ghost’s attention sharpens. Hatchet watches Valentine without blinking.
“A misunderstanding,” I repeat.
“Yes.” Valentine’s voice stays level. “You’ve made decisions based on incomplete information. I’m here to ensure you are not acting under false pretences.”
“Then speak,” I say.
Valentine inclines his head, like I’ve granted him something he already owned.
“You have not been told what you are,” he says.
The words make my skin prickle. I keep my face still.
“You have heard the term ARK,” Valentine continues.
It isn’t a question. It’s an assessment.
I hold his gaze. “No.” A lie. We both know it. But he doesn’t rise to my bait.
Ghost’s eyes flick sideways, quick, checking whether that’s true.
Valentine nods once, filing it away.
“ARK,” he says. Clean. Precise. “Autonomous Response Killer. It’s our name for you. All of you.”
The title is too neat. Too clinical. It slides into the room and sticks to the walls.
“You’re naming us like weapons,” I say.
Valentine’s expression doesn’t change. “You have been treated – raised – as weapons. The name merely reflects the practice.”
Hatchet’s pen moves on the pad, one short line, then stops. He doesn’t turn it yet.
“An ARK is designed to respond without hesitation,” Valentine continues, as if he’s explaining a procedure. “To perceive threat, to neutralise it, to operate in conditions that destabilise ordinary subjects. The autonomy is…limited. The name is aspirational.”
“Aspirational,” Ghost repeats softly, like he’s tasting the word.
Valentine doesn’t glance at him. His eyes stay on me.
“You and the others are all ARKs, like I said,” he says.
My stomach drops, sharp and immediate. I refuse to let it show.
“No,” I argue firmly. “We’re people.”
Valentine’s gaze remains steady. “You are both. People and killers. But you were created as weapons.”
Hatchet turns the pad toward me.
Asset class.
I swallow hard. I keep my voice flat.
“How many?”
Valentine pauses just long enough to make it clear he’s choosing restraint. “Enough.”
It’s a wall in one word.
“You said you were correcting a misunderstanding,” I say. “What misunderstanding?”
“That you are singular,” Valentine replies. “That you were an anomaly. A failure of containment.”
My pulse stutters. Honey shifts subtly, moving closer without moving closer. Presence, not touch.
“You are not the first,” Valentine says. “You are not unique. You are not a mistake or an accident. Every single thing that has happened to you – in your entire lifetime Kayla – was deliberate.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides. “I escaped. I killed. I chose to do those things. No one made me.”
Valentine’s expression stays composed. “You left a contained environment. You moved beyond a boundary. That is not the same as escape.”
“It is when they were going to take my baby then kill me,” I snap.
Valentine exhales, faint and controlled, like he’s dealing with a stubborn misconception.
“Kayla,” he says, and my name carries a weight this time. Not affection. Not anger. Instruction. “This is not personal.”
I let out a short laugh that holds no humour. “Everything about this is personal.”
Valentine doesn’t react.
“Your biological mother is Seytan,” he says.
No lead-in. No softening. The sentence drops into the room like a bolt thrown.
For a moment, sound goes distant. The hotel, the city outside, even my own breathing. It’s all pushed back by the sheer wrongness of the statement.
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
Seytan.
Mother.
“No,” I manage, and it isn’t an argument. It’s a reflex.
Valentine waits. Patient, like I’m a slow-loading file.
“You’re lying,” I say.
“I am not,” he replies.
My throat tightens. I can feel my skin going cold from the inside out.
“And I,” Valentine says, “am your father.”
That one is worse. Not bigger. Worse. Because it reaches into the part of my life that still feels…mine.
“No,” I say, louder. “No. I remember my parents.”
Valentine doesn’t blink.
“I remember them,” I insist, words tumbling faster now. “I remember our house. I remember my mum. My dad. I remember my brother.”
The memory flashes bright, stubborn. A kitchen smell. A hallway light. A laugh. A hand ruffling my hair. A voice calling me in.
“Rat is your brother.”
I shake my head again. “You’re wrong. I remember an older brother,” I add, cutting my eyes at him. “And it definitely wasn’t Rat.”
Valentine’s gaze doesn’t shift. “You remember what you were given to remember.”
Rage flares hot under my skin. I take a step forward before I can stop myself. “You don’t get to rewrite my life,” I snarl.
“I am not rewriting it,” Valentine says. “I am correcting context. Your memories are deliberately…inaccurate and it has been decided that the time is right to correct that.”
“Explain,” I demand. The word comes out low and hard, a command I don’t usually give to anyone.
Valentine’s expression softens by a fraction. Not kindness. Certainty. “There is more you do not understand than you currently have language for,” he says.
Ghost’s head tilts, like he hates the sentence for being true. Hatchet writes quickly, then turns the pad toward Valentine.
Say it plain.
Valentine glances at the pad and nods once, as if he respects Hatchet for insisting on clarity.
“Plain, then,” he says. He pauses. Not for drama. For precision. “You were raised by a foster family,” Valentine says.
The word hits wrong. Foster. A label that belongs to other people’s stories, other people’s paperwork, not mine.
“No,” I say, too quickly.
“Yes,” Valentine replies, gentle and immovable. “You were placed in care deliberately. With a mother, a father, and three brothers. Foster brothers. No blood relations.”
Placed. Like an object. Like a file moved from one cabinet to another.
“They loved me,” I say, and it comes out like an accusation. Like proof I can throw at him. Even though I know it’s a lie. What they did to me…what I remember…it isn’t love. Not even close. And I don’t remember three brothers. Just the one.
Valentine nods. “I have no doubt. That was part of the design.”
So he doesn’t know the truth then? Or he’s lying too? Is this one giant game of Blind Man’s Bluff?
I can’t tell. And I hate that I can’t tell.
The room goes colder. Honey’s jaw tightens. Ghost’s gaze sharpens into something flat and dangerous. I feel something inside me tear, slow and quiet. Not a dramatic break. A steady rip of certainty.
“You’re saying my childhood was…what?” I ask, voice tight. “A set? Like something from the fucking Truman Show!”
“A variable,” Valentine corrects softly.
“A variable,” I repeat, numbness creeping in around the edges. I hate this scientific speak, like I’m a fucking experiment.
Hatchet’s pen scratches again. He turns the pad toward me.
All of us?
I didn’t consider that.
Valentine answers without hesitation. “All of you. Every ARK was raised outside the primary facility. Embedded into family structures. Different environments. Different pressures. Different attachments. Different catalysts. The data was collected. The outcomes were measured. Everything was controlled, planned, engineered and executed with expert precision. This whole operation was decades in the making. We’re talking generations. ”
He says it like he’s describing weather.
“So my parents were paid,” I spit.
Valentine’s gaze holds. “Vetted. Recruited. Selected.”