Chapter 68 Showed You The Seams #2
I hate the way he refuses to use words that let me aim my anger properly.
“They didn’t know?” I ask, and I don’t know whether it’s hope or accusation.
Valentine’s pause is slight, clinical. “Some knew more than others.”
My lungs refuse to expand properly. I take a shallow breath, then another.
“My brother,” I say. “The one I remember.”
Valentine nods, as if he’s been waiting for this question.
“He was not your biological sibling,” he says. “He was part of the placement. A…stabilising factor. A bond you would do anything to protect.”
My stomach twists. The memory flashes again, bright and stubborn, but now it shifts at the edges. Not the events. The meaning. A brother-shaped anchor.
Given. Not born.
Are the others reeling like me? Is this as much a shock to them as it is to me? Are their whole worlds imploding too?
“And Rat,” I say, forcing the word out. “You said he’s my brother.”
“Yes,” Valentine replies. “Biologically.”
The implication is immediate and sickening. Same mother. Same father. Same system. Different path.
“But Rat is…gone. Dead?” I try to recall what Seytan said his punishment was when he attacked that staff member but my brain has lost its sharp edge.
I don’t let my face move. I can’t. Stillness locks over me like armour.
“He was meant to be neutralised, yes, but it recently came to my attention that Seytan, working with Calloway at the time, decided to spare him and keep him as…a pet of sorts, maybe.”
“So he’s still on the island with Seytan?”
Valentine shakes his head. “He left with you and Callaway. No idea why, other than assuming he somehow found out about your connection to him. He’s been known to form…attachments. However, when we arrived at the facility there was no sign of him, and despite my searching for him, he’s in the wind.”
Memories swirl like smoke ghosts, teasing me, just out of reach. Slipping through my fingers as I try to focus on them. A voice, the doctor, giving a sharp order to…someone. “Do not touch her. I mean it. She needs to heal. You’re only here to watch over her tonight.”
Those times I thought there was someone in my room. The smell. The feel of a burning touch on my skin. Dark claw-like nightmares reaching for me in the dead of night.
“I feel sick.”
Ghost finally speaks, voice quiet. “And why are you telling her this now?”
Valentine looks at him, polite, almost patient. “Because she is making choices under the belief that she escaped something. That she is outside the system.”
His eyes return to me.
“You are not outside it,” Valentine says. “You are moving through a phase you do not understand. Even the wider world is part of the board game, you’ve just moved onto a different level.”
“So this is all part of their plan?”
“Yes.”
“Seytan’s or the Director’s? And if they’re on the same side, why do they have different plans for me?”
“That’s complicated.”
“Fucking uncomplicate it for us then.”
“Your pregnancy was not sanctioned by the Director. Seytan intervened and went against orders. She wants the glory of successfully completing the next stage of the project.”
Hatchet’s fingers tighten around his pen. He writes something, scratches it out, writes again. He turns the pad toward me.
Tell her the truth.
Valentine’s gaze flicks to the pad, then back to me.
“This is the truth,” he says. “Seytan didn’t know Kayla was pregnant until she was already gone from the island – Calloway didn’t reveal that information when she was supposed to – but it was always Seytan’s goal. She wanted to be responsible for raising the next generation of ARKs.”
I can’t find rage now. Rage requires a target you can hit. All I can see is structure. Layers. A machine built around me long before I had teeth.
“You expect me to accept this,” I say.
Valentine’s expression softens by a fraction again. Not warmth. Something colder. Final.
“I expect you to recognise it,” he replies.
“Acceptance is optional.” He takes a small breath, then says the thing he came to say, the thesis he’s been carrying like a stamped document.
“You were never meant to escape,” Valentine says.
“Not really. Not forever. Calloway really did intend to help you, it would seem. But she just put her faith in the wrong person, and the Director intervened. Because once he knew you were pregnant, he knew you were too great an asset to lose.”
My body goes still. Not by choice. By instinct. The kind of stillness that keeps you alive when movement becomes a liability.
Valentine’s voice remains calm, almost relieved, like he’s been waiting a long time to stop pretending. “You were meant to understand.”
The silence that follows is complete.
Too quiet. Too ordered.
And I can’t tell whether the hotel has always been this sterile, or whether the world has simply rearranged itself around a truth I can no longer unsee.
The silence stretches.
Not the brittle kind that demands to be broken, but the heavy, institutional quiet that feels designed. Like a room after a verdict has been read and no one’s quite sure what they’re allowed to do with their hands.
Valentine doesn’t move. He doesn’t press. He doesn’t soften what he’s said. He stands there with the patience of a man who believes time will do the rest of the work for him.
Honey is the first to shift. Just a fraction. A subtle adjustment of weight that puts him closer without crossing a line. He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t speak. He’s there in the way you brace a wall before it cracks.
Hatchet’s gaze never leaves Valentine. His pen is still clenched between his fingers, white-knuckled now, but the pad remains blank. There’s nothing left to clarify.
Ghost watches me, not Valentine. Like he’s checking for signs of fracture. Like he knows what stillness like this usually precedes.
Valentine finally exhales.
“I did not come to threaten you,” he says, as if anyone has accused him of it. “I came because you were approaching a conclusion that would have cost you time.”
I blink once. It feels deliberate, like I have to remind my body how to perform basic functions.
“Time for what?” I ask.
“For understanding,” Valentine replies. “Before you return.”
The word lands differently now.
Return.
Not go back. Not infiltrate. Not confront.
Return.
“You assume I’m going,” I say.
Valentine’s mouth curves, almost imperceptibly. Not a smile. Recognition. “I am aware you are,” he says. “There have been discussions.”
So the walls have ears.
Something sharp moves under my ribs. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I don’t need to,” he says calmly. “You already have.”
I open my mouth to argue. Nothing comes out. Because the truth is sitting there, heavy and undeniable: the island is no longer just a place. It’s the only remaining archive. The one place that holds answers Valentine has chosen not to give me here.
Valentine studies me for a moment, like he’s recalibrating how much truth I can withstand.
“I should be clear,” he says finally. “If the Director wanted you retrieved, you would already be on a plane. Sedated. Separated. Your child catalogued as a future variable.”
My stomach turns, sharp and immediate.
“That hasn’t happened,” Valentine continues, unruffled. “Because force would destroy the data he’s interested in now.”
“What data?” I ask.
“Choice,” he says simply. “Volition. Whether an ARK – knowing what she is – will still return.”
The room goes very still.
“The island isn’t a prison anymore,” Valentine says. “It’s a filter. You don’t get taken there. You earn your way back. And if you do, you’re not returned as an asset.”
My pulse hammers. “Then as what?”
“As someone worth an audience,” Valentine replies. “With the Director.”
The silence is weighted.
“You won’t get near him from the outside,” he adds. “Not ever. The asylum is the only place where hierarchy still matters, where proximity is earned, not seized. Where answers are given to those who survive long enough – and strategically enough – to ask the right questions.”
“And if I don’t go back?” I ask.
Valentine doesn’t hesitate. “Then eventually you’ll be retrieved anyway,” he says. “Only then, the terms won’t be negotiable. Your child won’t stay with you. And whatever you still think you’re owed – truth, agency, revenge – that will no longer be relevant.”
He meets my gaze, steady and unapologetic.
“This is the last moment where returning is something you choose,” he says. “And choice, Kayla, is the only thing left that still belongs to you.”
My jaw tightens. “So going back is the only way I ever get near him?”
Valentine’s gaze sharpens, just slightly. Not interest. Precision. “It’s the only way,” he says, “you stay intact long enough to matter.”
The words slot into place with sickening ease.
“You didn’t explain everything,” I say finally.
“No,” Valentine agrees. “That would be counterproductive.”
“To what?” Ghost asks quietly.
Valentine turns to him. “To autonomy.”
The word hangs there, obscene in its irony.
“You want me to choose,” I say.
“I want you to understand the choice you’re already making,” Valentine replies. “There is a difference.”
Hatchet’s pen moves at last. Slow. Controlled. He writes three words and turns the pad so only I can see.
He’s not finished.
I know.
“You kept things from me,” I say, voice steady despite the static running through my veins.
“Yes.”
“You let me believe—”
“Yes.”
“You watched—”
“Yes.”
The admissions come easily. Freely. That’s what terrifies me.
“And now,” I say, “you expect me to believe you’re telling the truth.”
Valentine’s gaze holds mine, unwavering. “No,” he says. “I expect you to recognise consistency.”
I let out a slow breath through my nose. “You think this was mercy,” I say.
He nods once. “I do.”
I laugh then. Not sharply. Not hysterically. Just a soft, disbelieving sound that scrapes on the way out.
“You tore my life open,” I say.
“No,” Valentine corrects. “I showed you the seams.”
I still again. Because he’s right. Not about the morality. Not about the justification. But about the feeling.
Nothing he’s said feels new. It feels like something I’ve been circling for years without language. The sense that my life has always been slightly misaligned, like furniture bolted to the floor at angles that don’t quite make sense until you realise the room wasn’t meant to be comfortable.
“You’re not done with us,” I say.
Valentine doesn’t deny it. “No,” he says. “But nor are you finished with us.”
Honey’s breath hitches once. Just once.
“That wasn’t your choice,” he says, finally.
Valentine turns his attention to him. “No,” he agrees. “It was not.”
The honesty is surgical.
Valentine checks his watch. The gesture is mundane. Infuriating.
“I will not stay,” he says. “You have what you need for now.”
I lift my chin. “And if I don’t care about answers and revenge and meeting the Director?”
Valentine meets my gaze, calm as ever.
“Then you will spend the rest of your life reacting to something you never fully understood,” he says. “That would be a waste of you and everything you have the potential to become.”
He steps toward the door.
Hatchet shifts, blocking the path just enough to make a point. Valentine stops, unbothered.
“Will you hurt her again?” Ghost asks.
Valentine considers the question seriously. I’ll give him that.
“No,” he says. “Not unnecessarily.”
Hatchet steps aside.
Valentine opens the door, pauses on the threshold, and looks back at me one last time.
“You were never meant to escape,” he repeats, softer now. Not as a verdict. As a fact. “You were meant to understand.”
Then his gaze shifts.
Not to the room. Not to the group.
To Nightshade.
A beat.
A nod that doesn’t belong here. Too calm. Too familiar.
“Thank you for waiting,” Valentine says mildly. “For letting me tell her.”
The words don’t register all at once.
They sound all wrong – out of order – like my brain refuses to assemble them properly.
Waiting.
Letting.
Nightshade doesn’t move.
Doesn’t speak.
Doesn’t look surprised.
And that’s when it hits.
Not the revelation. Not Valentine’s voice. Not the implications spiralling outward.
Him.
The stillness I thought was restraint. The silence I read as loyalty. The way he’s been watching me – not lost, not blindsided, but…contained.
Managed.
My chest tightens. Something sharp twists under my ribs.
“You knew,” I accuse.
The words don’t shake. That’s worse.
Nightshade’s eyes flick to mine.
Just once.
And in that instant I see it – not guilt, not defiance, not even apology.
Calculation.
Valentine steps out.
The door closes behind him.
The lock clicks.
The sound is final in a way nothing else has been.
No one moves.
No one speaks.
The room holds its breath, but I can’t.
Because the truth isn’t just that my life was engineered. It’s that when the moment came – when it mattered – Nightshade chose the system over me.
And whatever answers are left…
They’re going to cost me something else to get them.
My heart.