Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
CLAIRE
Feeling bolstered with my new family at my side, I let a small smile curl at the edges of my lips. “I just wanted a chance to survive,” I say. This time without any hesitancy or trembling in my voice.
“What have you done?” he screams, voice raw.
“What is happening?” His eyes are wide and his jaw is open as he attempts to stop whatever is going on on the computer.
I let him rage, let his hands flail over the keyboard, trying so desperately to stop the files transferring.
I’ve never seen him like this. Not even in his most violent moments.
His entire world, everything he thought was untouchable, is unraveling before his eyes.
A bead of sweat runs down his temple and he slams a fist onto his desk.
“No! No! This can’t—” His voice breaks, panic slicing through the arrogance he always wore so confidently.
“You made me think I was trapped. But the truth is, I’ve never been yours. Not really.” There’s no haze now as I speak to him.
He stumbles back, as though he is only now registering everyone else in the room with us. “You—no. This isn’t possible. That USB…”
“Is still the USB I stole from you, just upgraded a bit, courtesy of the FBI,” I interrupt.
“Consider this a gift for welcoming me home one last time. Everything you’ve built, everything you thought you owned…
it’s already being taken apart. And every last one of you is going down with it.
” I take a step closer, watching him realize he’s been outplayed.
“You wanted me obedient, dependent, and scared. But fear isn’t control.
Knowledge is. And you taught me exactly how to use it. ”
He collapses back against the desk, chest heaving, eyes darting to the USB, but it’s too late.
The files have already gone, the trap is complete, and we now have even more evidence of his operations than we did before.
And for the first time in years, he’s powerless.
“You feel it now, don’t you? That helpless, crawling panic…
The way it eats at you when there’s nothing you do can stop it.
That’s what it’s been like for me. For all of those other children. For all these years. And now…you know.”