Chapter Eleven
~ The Truth ~
Kit
I stand frozen on the far side of the room, arms wrapped tightly around myself, staring at the coffee table like it’s a loaded gun.
The folder sits there, innocent-looking under the low lamplight.
From this distance I can’t make out any details, just the vague shape of papers and photographs spread across the dark wood.
It could be anything. My stomach twists with a sick, crawling dread.
I already know, deep in my bones, that I’m not going to like what I see.
I take one shaky step toward it, then stop. “No,” I mutter under my breath, the word barely audible.
I turn my back on the table completely, chewing hard on the cuff of my hoodie sleeve, the fabric already damp from my teeth.
My eyes drift to the window instead, staring out at the dimly lit gardens where the moonlight barely touches the hedges and stone paths.
Everything outside looks peaceful; I wish I could stay out there in my head, but my gaze keeps flicking back.
Every few seconds my eyes betray me and slide toward the coffee table again. The curiosity is unbearable, like an itch I can’t scratch, but underneath it sits this heavy, crushing weight… the certainty that whatever Soren left there is going to break something inside me.
Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. I drag in a deep, trembling breath that does nothing to steady me, then force my legs to move. Each step toward the table feels like walking through wet concrete. When I’m close enough, I pause, heart hammering so loudly I can hear it in my ears.
My eyes land on the first photograph… it’s my mom.
She’s standing in front of a factory I’ve never seen before, the building half-swallowed by shadows and overgrown weeds, shaking hands with a man whose face is mostly hidden by the angle and the dim lighting.
The whole scene screams night-time secrecy.
That’s definitely her… the same dark hair, the same posture I used to see every morning when she made coffee.
But the expression on her face is one I don’t recognise, cold and focused, almost businesslike.
My chest squeezes painfully and my heart rate spikes so fast I feel dizzy.
I bend slowly, like my body is moving through water, and pick up the photograph with shaking fingers.
I stare at her face for a long time, trying to find some explanation, some reason why she would be there, in a place like that, doing… whatever this was.
Swallowing hard against the rising nausea, I lower myself onto the couch where Soren had been sitting. The leather is still faintly warm from his body, which somehow makes everything feel worse.
I set the photograph of my mom down on the table with shaking fingers.
My chest feels too tight, like something heavy is pressing on my ribs.
I drag in a shaky breath and reach for the next thing…
another photo, this one of pages from a notebook.
My dad’s handwriting is unmistakable: tight, precise loops and slashes covering the paper in complicated equations, formulas, and diagrams. I frown so hard my forehead hurts.
What is all of this? My dad was a professor.
He taught advanced mathematics and chemistry at the university. These don’t look like lecture notes.
I drop the picture like it’s contaminated and snatch up something else… a typed letter on thick, official-looking paper. My eyes skim the words, heart hammering faster with every line.
“…tuition for Christopher has been paid in full for the coming academic year. As long as you continue to deliver results, we will ensure his continued safety and privacy. His existence remains known only to us.”
A horrified little laugh bubbles out of me before I can stop it. Who… who was paying for my education? My parents always told me they had savings, that they were managing. Keep him safe? Who talks like that? It sounds like a threat dressed up as a promise.
My hands are trembling so badly now that the paper rattles.
I keep going anyway, picking up one piece of evidence after another, desperate and terrified at the same time.
I flip through more photos, more reports, more grainy CCTV stills.
Some of them I can’t even look at for more than a second…
my parents standing in places I don’t recognise, meeting people whose faces are blurred or turned away.
I throw a couple onto the floor, the paper scattering like fallen leaves.
My sniffles turn wet and ugly as tears start burning behind my eyes.
I reach for the last thing on the table: a thinner, smaller folder tucked underneath everything else. My breath catches. I hesitate, fingers hovering over the edge, but the sick curiosity wins. I open it with both hands, the cardboard cover feeling heavier than it should.
Inside are neatly clipped documents, printed emails, and more surveillance notes. The header on the first page makes my stomach drop.
Organisation: “Zero Hour”
Status: Active - High Priority Target
Wanted by: FBI, CIA, Homeland Security - Domestic Terrorism
My eyes race over the summary. Five states over, almost four years ago, they carried out a coordinated attack on a chemical plant…
something about releasing a toxin that killed dozens and injured hundreds more.
The group went dark after that, scattered and laying low.
Then they found new help. A brilliant scientist who had recently become a university professor.
Vincent Everly and his wife. They brought new ideas, it says.
Innovative formulas; ways to make things smaller, quieter, and more lethal.
There’s a printed email tucked in the middle.
I pull it out with numb fingers. The sender had approached “Professor Everly” under the guise of a research puzzle, just a hypothetical equation for a paper, nothing more.
The tone is friendly, almost playful. My dad’s reply is there too, enthusiastic, the kind of excited nerd-speak I remember from dinner-table conversations about his work.
Scribbled in red pen along the margin, in handwriting I don’t recognise, is a short note:
‘At the start they didn’t know what they were doing. Believed it was legitimate academic work. Recruited gradually. By the time they realised, they were too deep in and too well paid to walk away.’
Signed simply: - Sam
The note was clearly written for Soren, back when this file was first compiled.
I stare at the page until the words blur…
they weren’t innocent. They weren’t random victims. They had been helping build something monstrous; something that could have hurt people.
And they did it while I was at home complaining about exams and eating their cooking and thinking we were just a normal family.
My hands are shaking so hard the papers flutter.
A hot tear slips down my cheek and lands on the email, smearing the ink.
I don’t wipe it away. I just sit here on the warm patch of couch where Soren had been, surrounded by the wreckage of everything I thought I knew about my parents, and feel the ground crack open beneath me.
I sit here completely numb, staring at nothing.
Tears slide silently down my cheeks, one after another, but I don’t feel them.
My eyes are wide and unblinking, fixed on some point in the middle distance while my hands slowly, unconsciously tighten around the letter I’m still holding.
The paper creaks… then tears with a sharp, sudden rip that cuts through the silence. The sound yanks me back into my body.
My face scrunches up, throat closing as a cracked, broken whisper forces its way out. “Liars.”
I reach down with trembling hands and pick up the photograph of my mom from the floor.
For one heartbeat I just stare at her face…
the woman who used to tuck me in, who made pancakes on Sundays, who told me she loved me every single night.
Then I rip it in half. The tear is louder this time, jagged and violent.
“Liar,” I choke out, tears falling faster now. My whole body is shaking. My teeth are gritted so hard my jaw aches.
And then something inside me just… snaps.
I grab fistfuls of paper… reports, photos, printed emails…
and rip them apart with both hands, the sound of tearing filling the room like gunshots.
I know Soren probably has copies. I know this won’t change anything.
But I need to do it. I need to feel something break the way I’m breaking.
“Liars!” I shout, voice cracking. “You lied to me!”
I kick the coffee table over with a guttural sound that bubbles up from my chest. It crashes onto its side, the remaining papers scattering across the floor.
I’m crying so hard now I can barely see, but I don’t stop.
I grab a heavy crystal paperweight from the side table and hurl it at the television on the wall.
The screen explodes in a shower of glass and sparks, the loud crash echoing through the quiet living room.
“You were supposed to be good people!” I scream, voice raw and ugly. “I defended you! For two years I defended you! I thought you were innocent!”
I was so scared, every single day I was terrified he was going to kill me too…
and he never did. He kept me here, kept me safe.
The truth crashes over me… Soren didn’t murder my parents out of cruelty, he stopped them.
And I’ve spent two years hating him for it.
Two years being a shell of a person, flinching at every shadow, waiting for the day he finally decided I wasn’t worth keeping alive.
I grab another handful of torn paper and shred it between my fingers, screaming until my throat feels like it’s bleeding.
When there’s nothing left to destroy, the rage drains out of me all at once.
I collapse into the nearest armchair, curling in on myself like a wounded animal.
My whole body is shaking with silent, heaving sobs.
The room is trashed… glass everywhere, papers torn to confetti, the television shattered.
And I just deflate. All the fight leaves me in one exhausted rush.
I pull my knees up to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and press my wet face into my hoodie sleeves.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel anymore.
I just know everything I believed for the last two years was a lie.
And the man I’ve been terrified of… might be the only person who’s ever actually tried to protect me.
The door suddenly swings open. Selina bursts in, looking like she just rolled straight out of bed… hair messy, wearing nothing but a robe thrown over her pyjamas, eyes wide with worry. She stops dead in the doorway, taking in the destruction.
“What…” Her voice trails off as her gaze lands on me curled up in the armchair. “Oh, Kitty… what happened?”
She crosses the room quickly and drops to her knees in front of me, pulling my head gently down against her shoulder in a tight hug. I let her; I don’t have the strength to pull away.
A moment later Armen walks in, calmer, yawning widely and rubbing the back of his neck. He steps over a pile of shredded paper, sits on the armrest beside me, and picks up a torn corner of one of the photos. He looks at it for half a second, then drops it again with a heavy sigh.
“So… he finally told you then.”
I nod against Selina’s shoulder, unable to speak. Armen reaches over and gives my shoulder a gentle pat.
Then Soren appears in the doorway. He doesn’t look at me right away.
His large frame fills the entire entrance, dark hair still slightly messy from sleep.
His eyes slowly sweep across the room… the overturned coffee table, the shattered television, the confetti of torn paper and photographs scattered everywhere.
I feel something shift deep in my chest as I look at him now.
The fear is still there, but it’s different, softer, mixed with something heavy and painful… guilt.
Soren finally looks over at me. His face is completely unreadable…
cold, closed off, jaw locked so tightly the muscle jumps.
For one long, heavy second our eyes meet.
I feel the full force of everything I’ve thrown at him for two years: every fearful glance, every flinch, every time I looked at him like he was the villain in my story.
I sniffle, voice small and cracked. “Sorry…”
He doesn’t say a word, just turns on his heel and walks out.
The door closes behind him with a soft, decisive click that somehow sounds louder than the television shattering earlier.
The silence he leaves behind is suffocating.
I stare at the closed door, fresh tears burning down my cheeks.
He didn’t shout, didn’t get angry, he just… left.
Armen sighs again. “Don’t worry about the mess, Kit. Boss’ll have it cleared up in no time.”
I nod weakly. “Sorry for waking you.”
Selina pulls back just enough to look at me, brushing a tear from my cheek with her thumb. “Oh… you didn’t, sweetheart. The boss woke us. Said you’d need support and that you didn’t want to be around him, so… we came.”
The guilt in my chest grows heavier, crushing. Every flinch, terrified glance, and time I shrank away from him… all of it was built on a lie. He protected me. Now he’s gone somewhere to be alone, because he believes, with every right, that I still don’t want to be near him.
I press my face back into Selina’s shoulder, fresh tears soaking into her robe as the weight of it all settles over me like a blanket I can’t shake off.
I was so wrong.