Chapter 11 Lena
I was now fairly confident that Knox and Silas, while still terrifying and morally questionable, were not on Marco’s payroll. I watched them from across the room as Dr. Hampton scribbled in her notebook, asking the same questions she always did.
Today, I found it difficult to concentrate on her words. My mind lingered more on Knox’s revelation last night than on my therapist’s attempts to mend my fractured psyche.
Marco had killed their mother.
In addition to telling me their truth, Knox and Silas now knew exactly what Marco had done to me. And, unexpectedly, that knowledge felt like relief, instead of shame.
In my gut, I knew they were telling the truth about their mother.
Perhaps it was the way Knox spoke about his grief, about losing her and the chaos of their childhood.
His speech wasn’t rehearsed or sharpened for sympathy.
It was raw. Unpolished. Real. And in the background, I had seen it in Silas too: the way his expression darkened, the way he stayed silent, fury and loss sitting just beneath the surface.
I didn’t need to complete a puzzle to see its final form. As long as enough pieces were in front of me, the full image would appear in my mind.
That was what I had been doing with Knox and Silas.
Collecting pieces.
Every word they spoke, every movement they made, every decision they chose. I held onto all of it, gathering what I needed, waiting until I had enough information for the picture to form the way it always did.
Until there was only one question left.
Whether I could trust them.
Last night, the image finally came into focus.
I was going to help them.
When my therapy appointment finished, Silas went to walk Dr. Hampton out like usual, while I debated my next steps before he returned.
I hadn't slept last night, opting to filter through every helpful memory I'd stored, searching for clues to the rest of the omega's whereabouts.
There was a lot to sort through. Five years was a long time to watch and wait.
I could recall it all. So many guard’s conversations I’d eavesdropped on through the door of my prison.
Every hint Marco let slip carelessly, assuming I would never escape to use it against him.
Each insignificant detail I had noticed and stored away.
I laid them out in my mind, fitting them together like pieces of a puzzle.
But I couldn’t see the ultimate image yet, because I didn’t have enough of the pieces.
First, I needed a map.
Knox sat across from me, watching the way my gaze fixed on nothing and my attention turned inward. He always noticed. When Silas came back into the confrence room, I lifted one hand and mimed paper, then a pen.
“What? You want to write something down?” Silas asked, surprise flashing across his face before excitement quickly took its place.
He looked at Knox with a sharp, almost disbelieving grin. “Are you seeing this? The little mute actually wants to write something down. Fucking finally.”
Unlike Silas, Knox didn’t grin.
The shift in him was immediate, his entire focus narrowing on me with sudden intensity, like he was afraid the moment might disappear if anyone moved too fast.
“Get her something,” he said instantly. “Now.”
Silas rifled through a stack of paperwork, tore off a page, turning it over to the blank side, and slid it across the table with a pen.
“Alright, Lena. What do you have to tell us?"
I wrote three letters and pushed the page back toward him.
MAP
Silas frowned. “A map? Of what?”
Knox leaned over, eyes flicking from the word to my face.
“Falcon City?” he asked.
I nodded.
His gaze stayed on me a moment longer, thoughtful.
“You’re not trying to orient yourself,” he said. “You’re trying to figure out where the other omegas are.”
I nodded again.
Silas let out a low whistle. “Finally,” he muttered. “You’ve been carrying this around in your head the whole time, haven’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“Get her a city map, Silas,” Knox said. “A detailed one.”
Silas glanced between us, his energy buzzing, then nodded, “Yeah. Okay. Let’s see what you got, little mute.”
After a moment, he brought back a worn, folded map of Falcon City. I pulled it toward me and spread it across the table.
The second my eyes touched it, the room fell away.
I didn’t search the map. I overlaid it.
Images surfaced effortlessly.
Through a slip in my blindfold, I’d glimpsed a narrow street called Maple.
Once I overheard a guard complaining about a long drive and bad roads on his way to an omega's location. He had also muttered about power outages in an adjacent district. Marco’s voice, careless, talking about rotating locations and different guard schedules. So many details came to my mind.
My pen moved.
One mark.
Then another.
I paused, breath shallow, adjusting one point slightly. That felt right. The pressure in my chest eased.
Then the rest came quickly.
Third.
Fourth.
Fifth.
And more.
There were twenty other omegas, but I would need more intel to find the rest. More pieces before all of their locations could take shape. But at least now I could offer something solid.
Seven locations I felt relatively sure contained an omega. Or used to, at least.
The pen circled each point again, firmer this time.
Knox tracked every movement, searching the map. “She’s not guessing,” he whispered.
Silas leaned over my shoulder, studying the locations I had circled. “No,” he said. “She’s solving it the same way she does those damn puzzles.”
I nodded once.
“You’re assembling the picture first,” Knox said, tapping the side of his temple. “Then marking what has to be true," he continued pointing to the map.
Another nod.
“Five years,” Silas muttered, straightening. “That’s a long time to collect intel, especially with a mind like yours.”
Knox’s gaze stayed fixed on the map, considering everything in front of him. “And she didn’t just collect it. She organized it. Stored it until there was enough structure to work with.”
“Marco didn’t know about this,” Silas asked. “He didn’t know how your mind works, did he?”
I shook my head.
Knox stilled. “If he had,” he said evenly, “you would have been far more valuable to him.” Then he added, “And that would not have been a good thing.”
Silas exhaled through his nose. “Bastard thought you were weak. Thought he could break you. Turns out he was just feeding you information while you bided your time.”
I tightened my grip on the pen and tapped the edge of the map once to redirect their attention.
There wasn't enough intel to find every location, but these seven locations were solid. A starting point. Proof that the image was real, even if the final shape still waited on pieces I hadn’t found yet.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled as the weight of their attention settled on me. When I looked up, Silas and Knox were staring directly at me. But for the first time, there was no pity in their expressions. No careful sympathy reserved for something broken.
They were looking at me as if I were an asset.