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 gazeflicks to the pad, then back to me.
“This is the truth,” he says. “Seytan didn’tknowKayla 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.”
