He pauses, then adds in a tone that makes my skin turn cold, “The men Seth killed at the hotel were mine.”
The men in the animal masks. The ones with the machete, axe, and crossbow. The ones that attacked me and Seth.
“They were yours? The ones in the masks?”
“Yes.”
“One of them tried to kill me.”
John shakes his head once. “No.” He doesn’t even blink.
“He wasn’t trying to kill you. He was trying to take you.” His gaze stays on mine. “The instructions were to bring you back to me. Alive”
Nausea rises sharp and sudden, and I swallow it down.
John leans back slightly. “The Collective doesn’t exist just to indulge violence. It exists to direct it. Chaos already exists. We decide where it goes. Order requires structure. Structure requires sacrifice.”
I force air into my lungs. “You murdered a hotel full of people, for a fucking tech company?”
John nods once. “Trinity Tech interfered with interests controlled by our faction, they refused cooperation. They assumed public ethics would shield them.” His voice stays calm. “They were wrong.”
For a moment, my thoughts slow. Then they line up in a way that feels worse than panic.
I remember John pulling me out of the freezer. I remember the freezer door slamming shut again.
Is Travis still inside?
The thought hits like a gut punch. Travis alone in the dark, locked behind metal that is turning colder by the second. His breath will get thinner as the temperature drops, and nobody will find him in time.
“Is Travis alive?”
“If he is, he shouldn’t be.” John folds his hands in his lap. “He works for Trinity Tech. That means he had to die. Everyone in that building should be dead.”
My vision blurs as the thought hits, both of them gone.
I stare at him, trying to match this man to the one who drove me to school, corrected my homework, told me discipline mattered more than talent.
“What is wrong with you?” My voice shakes, but the words come out clear. “You weren’t like this. You raised me. You watched me grow up.”
John exhales through his nose.
“You knew the version of me I showed you. That was all you needed.”
My breath stutters.
“You killed my parents.”
“Your father was one of ours. He knew the rules, and he decided they didn’t apply to him anymore.” He tilts his head slightly. “That’s when he became a problem.”
I shake my head, but it isn’t denial. It’s my body refusing to accept it.
“People like this don’t come out of nowhere, it runs in families, and you see it early.” His eyes stay on me. “Your father had it. That’s why he was brought in. That’s why it mattered when he stopped listening.”
He smirks. “And you have it too.”
My throat burns. My hands curl into fists as much as the cuffs allow.
“We were instructed to kill you as well, Mary begged me not to. So you became somewhat of an experiment.”
