Chapter 21- A Symphony of Scars

The next morning, Daxton glittered like it didn’t just hide secrets—it wore them.

Crimson banners for the Gala still lined the walkways. Fresh-cut hydrangeas bloomed near the faculty entrance. If you didn’t know better, you’d think nothing had happened. No ghost brother. No leaked photo. No whispered threats through basement corridors.

But Sonia knew better.

She walked with purpose now. No hoodie. No shadows. The blazer on her shoulders felt less like camouflage, more like armor.

She wasn’t just pretending to be Silas anymore.

She was dragging the truth into daylight—one step at a time.

---

9:45 AM — Music Room B

The last place anyone expected a Vale to go was the old music wing.

Which made it the perfect place to find someone hiding something.

She pushed through the half-stuck door into a room that smelled like varnish and dust. Eric was there, hunched over a baby grand piano, fingers still on the keys from a chord he’d just finished.

He looked up, startled, then softened.

“I thought you were done with talking.”

“I’m not here to talk.”

She walked over, stood beside him.

Eric gestured to the bench. “Want to sit?”

She didn’t.

But she did anyway.

He played a note. Soft. The kind that held more weight than it should.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “About that speech. About everything. You could’ve told me.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me.”

“I might have.”

Sonia glanced at him.

“But you didn’t.”

He winced. “You have secrets, Sonia. You move like someone waiting for the trapdoor to open.”

She said nothing.

He kept playing, chords stacking like breathlessness.

Then, quietly: “Do you know why I started fencing?”

She blinked. “To impress the Board?”

“To fight without showing blood.”

Sonia turned toward him slowly.

“That’s what this place teaches,” he said. “Smiles with teeth. Applause with blades in the claps. Everything clean and lethal.”

“And you’re fine with that?”

“I was. Until I met someone who walked into all of it like it could burn and said: light the match.”

She swallowed.

He looked at her now, fully.

“I don’t care if you’re Silas or Sonia. I don’t care if the Cartel wants your head. I care if you let them win.”

Her voice barely made it out: “I don’t know how not to be scared.”

“You don’t have to stop being scared.”

His hand found hers. Warm. Honest.

“You just have to stop being alone.”

And then, before she could say something sharp or stupid or protective—he kissed her.

No performance. No shield.

Just heat and human and heartbeat.

Like a song only the two of them could hear.

---

Later — 12:12 PM

Sonia paced the garden path near the east wing. Leaves scraped under her boots. In her hand: the USB drive. She’d copied it onto three others. Hidden them in different places.

One in the fencing supply room.

One behind a loose stone in the girl’s shower wall.

And one in Eric’s backpack, taped to the bottom liner.

He didn’t know yet.

But if something happened to her, she wanted someone who would care enough to look.

She pulled out her phone.

A new message blinked.

Unknown Sender: “Drop the drive. Or the next video won’t just show your brother.”

She stared.

Hands went cold.

But she didn’t delete it.

---

2:47 PM — Archive Wing

The folder Silas pointed her to—the one marked “Potential Candidate”—was still unopened.

Sonia knew what she was doing was dangerous.

But she couldn’t stop.

She sat at the end of the archive hallway, flicked the file open, and read.

> Candidate: Silas Vale

Lineage: Unknown maternal. Confirmed paternal: Richard Vale

Recommendation: Split-test viability—Subject S and Subject X

Notes: Twin variants pose an opportunity for long-term extraction studies. Recommend shared admission with divergent psychological prep. Monitor both for latent triggers.

Her stomach turned.

They hadn’t just accepted Silas.

They selected both of them.

Not as students.

As experiments.

A note at the bottom read:

File merge initiated. Female profile deactivated for controlled re-entry. Authorization: CLX.

Claire Lexton.

Sonia clutched the folder tight.

She wasn’t just wearing Silas’s blazer.

She was walking through the wreckage of something they’d both been thrown into.

---

Five Minutes to Midnight

Back in her dorm, Sonia sat cross-legged on her bed. Eric had gone. The shadows stretched long.

She pulled out her notebook—Silas’s old one—and flipped to the back.

Where there had never been anything.

Until now.

A final page.

One sentence written in blue ink.

She didn’t remember writing it.

She didn’t think Silas did either.

But there it was:

“They never expected both of us to survive.”

The clock ticked to 11:55 PM.

And Sonia Vale smiled for the first time in days.

Because she had no intention of dying quietly.