"She didn't say anything." Val smiled. "She's just happy."
"So why don't you fill us in on how this all happened?" Titus said quietly.
Hope and doubt filled the air. It was an odd mix, but for the situation, she'd take what she could.
She looked around the room and stopped when her eyes landed on Apollo. He still hadn't said anything and, from the look on his face, Val had a feeling she might not like what he had to say.
It was too much to deal with right now, so she closed herself off from him. Her emotions were too high, and for now, she was just going to focus on the task at hand.
She took in a deep breath and found Sol. He might be angry with her, but she could tell he wanted to know how it happened.
"I don't know all the details of our birth," she started.
"Our?" he stuttered.
Titus held up his hand for her to continue, and she was glad for it. Starting and stopping was going to take too much.
"You have to understand," she sighed, not really sure where to start. "I didn't even know I had a brother until I turned eighteen." She frowned. "I started to feel things."
"What sorts of things?" Rachel asked.
It was now or never. If she wasn't honest, they'd know and suspect she was a traitor. They had every reason to given her behavior and their own experience.
"It was minor stuff at first," she looked away, unable to tell her story with their eyes on her. "Things like if someone was mad or sad."
Rachel stepped forward, and when Val looked up, she nodded her encouragement.
"But then it became more." She grasped for the right words. "The feelings became more complex. Took their own nature. Almost like a stench in the air."
"An empath?" Rachel asked.
Val shook her head, not really certain what that meant. "I don't know."
Titus moved to her other side. "But it happened when you were a teen?"
She nodded.
"Fuck," Sol whispered and sat on the couch. His head was planted between his hands like he was trying to block out what she said.
"How did you escape?"
Her head whipped over to Apollo. It was the first thing he had said to her since he caught her, and it felt more like an accusation than a question.
"I didn't," she said simply. "They let me go."
He gave a sharp bark of a laugh. "The Horatius Group? They just let you go?"
Val frowned. She wasn't really sure how she thought he would take this, but that wasn't really what she was expecting.
Erica picked up Cassia and smiled at her. "It is a little out of character for them."
Val snorted and ignored the comments. This was going to go the only way she could tell it. In the order she knew it.
"As all this started to happen, I wondered about my parents," she continued on, her voice stronger than before. "I wondered if maybe I had something genetic. So I went to the only person I could." She turned her gaze on Sol. "Sally Anderson."
"Is that our mother?" Sol asked quietly.
"No," she said. "That's the woman that signed off on my sealed documents." She gave a sweet smile. "It took some convincing, but it wasn't long before Sally saw things my way."
"Did you force it from her?" Rachel asked. It was far more matter-of-fact than she would have thought.
"Let's just say I found a nice little account that Sally didn't want anyone to know about," she said and leaned back. "When I confronted her with the information, she gave me the few papers she had. We were supposed to meet later." She looked away as she remembered the woman. "She never showed."
"Ran off?" Erica asked.
Val shook her head and let out a sigh.
"Single shot to the head," she said and looked at the group around her. "Amazing how someone can commit suicide with a shot to the back of the head."
She could feel their understanding.
"What papers did she give you?" Apollo asked.
Her eyes found him, and she stared for a moment before going on.
"I had a brother," she said. "He was adopted by the doctor who delivered us. An Italian man who also saw fit to give me the name Valentine," she sneered. "The files are under my mattress."
"And our parents?" Sol asked. He was looking up now, his eyes on her watching every movement.
"That's all that was in the files," she said and leaned forward a little. "But it's what she told me that counts."
The room went silent, and she took a deep breath. Breaking bad news wasn't something she was much good at.