Chapter 41

• Samantha's POV
• The waiting room felt suffocatingly quiet, like the world had pressed pause while Jack and I sat in the stillness. He sat hunched over, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together as though holding himself in place. I watched him from the corner of my eye, the tension in his shoulders speaking louder than the words we weren't saying.
• I wanted to reach out, to bridge the space between us, but my mind was stuck in a spiral. Clara's press conference had gutted me. Her words-cold, sharp, and calculated-had cut into every vulnerable part of me, and the pain lingered. Even worse, the DNA revelation still gnawed at my sense of self. Was it possible? Could I really be connected to Kelvin Smith? The very idea felt like a crack forming in the foundation of my identity.