“Try all you want, we’ll still destroy you!” Raphael shouted after him as he stormed out of the room. He chuckled, then nodded at the twins once the double doors slid shut behind Ta’Zan. “How are you two holding up?”
Amal sighed deeply. “Ugh. It’s harder than before. Everything you’ve done so far has definitely gotten to him. He’s permanently angry and frustrated, especially in private. He tries to keep his composure in front of the Perfects and the Arch-Perfects, but he still snaps once in a while.”
“Then it’s working. His psyche is crumbling,” Raphael breathed, a grin slitting his face from ear to ear.
“You know, I have to say this, you’re enjoying this a lot. Maybe a little too much?” I asked.
“Hell, no. I’m loving this, and I’m entitled,” Raphael replied. “After everything he’s done? This isn’t even enough. I root for the day I see him utterly distraught and miserable.”
“How are you two doing?” Amane asked, stepping forward. “We didn’t think he’d separate you from the others.”
“Neither did we, but here we are,” I replied with a long sigh. “We’re okay. Just wondering how we’ll do our part of the plan, if we’re stuck in these glass boxes.”
Amal and Amane looked at each other, then back at us. They must’ve talked about this. They were unbelievably smarter when they were together, their brains operating at incredible speeds, far beyond our own.
“We’ll help you get out, as long as we know when Araquiel breaches the colosseum,” Amane said. “We’ve spoken to him through Amal’s earpiece. He’ll let us know.”
My heart felt heavy, and I knew I had to approach the worst-case scenario, too. I placed my hands against the glass and took a deep breath.
“I need you both to understand and do something for us,” I said. “If it gets too hairy or crazy out there, don’t complicate things by coming to get us. Leave Raphael and me behind—”
“Whoa!” Raphael cut in. “What the hell, Douma?”
“What?! You know I’m right!” I replied, and looked at the twins again. “I’m serious. If it’s too risky or too dangerous, leave us behind. The important thing here is to get all the outsiders out of the colosseum before the charges are detonated, and for the Perfects to be distracted enough not to notice the fae shuttle coming in. That’s on us.”
Raphael groaned with frustration and cursed under his breath. Amal, Amane, and I looked at him as he clicked his teeth and exhaled sharply.
“Screw this. Okay!” he conceded. “If anything, maybe give us some cheat codes or some way to get out of these glass boxes ourselves. If we can’t reunite with the outsiders when it’s escape time, we can at least make enough of a mess in this place, on top of the explosions, to draw as many Perfects to this location as possible. At least this way we’ll help guarantee safe passage for the incoming fae.”
Amal shook her head. “I don’t have any cheat codes, I’m sorry. The glass boxes don’t work like that. But I promise one of us or even Araquiel will come up here and get you out when the time is right. We can’t digress from the plan.”
“We’ll look into it, once we get everything we need for the mass memory wiper.” Amane added.
“How are Rose and Ben’s people?” Raphael asked. “Elonora?”
“I think they’re fine. We checked in with them about thirty minutes ago. They’re waiting to do their part. We’re all waiting for Araquiel, Herakles, and the others now,” Amal replied.
We were all in limbo, and I hated it. I hated my glass box and the shock collar around my neck. I hated being in this situation, and, most noticeably, I hated not having Dmitri close to me. Whatever came next, planned or otherwise, would decide my fate and our shot at an actual relationship.
I knew next to nothing about love. It was a concept that Ta’Zan had deliberately left out of our education and development, but, after all the time I’d spent with Dmitri and his people, I knew it was essential to a happy life, to a healthy relationship and a good future. Love transcended pretty much anything, and it was intense enough to drive people to do the craziest things in its name.
I was ready to face all the Perfects and even die, if I had to, in order to keep Dmitri safe. According to Rose, that was the purest form of love out there—the kind where my life was worthless, if my loved one suffered or was dead. I was ready for the supreme sacrifice, and I was still trying to wrap my head around this realization.
Love makes you do crazy things, Dmitri had said the other day.
It most certainly did.
Amane
“What did Ta’Zan think of the readings?” I asked my sister as soon as she came back from Ta’Zan’s private quarters.
After we collected the data from Raphael’s and Douma’s brainwaves, Amal and I prepared a short report for Ta’Zan with our findings. We already knew what the results would be, but Ta’Zan was too stubborn to understand that there really wasn’t anything wrong with Douma and Raphael that was making them act so rebelliously.
“He didn’t like it,” Amal replied.
We’d been assigned a lab of our own, once more, where we did all the work that didn’t require Ta’Zan’s supervision. It was also where we were going to work on the mass memory wiper, since we had the space and all the tools we needed in the room, carefully deposited and catalogued in multiple drawers.
I’d already begun taking the pieces out, and I was halfway done with the technical specs when Amal came by my side to check out my unfinished work.
“Of course, we both knew he’d hate the truth,” she added, frowning as she picked up one of the clippers with two fingers. “This one’s for the serium wiring, right?”
I nodded. “I gathered most of the tools and some of the hardware, based on what we’ve already discussed. We need to figure out the rest and see where we can get it from, if it’s not here. We can’t be seen wandering around the lab area just yet. I’m sure Ta’Zan is watching me like a hawk wherever I go.”
“He sure is. The upside is he doesn’t know what a mass memory wiper would even look like, and he wouldn’t think of me helping you,” Amal said. “I’m still surprised at how foolish he’s become. He’s clearly on edge and losing it, and that will work to our advantage. He’s too busy being paranoid about the outsiders.”
“He can feel it all slipping away. His insecurity is chipping away at him. He’s lashing out, I suppose,” I replied. “He’s so convinced that his indoctrination program is flawless that he can’t accept the fact that he cannot fully control free will. He hates that.”
“Raphael and Douma twisting the knife in deeper didn’t help.” Amal chuckled.
“Hey, it did the job, didn’t it?”
“Oh, it most certainly did. He’s on thin ice, Sister. It’s only a matter of time before he falls,” she said.
“You got a lot of the inside work done. I don’t think we would’ve gotten this far, had it not been for your persistence in staying by his side and nurturing his trust in you,” I admitted. “I should’ve told you when I decided to leave. Maybe it’s too late, but… I’m sorry.”
“Hey, we put that behind us already,” Amal said. “Let’s do this thing and move forward. Come on.”
We spent the next hour inputting calculations into one of our computers, based on previous conversations. The three-dimensional model we came up with for the device, complete with all the parts and a power source, was pretty impressive. We could finetune the radio waves to go outward at high speed. My heart swelled with pride, looking at the final design.
