“I don’t know,” Meg said distractedly.
The music rose beautifully through the song’s bridge and Sirus handled the change with grace, leading Meg across the floor like they’d been dance partners for years. Once the song came back down to the last stanza, Meg caught his dark eyes and asked the question that had been pressing on her much of the evening.
“Sirus?”
“Hm?”
“If Arkdone ordered you to hurt me, would you?”
The question took the metamonarch by surprise. He nearly stopped dancing, but slowed to a simple side-to-side sway instead. He searched her face for the meaning behind the question.
“Would you?”
“I would have to.”
“You would hurt me if he tells you to?”
“Meg, I wouldn’t have a choice.”
“Would Gideon hurt me, too?” Meg watched her words stab Sirus right in the stomach. “Would you ask him for me?” She knew she was just twisting the knife, but she needed to know how much danger she was in around the metamonarch.
“It is my job,” Sirus swallowed hard, “to make sure he would obey Arkdone’s orders.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Meg asked defiantly, her chin tipped up remembering all the tender moments between her and the hidden alter.
“It’s not up to me, Meg. If he defies a direct order, there are built-in penances—damaging, torturous, permanent penances waiting on the other side.”
“From the ‘Punisher’?” Meg’s blood was starting to rush through her veins in pure anger.
“Nothing can protect us from ourselves.” Sirus shook his head slowly; a haunted look shadowed his eyes.
Frustrated, Meg scowled, let go of his shoulder and pushed him away. They were standing in the middle of the dance floor, but Meg didn’t care.
“I am so close to losing it, Sirus,” she hissed then forced herself to lower her voice. “I’m trying to learn my way around the alliances in this world and I just needed for you to say you’d be there for me. That at least you wouldn’t turn on me. I just needed a friend and what do I get? A shattered piece of ice!”
She stormed off the dance floor, the gossamer, long red strips of material flowed like bloody wind behind her.
Not really sure how the conversation went from point A to X inside thirty seconds, Sirus hurried after her.
“Would you stop for a minute?” It was his turn to hiss.
Meg huffed but stopped. She leaned her back against the wall, arms crossed and staring down at the stupid shoes she was wearing. She was trying very hard not to burst into tears. This had all been too much for her.
“I promise you this: I will do everything in my power to be there to support you, just as you ask. But you have to understand, Meg. No matter how much you wish it weren’t true—hell, no matter how much I wish it weren’t true—the fact is: I am Arkdone’s Monarch. I cannot go against him. I can’t. It would kill me.”
Meg had been kicking off her shoes when he said the last, but stopped in mid motion at his last words. She’d already unattached the buckle on the last strap on her pump so it dropped to the floor. Sirus leaned down and picked up her shoes. He gathered the heel straps and handed them to a stunned Meg. “Kill you?”
He sighed deeply and looked down at the straps as they wrapped around her dainty fingers. “Meg, it’s my programming. Why do you think the Punisher self-harmed so easily?”
“I just thought he was trying to intimidate me.”
“He wouldn’t think twice about slicing our wrists, or throat or whatever other painful and gruesome method he chose to end the defiance.”
“Are you saying Arkdone programmed you with a ‘self-destruct’ personality?”
“Exactly.”
Chapter 79 The U.S. Embassy, Cairo
“What time is it?” Sloan asked.
“Thirty seconds past the last time you asked me.”
Evan was thinking through how he was going to handle the next several hours, but his mind kept getting off-track as it slipped to thoughts of Kylie. She had stayed up the entire night with him helping him perfect his work. She was brilliant; she wasn’t bragging when she called herself a “phenom.”
The product of all their hard work was tucked away in his pocket.
“Is it time now?”
“Do you want to get in there any earlier than we have to?”
“Evan? What should I say if they ask me about Meg’s whereabouts?”
“When in doubt, always fall back to the truth without giving every detail of what you know, Sloan. You don’t know where Meg is.”
Sloan shivered behind Evan as she sat on his bike. “Let’s practice once more,” Evan’s voice softened as he made himself feel what it would be like in her shoes.
“Okay.”
“Miss Mor, you say you’re a doctor—of what?”
“Medicine.”
“Right. Just ‘medicine’ and not ‘medicine specializing in the study and development of metahumans’…Miss Mor, what happened on the day in question in Flagstaff?”