The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)

But I refused to give in to the negative thinking, reminding myself that half the reason our plan had worked was because Sadie had been doing a complete inspection of her department, and had mentioned needing to continue it before she left. We had delayed her task by a couple of hours, and her department was large enough that it would’ve taken her several more hours, even without our interference. She probably wasn’t even paying attention to anything else. Yet.

But as soon as that logic was in place, another problem crept into my mind, namely what I was going to do about Alex. He was a liability right now, both because his self-control had all but eroded, and because he didn’t seem to care about what he had done. I wasn’t even sure how to reach him at this point if he didn’t understand the wrongness of his actions. And I was lost in regard to how to handle it. As a leader, it was my job to assess his fitness for the mission, and he was definitely currently unfit. As his sister… I couldn’t just tell him he couldn’t help because he was not stable. I was pretty sure doing so would cost me my relationship with him, and it was too precious to me to let that happen. But then, what could I do? How could I reach him? Why was he taking this so hard? I wanted to know, to ask him, but after he had stormed off, I hadn’t heard from him. I was beginning to worry, but wanted to hold off netting him to give him some space and time.

In truth, I was hoping that with time would come perspective, making him realize how far off the rails he’d gone. I was praying for it, actually.

And once that nebulous situation churned around in my skull a few times with no answer in sight, my mind decided to ask the bigger, even scarier question: What do we do next? That one scared me the most, because to be honest, I wasn’t certain. We had just saved Jasper and Rose, but now what? Both were still offline, we had no idea how damaged either program was, and we couldn’t be sure that Jasper was still himself. Rose had been tortured and traumatized until she broke, undergoing a process of reversion that let the Jang-Mi part of her free. I knew we needed the AIs to save Scipio, but we only had two out of five, and two more were unaccounted for. Rose was broken; Jasper’s condition was unknown. If the two missing programs were in the same condition, then I wasn’t sure we could do anything at all.

Which meant going after the legacies. If we could just get them off the board somehow, we could at least stop them from damaging Scipio any more than they already had. And that would give us time to find a way to restore him, provided we managed to get every single one of the bad guys at the same time. If we didn’t, then whoever escaped would be free to try again, or worse, finish the job.

Sadie’s files would hopefully reveal her network—every single person she was working with. If we had that, then we could stop them, once and for all. But if she was smart, and kept that information off her terminal, then we’d never be able to stop them. Missing even one could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

I was so grateful when Maddox returned from her meeting. We had held off from moving the contraband items we had hidden in a storage room before we reset the quarters, uncertain of what would happen to them during the reset process. She had insisted on waiting until after her meeting was done before we started fetching them, so no one was out there alone, but now that she was free, she and I could get it done.

Keeping them there had been risky, considering they included piles and piles of IT manuals that were illegal to possess, and even though I had locked the room down under my authority, someone would eventually notice and wonder why. Better to move them now than risk any unwanted questions.

Hauling the boxes through the halls was mind-numbing, back-breaking work, but even though I was exhausted from everything we had done today, I found I didn’t mind the activity. It gave me something to focus on other than all the problems we were facing. Something easy that I could complete with zero consequences.

I accepted the last boxes Maddox handed me, and then began walking back to the elevator, absorbed with balancing my load. I had taken an extra box this time in an effort to wrap things up, but keeping it on top of the others required all of my concentration. And I was so distracted that I failed to notice my brother coming around the corner from the elevator entrances and wound up walking right into him.

“Oof!” he exclaimed, and I jerked back and blinked at him in surprise.

“Alex?” Maddox asked, stepping around us both, her green eyes fluttering in confusion. “How’d you find us?”

My brother gave us a tight look as he rubbed his chest with one hand. “I called Leo and asked to be let back in,” he announced haltingly. “He said I had to bring it up with you.”

I hesitated and realized that Leo had sent me a message by sending my brother. He was letting me know that I could say no. As much as I appreciated the gesture, however, I sort of wished he had just let Alex in, and not put it on me. Especially since I couldn’t tell if Alex was in the right headspace to deal with any of this, let alone talk about it. And it was selfish of me, but I still couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth and make him go, even with his behavior being so erratic and terrifying. I wanted to fix it, to help him, though I wasn’t sure if I could, or if I’d only make it worse, and—

The sound of laughter caught my ear, and I looked down the circular hall ringing the core of the Citadel to see a group of Knights emerging from a side hall, headed for the elevator. And though I was the Champion, and could easily explain the boxes away, I immediately decided that it would be easier to just go before they got there. Not to mention, my brother seemed to be spoiling for a fight, and I didn’t want him making a scene in the hall.

I started moving over to the elevator. “Let’s go.”

Maddox and Alex followed me onto the elevator as soon as the scan finished, and we began our descent just as the group of Knights came to stand at the entrance. I smiled tightly and gave them a sharp nod, which many of them returned with enthusiastic smiles, one of them going so far as to whisper, “It’s Honorbound,” in an awe-filled voice.

I hadn’t really gotten to interact with many of the Knights since I became Champion, and even though I knew they’d voted me into the position, it was still weird to see so much joy and enthusiasm directed toward me. To some of them, I was a hero; I had protected Scipio from the previous Champion, gaining back a measure of integrity for the department, in their eyes. I had made them proud, and because of that, they had put their faith in me.

Of course, they’d lock me up in a second if they found out I had broken the law in more ways than I could count. Hell, I was moving away from them with contraband in my arms right here and now. But then again, they didn’t know the truth of what was going on. My Knights were safe in their little bubble of belief that the Tower was as it always had been, not even realizing that it was slowly being corrupted. I did, however, and it was my responsibility to take care of it, by whatever means necessary.

It was a good reminder that I wasn’t just fighting for my own life, and those of my friends.

I looked over at my twin for a second and pondered the possibility that in Alex’s case, maybe he couldn’t see that. Possibly even wouldn’t, in his current state of mind. Maybe it was easier for him to just attack one problem with single-minded intensity, not caring about the big picture because it was too much for him to handle. Maybe he was letting his anger and hatred toward the people who had hurt me and killed Mom take him somewhere dark.

I would understand one, but not the other. In either case, I couldn’t allow him in without making sure he had his priorities right. It would be too dangerous for me, for the group, and for any potential missions. If he was only focused on finding the person responsible for Mom’s death, then I couldn’t count on him to put the larger mission first. That could put all of us in danger, including him.