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

If anyone thought my quip was funny, they didn’t show it. Alex crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a hip against the conference table while Maddox sucked in a deep breath, her fists clenched. Even Leo looked tense, and I realized that they didn’t believe what I’d said any more than I did.

After all, Scipio had just given Sadie permission to look into the other virtual assistants to determine whether there was a problem. When she found none, she might suspect that it was something other than a glitch. But I was pretty confident I had a way around it. I just had to convince Lacey and Strum to let us upload the virus into their terminals as well, so that there appeared to be a defect in the assistants. I’d have to admit to Lacey what I’d done, but if I brought her information on who had killed her nephew, then she would probably be okay covering for me.

But the others weren’t there yet. They were still focused on the fact that this hadn’t ended like we expected it to and were still adapting. “Guys, I know Sadie launching an investigation into the virtual assistants seems like a big hurdle, and normally it would be, but you forget that we have Lacey and Strum on our side. We can use that, replicate the same problem at one of their places, and then Sadie and the council will be convinced it’s a problem in the code, create some sort of update to ‘fix’ it, and move on. We’re just going to need to have something for Lacey—namely the people who attacked Ambrose. We have Sadie’s files, and the answers have to be there. We just need to go through them and—”

Leo cleared his throat, and I broke off to look at him, surprised to see his face reflecting a deep nervousness. “Actually, I rushed the download,” he said carefully. “So, we have all of Sadie’s files. Over a million terabytes of data. And there are encryptions on a lot of the files. It’s going to take some time.”

I absorbed this information as more of a speed bump than a wall. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll net Lacey, explain what we did, and ask her to cover for us. If she understands that it could lead to finding the entire legacy group, she will help us. But I’ll worry about that. Is there anything you guys can do to sift through the data faster? You, Quess, and…” I cast a quick glance at my brother and decided to at least try to extend an olive branch, “Alex?”

Leo was already nodding. “Quess is working on it now. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to continue focusing on Rose and Jasper.”

“Has there been any change?” I asked, instantly concerned. “Are they still offline?”

His brown eyes grew dark with worry. “Yes and no. Jang-Mi woke up.”

It was funny how three little words could arouse so much fear. Jang-Mi was all that was left of the core memory that had made Rose what she was, but the wall between the two had been destroyed by the legacies as a way of controlling Rose. The remnant personality had taken over most of Rose’s code and was unstable to the nth degree.

“What happened?” I asked, fearing that Jang-Mi had somehow gotten to Jasper in spite of the firewall separating them. Or was taking over Cornelius’s systems and about to turn them on each other.

“She woke up confused and angry,” he said, his mouth flat. “I attempted to calm her down, but it was like she forgot that Yu-Na was dead and started looking for her again. She grew more and more desperate when she couldn’t find her. When she started to attack herself, I put her in the self-diagnostic protocol to try to get Rose back, but I think the fight was too much for her. She’s not responding.”

A half-dozen questions sat on the tip of my tongue, all of them centered around three major points: Why wasn’t she back? Had sending her to Sadie’s computer sapped the last of her strength? Was her personality finished, and if so, what did that mean? She was Scipio’s heart; if she died, then what hope did the rest of the Tower have? How could we ever fix Scipio without her? But as I looked at Leo’s worried brown eyes, I realized that if he knew, he would’ve told us already.

So instead, I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. His hand came up to cover mine, and even though we were exhausted, sweaty, and had just performed the crime of the millennium, a spark jolted through me as his fingers stroked over mine.

For several moments, everyone and everything in the room dropped away, and I had a powerful urge to just sit in his lap and hold him. I knew I shouldn’t—he was an AI in the body of the man I had been falling for before he was injured—but that didn’t stop my heart from wanting it.

Then my brother cleared his throat loudly, jerking me out of the moment. I looked down to find him watching us both, his face an angry mask. “You still haven’t told us what you’re going to do with that legacy in the other room,” he said. “And that’s our biggest problem right now, not broken fragments and Sadie’s information. Sadie and the others will have noticed that he’s missing by now. We need to get rid of him.”

Maddox gave him a sideways look, her mouth already moving before mine. “Your sister has already told you that this discussion is over and done with. We’re not killing him.”

“And you agree with that?” he railed, looking at Leo, Maddox, and Quess. “You really are backing that move? These guys broke into Ambrose’s room and beat him without getting caught on the sensors! That’s what they do! So what makes you think that this situation is going to be any different? Any minute now they are going to figure out a way to track him, find him here, and then we’re all in trouble.”

Once again there were some good points in there, helping his case, but it still didn’t change the fact that we were talking about killing an unarmed man. Did his words fill me with fear? Absolutely. Thanks to what he’d said, I now couldn’t seem to get rid of the image of Baldy creeping into Maddox and Quess’s room and killing them while they slept. Of Leo with a knife in his chest, or Tian with her throat cut. I knew Baldy was capable of it, and more than dangerous.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t have a use, too. I just needed to figure out what it was. Alex wasn’t interested in hearing that, however, so I did the next best thing. “Maddox is right, Alex. Bring this up again, and I’m going to carry through on my promise and make you leave. Don’t make me do it.”

His eyes widened, his anger melting some to reveal a surprised pain. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

I nodded, meeting his gaze head on. “I am,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, but I have to be. You’re starting to scare me, Alex. This isn’t like you at all. You’re patient and calm. Mom’s death changed you.”

There was a moment, a fraction of one, really, where the wounded confusion was stronger than the rage, and I felt certain that I had reached him. But when he looked up at me, the shutters in his eyes had dropped down again, hiding the vulnerability behind plates of anger that hardened his face.

“It’s on your head if he kills you all,” he said, seething. “I’ll be with Quess, handling Sadie’s files. Quess?”

My brother didn’t even wait for the taller man to respond. He just snapped a turn on one heel, faster than I could blink, and was striding out of the room with a determined set to his shoulders.

Quess stared after him, rubbing the back of his neck. “He does realize that I work for you, right?”

“With me,” I corrected absentmindedly. “And… just go with him. Please.” The last part I said in the breath of a sigh, grateful that I had at least gotten him to shift his focus somewhat. We would need all the help we could get with Sadie’s data, and if there was one thing my brother was good at, it was figuring out computer stuff. Between him and Quess (and possibly Leo), they would crack it.