Roman dismisses his driver and we all climb into Billy’s dad’s car.
“Here, you can sit back here with me,” Ambrosia says.
Roman scowls, but doesn’t argue. He climbs into the passenger seat and lets Billy, who knows the area better, drive. But when the car turns on and the music blasts into the cabin, Roman clears his throat politely. When that doesn’t work, he looks back at me.
I shrug. A little loud music won’t hurt us.
We spend half the day looking for the list of items, including a burner cell phone for me. It would have taken us far longer without Ambrosia and Billy’s help, but even so, we spend more time waiting on incompetent people than we do actually purchasing what we need. Navigating the world of the humans is more obnoxious than I’d have expected. Eventually, though, we locate everything, and I’m ready to assemble it all.
“Where should we go to make the flash bombs?” I ask. “I assume these aren’t legal.”
Billy shakes his head. “I’m not sure, so maybe it’s best to pick somewhere out of the way.”
“You’re thinking grandpa’s old place?” Ambrosia asks.
Billy shrugs. “Our grandpa died almost ten years ago, but Dad can’t bring himself to sell his house. It’s a ways off, but it’s on a few acres and no one would be watching what we’re doing.”
“Perfect,” I say.
It’s a drive to get there, but it turns out to be the perfect spot. It is a small, ranch style home, surrounded by big trees and shaggy weeds. Once we set up to make everything, Billy’s a little too interested in making the flash powder. “So it’s forty percent potassium?” he asks.
Roman’s jaw muscle twitches. “Potassium perchlorate.”
“And thirty percent magnesium?”
“Thirty-four percent,” I say. “And twenty-six percent aluminum.”
“This part is dangerous,” Roman says. “Maybe you better give me some space.”
Billy takes a step back.
Roman scowls. “All of you go outside. The last thing we need is for this to blow up because you’re distracting me.”
“Your concern for their lives is very touching,” I say.
“I’m more concerned about how long it would take us to replace all of this.” Roman winks at me to soften the growl in his voice.
I walk onto the front porch, and Billy and Ambrosia follow.
“Usually the front porch is dusty and the inside of the house is clean,” Ambrosia says. “But it’s the opposite here. The outside is cleaner than the inside, thanks to the wind.”
I brush off the bench out front and sit down. “It’s still pretty dirty.”
“At least there are less spiders.” Billy shudders. He whips out his phone and starts poking buttons.
“What’s he doing?” I ask.
“Nervous he’s telling someone where you are?” Ambrosia asks.
“Maybe.”
She shakes her head. “He’s addicted to this game called Clash of Clans. Basically, you fight people and steal their stuff and then you use what you stole to make your city bigger. Then bigger people attack you and steal your stuff. It’s this whole, pointless, boring, never-ending thing, but.” She sighs. “He’s always playing it. Trust me, he’s smart enough not to tell anyone where we are, even his dumb gamer friends.”
I hope she’s right.
“So. . .” Ambrosia says, drawing out the ‘oooo’ sound. “You didn’t tell me the friend you were calling was your boyfriend.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Billy’s a little bummed out, actually.”
“About?”
“That you’re taken.”
“Ah.” It hadn’t occurred to me that the human kid might have a crush on me, although it makes sense. I’ve always heard humans put a disproportionate level of importance on a mate with an aesthetically pleasing face and body. “Well, your brother was mistaken. Roman’s not my boyfriend.”
“He’s not.” Ambrosia’s words indicate she understands, but her tone implies I’m lying. Or delusional.
“Believe me, I wouldn’t become romantically involved with Roman.”
“That man is über hot, and all muscly, and smart, and he rushed out here the second you called him.”
I shake my head. “I’m telling you. We’re evian. Every single member of my community back home is hot, muscly, and smart. And most any member of my guard would have rushed out to help me for a text, much less a phone call.”
“Okay,” she says, “but you didn’t call anyone else. You called him.”
She’s right about that. “I trust him to keep his mouth shut.”
“You trust him, and he’s all those things I said, and he looks at you like a fat kid eyes a caramel apple in the candy shop window.”
“Just stop, okay? As my twin’s heir to the throne and as a member of the royal family, I need someone who can destroy anything in his path. I need someone who finds solutions when there aren’t any. I need my partner to be capable of taking on the entire world.”
Ambrosia crosses her arms. “You just described yourself, and in my experience, relationships between clones are fraught with problems.”
“What does that mean?”
“Look. My aunt married this guy, okay? She was career-obsessed, and driven, and dominant at just about everything. She went to Harvard Business School and she’s now CEO of her third start up. The lady is worth tens of millions. Let’s call her the human equivalent of you.”
“You’re comparing Wonder Woman to a successful businesswoman?”
“Don’t get hung up on labels, alright? Seriously, Aunt Cassidy’s epic. Anyhow, she married this guy who was first in his class at Harvard Law. Everyone gushed about what a phenomenal couple they made. They stayed married for less than two years.”
“They split up?”
Ambrosia nods. “She was absolutely miserable. They fought all the time. She’s been married to a new guy now, a guy named Bo, for almost ten years. Dad says they were made for each other, and guess what Bo does?”
“You’re going to tell me either way.”
Ambrosia grins. “Yes, yes I am. He was a food critic. But he quit that job and now he takes care of their two kids. He’s laid back, he’s excited about most everything, and he softens all her sharp edges. They’re still just as happy now as they were when they first met.”
“So you think I should marry a dud.”
Ambrosia’s eye roll practically makes noise, it’s so dramatic. “OMG. Bo is not a dud, and Roman is not a dud, and you’re totally missing the point. Have you ever heard the word vulnerable, Miss Empress of the World?”
That’s an ironic question coming from a human. “Yes. I’ve heard of it. It means you’re not safe, you’re open to damage or destruction.”
Ambrosia laughs. “What a classic Queen of the World answer. You’re wrong, though. It means you’re exposed, and if you’re ever going to have a happy relationship, you’ll need to try it. You need someone you trust, like you just said you trust Roman, who you can rely on, who can bring things to the table you don’t already have. Which means you don’t need a crazy, overbearing warrior who can slice people to bits. You can do that already. You need someone else, someone different than you. But you’ll need to be brave enough to handle that kind of person.” She leans a little closer. “You’ll have to be vulnerable, or you’ll never truly find a partner.”
“Ambrosia is obsessed with Brené Brown,” Billy says. “She thinks reading a few of her books has made a psychologist out of her. Just ignore it and she’ll shut up.”
Except, I wonder whether I should be ignoring her, because what she said just made a lot of sense.
When Roman walks out of the front door, I try to look at him with fresh eyes. He’s hot, yes. He’s smart, also true. He’s skilled at what he does. He’s not Edam, but maybe there’s a reason things between Edam and me were always so miserable. Maybe Ambrosia isn’t wrong.
Roman realizes I’m staring and his eyebrows knit together in puzzlement. “Everything okay?”
He’s looking at me like he did at that party on New Year’s, and I remember that I have no idea who Brené Brown is, and I should not take the word of a few humans over my own mother. “Oh yeah, everything’s fine. Are we ready to go?”
“It’s all ready to load up, yes.” Roman glances back at the front door.
“Coming,” I say.
Ambrosia tries to make small talk in the car, but I don’t have anything to say. Now that the attack is happening, I’m uneasy, maybe even nervous. I close my eyes and run through complicated math problems, and then I move on to chess moves to occupy my mind. I can do this. I can fix my mistake in not killing Melina the first time around. I can avenge Mother, pay her back for kidnapping me, and then I’ll be able to go back home with my head held high.
It’ll be hard, but I need to fix my mistake. Angel and Melina will pay.
We drop Ambrosia and Billy off at the home of one of her friends, Paige. Melina’s people will be watching their house for sure.
Roman only drives a few blocks before he pulls the car over to the side of the road. “What’s going on?”
“Huh?”
“You’re quiet, and you seem borderline depressed. It’s not like you.”
“I made a mistake,” I say. “And I’m fixing it. That’s all.”
Roman looks up at the ceiling of the car, and then back at me. “You’re kidding, right?”
“About what?”
“You made a mistake. . . how exactly?”
I set my jaw.
“You think getting kidnapped by your mother’s chef was a mistake? Or do you mean that you never should have set Angel free?”
I sigh. “All of it, okay? But please do continue with this highlight reel of the many things I’ve done wrong. It’s super helpful.”
Roman leans across the center console so his face is inches from mine. “You are magnificent, Judica, and much kinder than you let anyone realize. But I’ve seen it. You didn’t make any mistakes. You interrogated Angel, and we searched her belongings, and we found zero evidence of her involvement with your mother’s murder. Letting her go was the right call at the time.”
“A good ruler sees more than one move ahead, Roman.”
He slams his hand down on the console. “You are the best leader I’ve ever seen.”
“So good my mother fired me, and Chancery defeated me, and I was kidnapped. In that order.”
Roman snorts. “You care about your people, and you evaluate every option, and you show mercy when it’s truly merited, and otherwise you uphold justice. And most of all, you are willing to be the bad guy when necessary. That’s an underrated value, you know. Right is always more important to you than popular. Don’t let your mother’s bizarre reversal get into your head.”
“Chancery is the—”
Roman swears loudly. “Don’t throw that up as a barrier. She’s the Empress now, fine. Only because you let her be the Empress. Which was you showing mercy, prudence, and foresight. But if you hadn’t done those things, Melina would have kidnapped her instead of you. Do you think Chancery would have survived and escaped? Do you think she’d have been able to do what you did?”
Probably not.
“You don’t need to answer, because you know I’m right. All we can do in this world is try our very best. Sometimes it’s enough, and sometimes it’s not. But if we drag around the weight of everything that ever went wrong, we’d be anchored in place at the bottom of the sea.”
“Can you just drive, please?”
“Fine.” Roman slams the car into gear and tears down the road.
We reach the spot we agreed upon, a mile and a half away from Melina’s compound. We’re unloading the stuff when we see him.
A sentry.
Melina has a sentry more than a mile and a half away from her base.
Roman pulls his rifle out and shoots the sentry. Three times. We sprint over to where he is, incapacitated by the three gunshots, but not dead.
“Secure him,” I say. “As well as you possibly can, and then deal some slow-healing damage.”
I close my eyes and think. Melina knows more about me than I hoped she did. She’s expecting an attack. Which explains why her search was so lackluster. She knew I’d come running back to her, and now I’ve done exactly what she expected. I’m like a windup toy. Everyone knows how I’ll react.
Roman shoulders his bag and says, “What now?”
“We proceed. So what if she’s ready for us?”
“I’m not balking,” Roman says. “I’ll do whatever you demand, but consider our odds. Your sister has home advantage—”
“Do not call her my sister.”
Roman sighs. “Fine. Melina has the geographic advantage, and on top of that, she’s got who knows how many guards and we have. . .two people.”
“I can take out every single one of her guards with my eyes closed.”
“Maybe so, but all it takes is a few good shots and you’ll be on the ground. You can’t do anything from the ground.”
I’m asking Roman to set the flash grenades and then run like hell from the melee that causes. The risk to him hadn’t really clicked for me before now. “Are you scared?”
“Scared isn’t the right word,” he says. “I’ll do anything you ask, but it doesn’t seem very prudent.” He opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something else, and then shuts it.
“Say what you want to say.”
“Why don’t you contact Chancery? You can use Alamecha resources to do this the right way. If she killed your mother, Chancery would be the first one in line with a pitchfork.”
I don’t need her help. I can do it myself. Even Ambrosia could see I was a warrior. I shake my head. “No, we do this now. Today. Who knows what Melina will do if we give her time? She could run, never to be found, or assassinate someone else, including Chancery.”
Roman’s voice is low, urgent. “Or you.”
“I’d like to see her try again.” That’s a lie. I don’t want someone out there, secretly planning to kill me. General awareness is one thing, but I don’t relish the idea of a target on my back.
“Fine,” Roman says. “But use your radio.”
I click my radio on and slide the earbud in place. “Ready.”
Roman straightens his shoulders and turns to head for the front of the compound. He takes two steps and then pivots back.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
His eyes remind me of storm-tossed waves when they meet mine. He steps closer, and his face is inches away from mine. “We may not pull this off.”
I put a finger to his lips. “We will.”
He reaches up, takes my hand in his, and presses a kiss to my palm. My heart shudders. For the first time since I woke up in that van, my resolve wavers.
“I hope you’re right, but just in case you’re not.” Roman sets his bag down, and grabs my hips with both hands. He pulls me against him and lowers his lips to mine slowly. But this time, it doesn’t feel like he’s giving me time to stop him. He’s daring me to do it.
And I can’t.
Now that he’s mentioned that I might never see him again, I can’t bear the thought. His broad, calm strength. His quiet support. His unfailing confidence. Roman has seen me since I was small. Not the relentless, perfect statue, not the insane berserker, but me. The scared, confused, desperate little girl pretending not to care.
And he wants me in a way none of the power-hungry, accomplished, genetically superior men do. He wants me no matter what my role is within Alamecha. Mother was wrong about him, and now that I know it, the idea of letting him go slays me. His lips against mine are urgent, and when his hands move into my hair, I whimper.
He releases me abruptly and steps backward.
I growl.
He grins and wiggles his eyebrows. “Now let’s do this thing.”
I nod my head dumbly. What thing? Oh. Right. He’s referring to killing Melina. Yes. We should do it, and just as soon as my knees start working again, I will.
When Roman jogs off, he’s still smiling from ear to ear. There’s a matching smile on my face as I move silently through the thorny underbrush, sticker bushes, and tumbleweed. Why would anyone choose to live here? I notice two other sentries, and I evade them easily. But when I reach the wall, I stop cold.
Instead of the simple wall that I left yesterday, I’m looking at a razor-wire topped, electrified perimeter. Every forty feet, a guard with a fifty-caliber gun stands on top of what looks like a hunting blind.
I’m screwed.
“Caesar, it’s me, over.”
“I hear you, Peacekeeper, over.”
“They’ve got fifty-cals and triple the guards. Plus electric and razor upgrades, over.”
“Orders? Over.”
What are my orders? I might be able to squeak through and kill Melina, but I doubt I can make it out alive afterward. And I’m pretty sure Roman will figure that out. He won’t be willing to simply lead people away. He’ll come back for me, and he’ll die doing it. The idea arrests my heart. I shouldn’t care what happens to me after I die, but I do. There are things worse than leaving this world. I didn’t realize that until this very moment, but there are. I know, and the reason I understand that fact scares me.
Because I love Roman.
I’m not the perfect person Mother raised me to be, and I wasn’t good enough to rule Alamecha. I’m not strong enough to do this alone, either. I can’t fix my mistakes, not if I want to survive, and when I think about Roman, I do. I want to survive.
That thought scares me more than the prospect of fighting my way through Melina’s guards. At least attacking is something I know how to do. Loving someone is not something I ever planned. It’s not something I’m even remotely prepared for. I can’t be someone I’m not, and I can’t let Mother down, not again, and if I go down swinging, well, I’ll take Melina with me. That can be my legacy. I cleared the path for the Eldest, or whatever nonsense Melina was spouting.
Balthasar trained me too well for my feelings to override my head.
“Light them, over,” I say.
“Will do, over.” Roman says.
I close my eyes. I will likely die today, avenging Mother. Then Roman will return, and he might die too, avenging me.
When will it end?
“Wait,” I practically shout. “Don’t.”
“Don’t? Hello?”
“Don’t light it, Roman. I love you.”
No response. Did he hear me? “Roman! I know I said to do it. I don’t want her after me forever. I don’t want to live with a target on my back, but Roman, don’t light the flares. I don’t want to risk it, I don’t want to risk us.”
Still static.
I start back for the car at a dead sprint. I shoot two sentries and keep running. Did someone catch him? Is he alive? What have I done? Why didn’t I realize this sooner? Why am I so stupid?
I slam into something, a very hard thing, and fall on my butt. I heave in a breath to replace the air that was just knocked out of me, and leap to my feet, unsheathing my sword.
“Relax,” a familiar voice says. “It’s only me.”
I turn slowly toward Roman.
“You scared me!” I say. “Why didn’t you respond? I thought you’d died.”
The corner of his mouth turns up. “You were worried about me.”
A tear forms at the corner of my eye and rolls down my cheek.
He rushes to my side and wipes it gently away. “I’m sorry. I wanted to hear you say it in person. It was selfish, and I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me that you’d panic. I should have known.”
My swing goes wide, but I still land a solid punch on his shoulder.
“Ouch,” he says.
“That’s for freaking me out, you jerk.”
“Should I punch you, too?” he asks.
“For what?”
“For being so goofy you don’t realize how you feel until we’re standing in front of your maniacal family member’s house?”
I roll my eyes.
“Or maybe because you’re insisting we have this whole discussion while the woman who wants you dead is only a mile away.”
“We could be so lucky for her to come strolling out here. I’d take her down so fast—”
Roman kisses me then and every thought in my head dissolves like cotton candy in rain. My heart races. My chest aches. A shiver shoots up my spine.
“That should hold us over,” he says. “Until we can do this more properly.”
Properly. A word I never thought anyone would use to describe me.
I close my eyes and lean my head against his. He’s here, and I’m here, and we’re both alive. His hand reaches under my chin and tilts my face upward. “But I can’t let another second pass without telling you something. Judica Alamecha, I adore your spirit. I love the spark in your eye when you’re cranky. I forget to breathe when I watch you fight. It’s truly a glorious thing. But none of that compares to your bravery in the face of danger, and your righteous fury when someone you love is harmed. You’re the best part of every single day, and when you disappeared a few days ago...” He chokes, and his eyes well with tears. “I know I don’t deserve you. I’m not enough for you, but I swear I will try every single day to improve. I’ll spend every ounce of my strength training, studying, working to be what you need, because I love you. Not a little bit, not most of the time. I love you limitlessly. I love you from the depths of my soul. I love you in the dark and in the light. I love you at your worst, and at your best. I love you from now until forever, with every fiber of my being.”
I can’t formulate words, not in this moment. “Kiss me again.”
And he does. Oh, he does.