Brave Fear (boyxboy)

Chapter 32

"What are we going to do?"

Zane sat with his head in his hands, his gaze slipping through his fingers like prison bars. His elbows rested on his knees and his mind whirled. The single jet was obviously a force sent in to specifically kill them quietly. Wawrzynski had orchestrated for them to go to London, so there was no possibility in which he staged a battle there. He knew they would not fight on his side, so they were a failed experiment to dispose of.

But Zane would not go easily.

He remembered when Joseph had almost killed himself on the plane, and just how helpless Zane had felt. He knew he'd be lost without Joseph. He would feel no drive to continue, to keep avoiding Wawrzynski. So when the thought of Joseph being brutally murdered crossed his mind, Zane knew he would do anything to prevent it. Even if it meant he himself died, he would ensure that Joseph got the life he both wanted and deserved.

"We're going to keep fighting him," Anastasia said. "I know just how cruel he can be, but I've also seen his flaws, his fears." Her eyes shone with rage, and Zane suddenly saw an imprisoned girl, crying for help, surrounded by lava. But in the midst of it all, she was fighting. She was struggling to keep her head above the boiling magma, fighting for each breath. Zane himself knew she could breathe in lava. Why his brain had not considered that fact, he didn't know.

"And what's that?"

Anastasia's knee began to bounce up and down in agitation. "He always thinks he's right," she said. "It never crosses his mind that he's wrong. That's how we were able to fool his first plan, the one with the weird weapons."

"Yeah, that's weird," Jonas said, cocking his head. "What do you think he intended to accomplish?" He was standing in a nearby corner, his shoulder leaned against the wall. His tall, wiry frame appeared comical in nature, bent in the middle like a deformed paper clip. His arms dangled at his sides, his fingers twitching, rivulets of information zipping in and out of the microchip and into his brain.

"Nothing worse than this," Daisy said, biting at a fingernail. She regarded it like an annoying zit, her face contorted in disgust. She rummaged in her pack nearby, soon emerging triumphant with a bottle of nail polish the same piercing blue as her hair. When Zane raised an eyebrow, she smiled. "A girl's gotta look pretty," she said. "To kick some ass."

Mallory snorted and Anastasia rolled her eyes. "We're on the brink of nuclear war, what use is makeup and manicures?" her twin sister asked. Mallory shot Anastasia a weird look, probably surprised they had agreed on something.

Daisy scoffed. "Am I not allowed to look pretty and be badass?" she demanded, her eyes flashing between the two other girls.

When neither of them responded, Zane said, "I think you look dashing."

Daisy smiled. "Thanks," she said, applying the polish rather sloppily. Her eyeliner had also been reapplied recently, and her earrings of the same color flashed. She certainly had a theme.

"To get this conversation back on track," Jonas said, absentmindedly staring out the window. "Wawrzynski not only always thinks he's right, but he's scared of rebellion, hence why he performed his experiments in New Vancouver, where that was virtually impossible."

Zane looked at Joseph, seated next to him. "But still possible,"

Joseph winked.

"Exactly," Jonas responded, heeding no visible attention to Zane and Joseph, but his microchip was probably already processing the gazes they'd given each other and the subtle feelings and emotions they implied. "If his experiments were to be made public in New Vancouver and not disguised as the experimental science division, revolution could happen." He sounded very confident. "And if the whole world knew, he would be an outcast, a shunned scientist with worldwide aspirations."