Efferent

Chapter 58

James words left me chilled as I left the dining hall. Muttering to myself, I rubbed my forehead. "You said no?" Blaise walked up from behind to fall in step with me.

"I said nothing." I told him, "I said that I would think about it."

"There is not anything to think about!" He protested vehemently, clutching at my arm to slow my pace and t pivot to look at him. I continued forward with little resistance, ignoring his intentions.

"Yes," I whispered calmly through clenched teeth, "Unfortunately, there is."

"He can not do anything without you-."

"He already has." I stopped, angrily turning to face his. "And he will. He plans to. He said that with or without me they would continue with their plan."

"Their plan to slaughter hundreds of innocents!" Blaise raised his volume as he raised his arms to his side. "A plan that I thought you would not want to be apart of, a plan that I thought that you would have rejected on the spot."

"Do you think I do not know that?" I bit out, whirling around. Blaise seemed surprised at mu sudden outburst, and he held up his hands.

"Then why did you say-"

"I wanted," I whispered, grasping at his hands, desperately pleading for him to listen, to stop causing a scene. "Stop yelling, and I will explain. I wanted-."

Blaise's eyes flared, and he spoke even louder. "If you wanted to do anything-!" I covered his mouth, looking to the side, and seeing a closet door. Quickly I opened it, pushing Blaise into the small cabinet and roughly closing the door behind us.

My fingertips tingled as I grazed them across his chest, a flush rising to my cheeks. I chalked it up to my rising emotions, and I used them to my advantage, channeling my Efference as I spoke. "I told you to be quiet. You will be quiet, until I tell you that you can speak." I leaned in close, gripping his shirt, "Is that understood, Blaise?"

He nodded, mouth remaining shut as his eyes searched my face with a hint of something indefinable.

"Good," I leaned back, brushing down the sleeves of my shirt and crossing my arms before I looked him in the eye to continue. I inhaled slowly, "Of course upon hearing James's initial plan, I had wanted to reject him. I wanted to automatically say that any participation on my behalf would have to be forced from my body. And then I thought of Clark."

Blaise quirked his head to the side, his eyes dark, as he waited for me to continue. "Clark does not have a choice. If he says no, he becomes a liability, just like the former Dr. Ross." I tilted my head back to meet his gaze full on. "And they will kill him. Travis, or perhaps even James himself."

Blaise snorted but he remained otherwise silent. "Do you doubt it?" I shook my head, "You should not. And with as much surveillance he is under, it would be hard to inform him of any uniform attack or resistance. Impossible, even."

Blaise shuttered his eyes as he thought, and I continued. "Further more, if I were to have resisted fully, he could have killed me. Or worse." I trailed of softly, thinking in my head, he could have killed you.

"In their home field, in this forest, they have the advantage. They have the tools. They have the resources." I paced to the side of the cabinet, looking at the shelves that housed boxes of unopened bullets and ammunition. "If we take them home, back to my city, we have the advantage over them. I know the streets, I know the people, and I know the government that will surely be waiting for us with an armed welcome."

I turned to face him once more. "I had to think about it, because my actions have consequences that effect hundreds of people." I looked down at my feet, "But most importantly, my actions have consequences that effect the people that I care about." Blaise lifted my chin, so that I would look him in the eye.

His gaze was pleading, yet he remained silent, his face softened in the dim lighting. The silence stretched on as I stared into his eyes, and I was struck by the fact that he was waiting for something.

I leaned in, careful not to graze my hands against his chest, and looked at his lips, still shut. I looked back up into his hooded eyes, and he took a step closer. Slowly, I leaned in, closing the gap between our lips until I could feel his soft breathing, and with my eyes slightly shut, I whispered.

"You may speak now." His eyes opened, and I took a step back. "Now that you have heard what I have to say," I told him in a hoarse voice, distancing myself further from him, I cleared my throat and repeated myself, "You may speak."

He swallowed, and I watched his Adam's apple bob up and down, before his voice sounded in the small room. "I think," He licked his lips, "I think that you were right." He turned around, facing the shelves. "Despite the fact that we know this building just as well as James himself, he has the numbers. But one thing I would like t point out would be that when we reach the city, he will still have the numbers. That fact will not change anything."

He looked back over his shoulder, "And he has Travis. So it would be three against three hundred, if we were able to count Clark, if he did not lose his control again and use up his stamina."

I nodded, pondering that. "The citizens would help. The soldiers, at least, and they would have weapons."

"They do not know of the attack." Blaise countered.

"So we stall. We buy them time to amass their forces, cause enough trouble for the afferent army to hold them at bay." I offered, running my hands through the end of my hair. "Just long enough for them to recognize and join the fight."

"And then what? We watch them open fire of the afferent that we trained? Watch the soldiers defending that city shoot at those that we personally know? Just like that, we turn our backs on them and watch them die at the hands of mass machinery." Blaise shook his head. "Either way their will be casualties. Which is why we should do this here, if we are going to do it at all."

"Blaise," I started, "I do not know what the best option is here. But I do know that doing it here will not save Clark. It will not bring Travis back to our side, and it will certainly not bring Amelia back from the dead. Yes, we know many of the Afferent, but they chose to fight with James. I grew up in that city, my family is still there."

He fell silent, staring at the floor once more. "What would you suggest then?"

"We go along with James's plan until we reach the city. Then we provided as much opposition to the attack as possible, affording the city as much time as possible to prepare for a battle that they had never seen coming."

"Are you sure? You would not want to do it here?" He questioned one more time, eyes searching my face.

"I know that if given the home field advantage, I can maximize my power to hold bloodshed to a minimum. I could control both sides, but in order to do so, I would have to be close to both sides." I searched his expression for any hint of encouragement as he thought it over, before I added. "And if came to picking sides, I know which one I would choose."

At that, he looked up, interesting tinting his eyes. "Which side would you choose then, Ardyn? Are you really that comfortable being the swing vote in such an important conflict?"

I toed at the cement floor, drawing small circles as I twisted my ankle around. "The city," I offered simply, I would choose the city."