“He’s on a glider,” I snarl. They’ve evened things out, and now he can follow us anywhere.
The current changes direction and pushes us toward Scorpio, who swoops down and plucks us both out of the water with his claws. I pull at his fingers, punch at his arms, but it’s like trying to fight a vehicle.
Scorpio floats to the bank and throws me aside. I roll over a mass of hard roots and crash face-first into a tree. Pain explodes across my skull, my pulse thrashes in my ears, and white spots appear before my eyes. I push myself off the trunk and scramble on my hands and knees toward Mom.
His low, satisfied hum rumbles through my eardrums. Scorpio kneels over Mom and traps her forearms in his pincers. The artificial sunrise illuminates the exoskeleton of his broad back, making him appear monstrous. Mom clicks the shocker over and over, sending out bursts of blue sparks, but the power doesn't reach his armor.
I stumble to my feet and stagger toward Scorpio, whose tail lengthens and curls toward Mom. Droplets of liquid glisten off the tip of his stinger, looking like he’s going to kill her with poison.
Panic lances through my chest. I leap onto Scorpio’s back, snatch the stinger and plunge it into the gaps between his exoskeleton.
He throws his head back and roars.
Scorpio falls onto Mom and convulses. Mom screams and thrashes underneath him. I roll onto the roots, snatch the electroshocker from Mom’s fingers and shove it into Scorpio’s neck. Power erupts from its tip, and Scorpio stiffens.
With a final, pained breath, he falls onto Mom.
“Zea?” she whispers.
“Are you alright?” I drop to my knees, wrap my hands around his pincers, and heave them out of the ground.
Mom makes a pained moan and wriggles underneath the monster’s weight. My muscles strain as I roll Scorpio onto his side, and she pulls herself free.
The lights turn on, and Scorpio makes a whirring sound, followed by clinks and clanks. I scramble to my feet, and pull Mom to my chest.
“Is it over?” she sobs.
“I…” The answer is no. There will be another Scorpio, another stadium, another way to torture my family and me. “Please, don’t ask.”
Mom turns around and screams.
I grab her shoulders. “Are you hurt?”
She bursts into wracking sobs and falls onto her knees. Dread fills my belly, and I turn to see if someone has entered the stadium, but all I find are pieces of Scorpio’s dismantled helmet.
Scorpio isn’t a drone.
Scorpio is Dad.
Chapter 23
I drop down to my knees, a scream tearing from my lips. Dad stares lifelessly at the artificial lights.
“Loam.” Mom places her hands on his chest and repeats his name over and over.
A wave of cold shock spreads numbness across my chest, and my ears ring with accusation. I killed Dad. I killed Dad, thinking he was Scorpio. I killed Dad, even though I should have remembered Queen Damascena had promised my family a messy death.
I slump, and my gaze tunnels to the scene of Mom cupping Dad's head in her small hands and sobbing like someone is plunging sword after sword into her gut. This doesn’t feel real. It’s just like the fake montage of Ingrid fighting the hijackers at Berta’s side or the footage of Lady Circi dragging the naked girl from the hospital room.
At any moment, Mouse and Ambassador Pascale will step out from behind the trees and offer me Dad’s life in exchange for telling their cameras that I’m an April Fool. Then they’ll double up and laugh at my reactions and promise that everyone will love my performance in the Amstraad Republic.
But nobody comes. Nobody moves. Not Dad, who I just killed. Not Mom, who now sobs on his chest, and not the guards, who have just appeared on the edges of my vision.
Dad isn’t coming back to life because I killed him.
Mocking applause echoes through the empty chambers of my mind, a slow hand-clapping that increases in volume with each approaching step.
“Well done,” her voice is cold and distant.
It must be Queen Damascena coming to gloat. It’s not enough for her to make me kill my own father, she has to explain in excruciating detail how my acts of defiance have led to this very moment. Whatever she says next bounces off my wall of numbness. I can’t keep my eyes off Mom and Dad.
Rough hands pull me to my feet, and a large, gloved hand turns my head toward the queen. My gaze rotates to Mom, who clings onto Dad’s abnormally broad shoulders. I can’t stop looking, not even when the queen slaps me hard across the face, not even when her fist slams into my gut. Nothing can reach me. Not even when Mom turns around and screams at them to stop.
A needle pierces my neck, and everything goes black.
I’m lying on my side on a smooth surface that won’t stop vibrating. It feels like the faint rumbling of an electric motor. I groan in the back of my throat. They’re moving me somewhere else.
A booted foot turns me on my back and gives me a sharp kick in the ribs. Flinching, I open my eyes and stare not at light streaming through ventilation holes, but at chandeliers.
Memories rush to my consciousness like a sandstorm. I suck in a breath, waiting for the deluge of grief. Nothing happens. I exhale, push myself up to my elbows, and stare at the metal back doors of Queen Damascena’s mobile dressing room.
“Accurate as ever,” the queen says from behind. “She awoke just in time.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” a female voice simpers.
I scramble onto my hands and knees, and back toward the door. Queen Damascena and Dr. Ridgeback sit on adjacent leather armchairs, each holding a glass of champagne.
On the left, the doctor wears her usual white coat with her ash-blonde hair tied back. Apart from her coloring, I can’t see anything of Berta in her cold features.
