Regina squeezed her eyes shut and curled her hands into fists.
I waited.
She opened her eyes, walked over, bent down, and took my hands, looking straight into my eyes. “Listen to me very carefully. You have to kill it. All of it. If it is a Saito construct, those stars you saw would be matrix nodes. If even one of them survives, it will rebuild itself and it will be smarter and more dangerous. Kill it. Kill Cheryl too.”
I drew back, but Regina kept a firm hold on my hands.
“Patricia says you don’t like killing, but if what you said is true, you have to kill Cheryl. That bitch made something that can make us extinct. She can’t be permitted to keep that knowledge. She can’t pass it on to anyone, do you hear me? Swear to me. Swear to me or I will march right out of here to my cousin’s house, because once he hears about this, he will rip her apart.”
“I give you my word she won’t pass it to anyone else,” I told her. “I will watch her die.” That was a promise I could make. The penalty for stealing the Osiris serum was death.
Regina relaxed and let go of my hands.
“I know how to kill Cheryl. How do I kill the construct?”
Regina shook her head. “I have no idea. Any construct you throw at it will be torn apart and assimilated. If it’s as big as you say, Cheryl can’t control it, and once a construct is animated, no other animator can claim it. Burn it, drown it in acid, nuke it. Do whatever you have to do, or it will end life as we know it.”
Chapter 12
Shadow greeted me at the door. I picked her up and carried her with me into the kitchen. The overhead light was off, but the light fixture above the table flooded it with bright electric light.
The table stood empty. Odd. It wasn’t late.
I stepped into the kitchen. Grandma Frida stood by the open fridge, examining the contents with a sour look.
“Did I miss dinner?”
“Leftover night,” Grandma Frida said.
“Oh.”
Leftover night meant everyone made a trip to the fridge whenever hunger struck them and grabbed whatever they could find.
“Anything good left?”
Grandma Frida shook her head. “Half of the rotisserie chicken with the skin gone and the Mongolian beef you made two nights ago, except everyone picked the beef out and there is only mushy onion left.”
“Well, that’s no good. I’ll make us something.”
“You’ve been gone all day.” Grandma Frida waved her hand. “Is there any more of those crispy pizzas left?”
I set Shadow down, checked the freezer, and pulled out two California Kitchen pizzas. Grandma’s blue eyes lit up. “Perfect.”
I popped the pizzas in the oven, set the timer, and followed her to the table.
“How is it going with the broken tank?”
“I found the problem,” Grandma Frida said. “It doesn’t work because it’s not broken.”
I blinked at her.
“See, I couldn’t figure it out. The tank was telling me that nothing was broken, but the filter system wouldn’t work.” Grandma Frida paused for dramatic effect. “The Russians DRM’ed the filter system.”
“What?”
“The original filters have a barcode on them. I thought it was a price sticker. There is a little scanner in the filter system, and if it doesn’t read the right barcode, it locks the whole thing down. Damn bastards.”
I laughed.
“Who puts DRM into the damn filter system?” Grandma Frida griped.
“The Russian Imperial Military, apparently. Are you going to order some Russian filters?”
“Hell no. I have the five filters that came with the tank, more than enough for Bern to predict the pattern. He’s going to print me some barcodes on stickers in the morning. I’m going to glue them on the filters and see if it works.”
I rested my elbow on the table and leaned my chin on my palm. Sitting with Grandma Frida like this was like being wrapped in a soft, warm blanket after coming inside on a cold day.
“What?” Grandma Frida asked.
“Nothing. Just happy to be home.”
Grandma Frida’s face softened. “You don’t look so good, kiddo. Rough day?”
“You could say that.”
“How did it go?”
“I found out that there is an indestructible construct in the swamp. I have to kill it and the woman who made it or the world will end.”
“Not that.” Grandma Frida waved her hand. “How did it go with Alessandro?”
Grandma Frida, always focused on what’s important. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? Why did he leave? Where did he go?”
“He went to kill the man who murdered his father.”
“Well?” Grandma Frida waved her arms. “Details! Did he kill him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?” Grandma Frida asked.
“Because whatever happened broke him inside. He’s not the same person who left. He answers whatever I ask, so if I ask, he will tell me.”
“And that’s a bad thing why?”
“Because I’m trying very hard not to care.”
“What happens if you care?”
“We’ll both get hurt.”
Grandma Frida fixed me with her blue eyes. “Since when did you become such a coward?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
If Alessandro left, it would crush me. I knew it and I’d come to terms with it. If he stayed, it would be even worse. I had no doubts anymore. He wanted me as much as I wanted him. Eventually one of us would break down and open that door, and then what?
Alessandro was a Sagredo, an heir to a traditional House, a magical dynasty that was generations old. No matter how badly his relationship with his family crumbled, he would never sever it completely. The way his face had softened when he spoke of his mother told me that sooner or later he would go back. He would try to become a version of his father, a respected Head of the House with a wife and children.
I couldn’t be that wife.
Alessandro would want me all to himself. I couldn’t share him either. He would ask me to marry him, and I would have to break his heart and tell him no. He would have given up his revenge for me, the thing that dominated and shaped who he was, and I would have to tell him no.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t inflict that kind of pain on him. I would do anything to keep him from getting hurt.
“No matter what happens, it will end in heartbreak,” I muttered.
“You don’t know that.” Grandma Frida tapped the table with her index finger. “There is something about you and that boy. The two of you talk like a matched pair. He came back here for a reason. He came back for you.”
And now I had a choice to break my heart or his. I picked mine.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me, missy. I know men.”
I put my hand out. “TMI.”
“He looks at you the way Shadow looks at bacon in the morning. You look at him like you have to put a straitjacket on yourself every time he is near. You tried breaking up. It didn’t stick, because wild horses couldn’t drag the two of you apart.”
“Grandma, he’s been back for less than forty-eight hours. When did you even see any of this?”
“I spied on you talking with him in the driveway through the security cameras.”
Once this was over, we had to buy a new place. One where I could have a tiny crumb of privacy.
Grandma Frida pounded her fist on the table. “Listen to me, you dummy! Most men can’t even hold a conversation with you because your brain is too fast. You say two words to him, and he knows what you mean. You only have so many chances to connect with a person. You can always walk away, Catalina, that’s the simplest thing. I don’t want you to push him away and then regret it for the rest of your life.”