“Do you think those two will show back up?” Kira asked.
“I wish I could say ‘no,’ but we’ll see tomorrow. Something is going down, and Dr. Hennigan believes it involves Pennington University.”
“She could have been feeding you a line of bullshit.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. She could have left any time she wanted to today,” Blayne said. He looked at Ethan. “Did she even try?”
“Nope. She even insisted on waiting for you to get here before she’d tell me everything. She had no plans to leave here until she talked to you.”
Kira took a breath through her nose and let it out. “Legally, you have no grounds. If caught, tried and found guilty, you will go to jail. As your lawyer, I can say we could argue Stockholm Syndrome. After what happened last month, clearly, neither of you are in your right minds.”
“That’s not—”
Kira lifted one finger to cut Blayne off mid-sentence. “The legal ground is shaky. But, if the larger, looming threat proves true, then your actions can be justified. There’s a legal theory that works in some states called ‘competing harms’.”
“Oh great, she’s going lawyer-speak on us,” Ethan tried to joke.
Kira shot him a side-eye and continued. “Say you’re in a situation where you think you or someone else is about to get hurt badly—physically, I mean. At that moment, you think the best thing to do, the only thing to do, is something that technically breaks the law. Now, the law says it’s okay if the average person, using common sense, would say, ‘Yeah, that makes sense. The risk of getting hurt was too high compared to the harm of breaking the law.’”
“What if you just think the law is bad?” Blayne asked.
“Here’s the kicker. Your decision to break the law can’t be based on whether you think the law is moral or right. The law’s the law, regardless of personal opinions. And that, my friends, is Criminal Law one-o-one for the night.” She uncrossed her legs, placing both feet on the ground before standing. Blayne followed suit.
“You know I’m sorry about all this,” Blayne said.
“I do,” Kira replied. “I don’t like it.”
“Makes two of us,” Ethan chimed in.
“Bu-ut,” Kira said, drawing out the word, “I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. I just hope this doesn’t come back to bite all of us in the ass. Orange isn’t a color that would look good on any of us. The one thing we have going for us is that your new friend appears very connected. I just hope her connections save us in the end. And I hope we’re making the right decision.”
“Time will tell,” Blayne said. He reached out and pulled Kira into a hug. At first, she didn’t hug him back, but she eventually threw her arms around him in response.
“Ahh,” Ethan said. “Group hug.” He came and joined them.
Kira pushed away and looked at them. “When this is all over, we will discuss life choices. But you little shits, if this blows up in our faces, I will ensure your lives are so unpleasant that you’ll wish you were detained in Guantanamo.” She looked between Blayne and Ethan before saying, “I still love you both.” An exasperated breath escaped her. “What the actual fuck?”
Ethan
Ethan didn’t want to be all ‘I told you so’ when Kira left, but stared at Blayne knowingly when he came back into the room after he’d armed their security system.
“I know, I know. I’ve royally screwed the pooch here.”
“We’ve messed up big time,” Ethan admitted. “And while I will tell you at every turn that I think this is a horrible, horrible idea, I don’t think there was a better option.”
“Really?” Blayne said. He picked up one of the kitchen chairs and carried it back to the kitchen table.
“Yeah. I had a long time to talk to Dr. Hennigan today. She’s probably the scariest person alive. I’d rather be stuck in a room with one hundred Kiras than face off with one Hennigan. She’s that kind of scary. But, as scary as she is, I don’t doubt her sincerity.”
“True, but you can be sincerely wrong,” Blayne said. He walked back, grabbed another chair and put it back where it belonged.
“Oh yeah. She’s crazier than a soup sandwich,” Ethan said. Blayne let out a sharp laugh. “But she’s sincere.”
“In the immortal words of Oscar Wilde, ‘A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.’”
Ethan shook his head in agreement. “We’re in deep trouble if this backfires.”
“Yep.”
