“Stacy—”
She squealed loudly, her voice reaching deafening heights of shrill. “For fuck’s sake, will you stop calling me that? We’re almost done with this job, so I can dump the stupid alias I gave you.”
My brow furrowed. What the actual fuck was happening here? This seemed limitlessly more complicated than I had originally thought. The guard keeping an eye on Wrex left him for a second to pull Maxim to his feet.
“What?” He seemed shocked by this revelation, but other things on his mind took over. “I did everything you said!” Maxim’s fear was evident, his whole body shaking in the hands of the guard. “My parents are gonna be okay, right?”
“You’re parents will be fine,” She waved at the guard. “Unless you don’t get out of my sight, you’re annoying the fuck out of me. And Wallace and I have business to discuss.”
Shoving the rifle against Maxim’s side, the guard lead him over to the door that Wrage had disappeared into. “I’m sorry, Wallace! I’m so sorry!”
I mentally noted that apparently Maxim was being blackmailed into helping Stacy, or whatever the fuck her name was since she’d mentioned it being an alias, and kept a straight face as she walked over to Wrex and pointed the gun at his head.
“We’re going to have a little chat, and if I don’t like the way it’s going, I’m going to blow his fucking brains out. Got it?”
I nodded. I briefly wondered, now that there was only one guard and Stacy keeping us apart, if Wrex would be able to use his luster to break free from his restraints. As if he could read the thought on my face, Wrex gave me a curt shake of his head.
“Clearly you wanted me here, Stacy. So why don’t you tell me what I’m doing here.” I spoke evenly, but my heart was rattling against my chest.
“Let’s start with my name isn’t Stacy.” She smirked. “My real name is Aspen Rhodes.”
My nose crinkled. “As in, Senator Rhodes?”
I knew him by reputation only. He’d been a prominent member of the Senate until a few months ago when he’d fallen ill. The only reason I’d heard about it was because I’d walked in on my boss Cassandra gossipingabout it one of the evenings I’d been updating her on ORBIT business.
Stacy / Aspen snapped the fingers of her free hand. “Ding ding! Correct. Dear old daddy isn’t doing too hot, and no one was giving a shit so I took things into my own hands, more or less.”
“Wait, you’ve been pretending to be a woman named Stacy for over three years. Your father has only been sick a couple months.”
“A couple months to thepublic, that is.” She clarified. “Daddy’s been sick for years. And a couple months ago, it took him out of commission. But I had to do something.” She was starting to pace as she spoke, paying less and less attention to Wrex. I needed that to continue if we planned on coming up with a way to get out of here, so I made a mental note to keep her talking. “And since Daddy’s been at the forefront of not being the biggest fan of Orbs, I decided to start a little group to fuel others into helping me do the dirty work while I tried to figure out a way to save him.”
“You’re…behind the Hellgrammite hate group?” It was an astonishing thought. I’d be impressed if I hadn’t been absolutely horrified.
“My best idea,” She beamed, swirling the gun around her hand like it was a cheerleading baton.
“But why the petrylle?” I demanded. “Why did you need them?”
“Because of their luster,” She scoffed, like I should have already pieced it together by now. “We discovered that the source comes from their bones, that it’s something in their bones that radiates the luster and makes them stronger.” She simmered down from her reign of power, tears licking at the edges of her eyes. “When Daddy started getting sick, I knew something drastic had to be done to save him.”
I’d heard about Senator Rhodes’ condition. A few months prior to me bringing the ideaof ORBIT to my boss’ desk, the senator had fallen so ill that he’d had to be given at home care to monitor his worsening condition. I had no reason to doubt her motivations, however trivial and selfish they were, but my brow furrowed when I thought about her lying to Maxim all these years.
“Senator Rhodes has only been sick a few months,” I challenged. “You were with Maxim for over three years so why—”
“To thepubliche’s been sick for months.” She reminded me. “The family has known about his condition for years and we managed to keep it quiet for a long time. I was the only Rhodes sibling even remotely worried about Daddy enough to formulate this master plan for him. I found Maxim by chance. By then, he was already working for you. Daddy said you were always sympathetic to Orbs, even back then, and I knew that infiltrating that way would bear fruit. I got incredibly lucky that you decided to craft this stupid Orb board. All of this,” She paused to suggest the invisible actions surrounding us. “Is thanks to you, Wallace.”
Pausing to laugh like everything was going according to plan, she lightly paced back and forth in the small space allotted to her between me and where Wrex was on the floor.
“I thought,” She went on with her explanation unprompted. “That if I could uplift the ideals of an Orb sympathizer that I could learn more about their unique abilities, to see if any of their special attributes could help Daddy. And once Maxim saw the petrylle displaying their luster during the interviews for your little board, I knew I had my in.”
Disgust twisted my eyes from her, instead hitching on the movement I caught from Wrex. He steeled himself as she glanced back at Wrex, whom she had been conveniently ignoring while I had her in the throes of her villain monologue. He gave me a nod and then slightly gestured to his hands. I took that as silent cue that he was almost done getting the restraints on hishands undone and to keep her talking.
“So what was the plan? Kill the petrylle to get access to their bone marrow or something?”
“Oh please, it’s not the simple.” She rolled her eyes. “We tried that, but the scientists said the only way to administer the properties to Daddy was to either find a suitable donor that matched perfectly or to have enough so we could extract the luster from fresh limbs.” Smiling evilly, she pointed her gun at Wrex, which made him stop fidgeting with his hands so that she didn’t suspect anything. “And with your little boy toy, the scientists think we have enough petrylle to attempt extraction without fear of failing.”
Wrex gave me a stern nod, and I nodded back, worried that Stacy would notice, but she was too wrapped up in her own little world to see the exchange.
“You really think you’re going to get away with this, don’t you?”
