“I don’t think Hadley will take nearly as long to be a part of us, but the point is, we’re not there yet,” he said. “And therefore, wewillcome home.”
“I’m not sure that the laws of the universe will bend to that reasoning, but it’s a good enough one,” I said.
“Besides that, there’s you and I that have only just begun,” he said, pressing his lips against mine until I sighed against his mouth. “I sure as fuck didn’t just open my eyes to what I’ve had in front of me this entire time to lose it before we get there.”
My arms tightened around him as my heart gave a squeeze. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What if that’s not enough?” I whispered, finally letting a little of my fear through.
“We’re going to make it enough.”
“I can’t help but think that maybe we do need some help,” I admitted.
“We’re going to have plenty of help. While The Harem Project hasn’t been focusing on weapons, our friends have some tricks up their sleeves and we’re pulling out all the stops.”
That’s not what I meant. He knew that. But while none of us were going to argue that twelve was not all that large of a number in the field, I was confident that we all agreed that this was our fight. Silence had targeted our family and while coming at them with greater numbers to show our unity, we weren’t ready to pull our friends into the line of fire yet.
Then again, the Daemons were already there. Surely we could at least bring the demons with us?
I didn’t suggest it. Because if we don’t survive, I sure as fuck wanted them to go on and live long, healthy, happy lives.
“Alright,” I said.
Arat chuckled again. “Trust me, baby. Everything will be fine.”
He held me firmly in his arms as we danced quietly around the room. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear a band playing. Maybe an orchestra, with someone singing as we swayed to the rhythm.
As we left the ballroom, I wondered if he really was that certain of the outcome or whether he was just that good about putting on a front for me.
Back at The Harem Project, most of my family was littered around the table, working in smaller groups. Quiet chatter filled the room, and I caught snippets of conversations concerning weapons, time of day, number of agents, countermeasures, layout.
I paused next to the map that was being constructed and stared, impressed. “How are we sure that’s what the inside looks like?” I asked as I sank into a seat next to Akello.
He grinned at me. “Penetrating radar mixed with some strong magic,” he said, winking. “We have nodes surrounding the building, some mixing frequencies into their own surveillance, and others sending in probing waves that bounce back for us to gather data.”
“It’s pretty impressive,” Plum said, grinning widely. “Was ridiculously exciting to create this and see it succeed. I bet they’re scrambling inside to try to figure out what the sudden rush of magic noise is coming at them from all sides.”
“Including underground,” Akello added.
There were still large sections of the building across four floors and several basement levels that were dark, but as I watched the screen, walls grew up. I pointed. “What happened here?”
Plum pushed a laptop toward me and I studied the screen that literally looked like lines scanning across. So many of them, moving like a heartbeat. Sometimes growing taller while others dropped down. Plum pointed to one particular blip in the lines where they shifted up dramatically before suddenly dropping off.
“This is what a stairwell shows as. This technology works best through soil and pings off metal at certain depths that you program in. But with some well-placed magic, not only do we get by their magic thresholds, but we also move through concrete, steel, and wood while noting the layers we make it through. Because we’re surrounding the entire building, the signals cross and line up within the program. That’s how it’s finding and confirming walls, doors, stairs, and other areas,” Plum explained.
“This is stupidly incredible,” I said, feeling a bit of hope blossom inside me. “We aren’t going in blind.”
“We were never going to let you go in blind,” Akello said, sighing in exasperation. “Though we shouldn’t let you go in alone, either.”
“It’s only our confidence in your strength that we’re agreeing to sit out,” Fable said as he took a seat with us. He leaned back in his chair, spreading his arms across the back of mine and giving my hair a gentle tug.
“But the second you stop answering us, we will be there to storm the place with you,” Akello said.
I smiled, not bothering to argue with them either way. Because I couldn’t decide which end of the argument I was on. There was no way we’d lose if we all went together. But with greater numbers on our end meant the higher probability that someone would get hurt. It meant that not only would my family be a target with the Daemons, but every other family, too.
Bottom line was that we needed to win. It didn’t matter how we made that happen. As long as we all left in one piece, together, breathing, that’s the only outcome that was an option.
Akello, Plum, and Fable spoke about the layout and hypothesized what was in each room. Coming up with possible scenarios that we might find everywhere we came. Every ten minutes, another room would come online. There were pockets here and there that remained empty and Plum said that there must be something in those rooms that was causing too much interference. Be it technology or magic, she couldn’t say.
By the time I left around three that morning to head home, I was starving, but also felt more hopeful and confident about this mission than I had since we agreed to it. The floor plan was almost complete. Even with the holes, I didn’t have any doubts that we’d make it through with confidence in each step.
