“If she has harmed either of them, if you order her to harm either of them, if you allow harm to come to either of them, I will tell my cousin to call his siblings, and the last thing you see will be like something out of a dark reboot of Captain Planet,” I said. My voice didn’t shake. For the first time in days, it felt completely steady. “You will die here, all of you, and it won’t matter if you shoot me—you know how to kill me, I’m made like a human being, blow my brains out and it’s over—because you’re going to be outnumbered.”

“Humanity still owns this planet,” snapped Vice-President Rogers.

“Numerically, sure. But I don’t see humanity here. I see you. Twelve of you. And you could probably take out me, and you might take out Hunter, but not before we sound the alarm, and it won’t take long before you’re facing way more than twelve of us. So how about we all play nicely, and we all have a chance at walking away?”

Footsteps behind me. Footsteps, and the distinctive sound of guns being cocked. Vice-President Rogers’s head snapped up, eyes widening in clear alarm.

“Hold your fire!” she shouted. “No one is to fire! They’re friendlies!”

“No, we’re not,” I said, turning to look around Hunter and grinning with ghoulish glee when I saw Mandy and Graham walking alongside Agent Brown and her people. Both had their hands cuffed in front of them, and Graham’s lip was split, probably from his struggles to get to me before I could be thrown off the plane, but they were otherwise all right. They were otherwise just fine.

Graham stopped walking for a beat when he saw me peering around the admittedly alarming giant green lizard. Then he broke into a run, not seeming to care that he wouldn’t be able to catch himself if he fell. “Stasia!”

“Hi, sweetie.” I stepped around Hunter. Graham collided with me, and I threw my arms around him, breathing in the scent of him, who he was, who he would always be. It was distinct and singular and stronger than the smell of blood. Thankfully.

He pressed his face against the crook of my neck, breathing in deeply in turn before he whispered, “I saw you fall.”

“I know. I know you saw.” I lifted my head to look at Agent Brown and her people with every ounce of hatred I possessed. One of them had a hand wrapped tightly around Mandy’s upper arm, keeping her from following Graham to safety. “I’m so sorry, Graham. That should never have happened.”

Agent Brown looked at me impassively, cold resignation in her eyes. She knew she had lost. Maybe she realized how badly she had fucked up by deciding to dispose of me. It didn’t really matter either way.