“Is it a good idea?” he asked.

“It might be a necessary idea,” I said, but even as I voiced the thought, I was aware of contradictions.

“You wanted this, and the fact you wanted this was a good part of the reason I accepted. Jessica agreed. Someone needed to talk to her. Pulling her away from therapy, after that?”

I couldn’t disagree.

That was the hellish contradiction here.

If I was going to use her, then I was asking her to abandon therapy, and I had already resolved to kill her if she did just that.

And that didn’t even touch on what Chris had told me about.

“Isn’t it better to leave this alone?” Darnall asked.

My heart was pounding. I wanted to say yes.

I wasn’t even sure if I could have explained my full rationale for saying no, or if I could have explained my plan. I was going to have to, I knew. I was mentally preparing for the Wardens to admit they didn’t have an idea.

Then I’d tell them I wanted to skip ahead to where our opponents won and use their momentum against them, and hope the Wardens were on board.

It was all I could think of, but we didn’t even have the initial elements we needed to make it happen.

“Can’t,” I said.

The door squeaked.

I wasn’t the only one who tensed. Darnall, my mom, my aunt.

She stood with her body leaning against the door, wearing the same clothes that had been issued to the refugees that had been moved into this building. Plain, simple. Her hair was tied into a loose ponytail, her arms exposed, those damned tattoos showing.

The way she stood, her back was to me. She could, I imagine, see Darnall out of the corner of her eye.

“I don’t recommend this,” Darnall said.

“You were just telling me I need to develop my listening skills,” she replied.

“That was not an invitation to not listen.”

I exhaled, and the exhale came with a shudder.

I really couldn’t think of better ways.

There was a bit more peace at the end of that exhalation and shudder than there might otherwise have been.

“Dove into the architecture of powers, a bit ago,” I said, raising my voice to be heard. “We got some insights, got some clarity. The world’s due to end in two hours.”

“That simplifies things, doesn’t it?” Amy asked.

I wasn’t sure how to respond to her. On a level, her talking made my brain flinch away, made me feel stupid.

How much of me had wanted to do this just to prove to myself I was stronger, that the revelation back there had meant something when it came to Amy? Had I blocked off thinking about other avenues out of a desire to inflict this on myself?