Page 71 of The Godhead Complex
Dominic stepped forward, his Crank-killing knife still in hand. “If you’re a member of the Godhead, why are you hiding out here in the woods like some loon?” Miyoko elbowed Dominic. “What?”
But Minho had been thinking the same thing. “What good is a God in the middle of a swamp?”
Alexandra cleared her throat. “I was led into the woods and the southern bog for a reason.” She moved closer to Dominic and glared at him until he looked away. “We don’t always know the reasons for our intuition, but I trusted it enough to find myself here andyoufound me. The blood of immunes.” She straightened out her cloak. “Evolution is brilliant like that.” She turned and smiled at Sadina.
Something about her reminded Minho of the Grief Bearers. “Then where are the other two members of the Godhead?”
“They no longer exist.”
“Oh?” Roxy questioned.
“I’m the only one left, now. The only God.” Alexandra spoke loudly and confidently, but Minho didn’t believe the Godhead could just . . .dissolveso easily. Something about this person wasn’t settling right with him. Only a devil would destroy the other Gods, at least according to Roxy’s Grandpa’s story.
“What’s your plan, then?” he asked. He couldn’t get the sounds of explosions out of his head. Knowing the Remnant Nation, the destruction would be vast. “Your city is being destroyed.”
“You’realla part of my plan now.” The Goddess smiled at each and every one of them, unfazed by the decidedly mixed reactions. At least Trish and Sadina returned the smile. “We’ll continue with the Culmination and we’ll Cure the world of the Flare once and for all. It’s really that simple.”
Minho wanted the Flare gone, of course he did.
The Flare was still his devil.
But something about this woman didn’t feel much different.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
The Last
It should not have surprised her that the woman who killed her mom also resurrected the Grievers of old, but impossibly, she was even more disgusted with Annie after the terrifying scene with Cowan. When the moment was right, Ximena sneaked down the basement stairs without Morgan or Carlos seeing her.
Ximena was done with the Villa and everything to do with it. She pulled out Annie’s knife and sheath, onto which her mom had sewn an eagle, and traced the threads. Ximena had promised to sew the truth through the land and she would still do that in her own way. She walked to a small room in the basement, far in the back that held the electrical components. Wires. Cables. Cords. The room smelled of heat and dust and disease. She stood inside for a long time, her knife in hand.
There was no going back.
She cut each and every cord in front of her. Solar wires to pods. Cable cords to safety viewers. Fluid funnels to hydraulic machines. She cut them all, figuring she’d have about eight minutes before Morgan realized what was going on. A minute for each of the dead crew members Annie had slaughtered—and Ximena would make each of them count. She stepped out of the utility room and moved quickly to the islanders’ pods.
“Where’s Ms. Cowan, is she going to be okay?” Isaac asked frantically as Ximena unlocked his pod. Cowanwouldbe okay as far as the power and machinery she’d been hooked into—she had her own breaker unit on the west side of the property. But Ximena didn’t know that she’d ever beokay again.
“She’s in a medically induced coma,” Ximena told Isaac before she moved over to Frypan’s pod. She paused momentarily and shivered at the splintered glass along the front where the Griever had attacked. It had been a close run, Morgan finally shutting the creature down at the last minute. Ximena opened his pod and set him free.
“Thank you,” the old man whispered.
“We don’t have much time, they’ll be down here in about five minutes.” She rushed to Jackie’s pod.
She wondered if Morgan and the team would miss the islanders more than they missed her. Carlos might not, but that was all. The others would miss having her blood to study and having her on standby if they needed anything—but they’d never truly cared about her.
As soon as Jackie was freed, she ran to hug Isaac. “What’s going on? I feel like I’m hallucinating again.”
Isaac was teary by the time he let go of Jackie. Then he addressed Ximena. “Thanks for letting us out, but we can’t leave without Ms. Cowan.”
“Look, I don’t care what you do or where you go. Just get out of here before they run some othertest, okay?” Ximena threw the pod keys into the corner, remembering how it felt when the Villa once studied her. She was setting herself free. She turned toward the black metal door that led to the outside.
Isaac reached for her. “We can’t leave without Cowan. Her daughter, Sadina, supposedly has—”
“Cowan’s not going to get better,” she snapped at him, forgetting how weak the islanders could be. Even after seeing what they had seen—theystillhad hope?
“I think we’re overdue for getting out of this, Isaac,” Frypan said.
Jackie fiddled with her grass bracelet, avoiding the terrible choice.
