Nobody dared to say a word after that comment about Siegfried's dick. I didn't see that one coming. I blushed. Did that mean that Siegfried fancied me? But how?

"I should be going," I whispered as I took a couple of steps back. I was far too embarrassed to stay there.

"Not so fast!" Agape yelled at me. I shuddered. "You're in this shit with the rest of us now! From now on, like it or not, you work for me!"

Her teeth were perfect, and she was fully displaying them to me as if she was a hungry wolf ready to eat me whole.

"And don't I have a say in this?" I asked naively but offended.

"How stupid are you?!" she yelled, making me feel stupid. "Of course not! If you've got any complaints, just talk to this idiot!" She pointed at Siegfried. She was more offended than I was. "He could've shot you in the head! We would be much better off! One problem less."

She was nauseated by my presence, as much as I was by her.

I turned my face to stare at Siegfried, who was standing right beside me. I had wronged him, and Agape by extension, somehow by merely crossing his path that afternoon. He should've killed me to make things easy, to make her happy.

At that moment, Siegfried was taking off a couple of eye contacts and was storing them in a small box. He had got brown eyes, like me. That amazing green hue was so intense that it wasn't natural. Of course, he was wearing contacts! He was taking them off casually. He was impassive to that last comment from Agape, while I was shaking like a leaf.

"Are you alright?" he asked softly. Was he used to Agape's fits of anger?

I didn't answer. I wanted to run away and never look back.

"Next time, Siegfried, I expect no collateral damages," Agape insisted, still angry. "Whoever interferes gets shot. Like your target should've, the kiddo."

"What?!" I exclaimed. "The kiddo? My brother?" My voice was creaking.

I stared at Siegfried in disbelief. He was staring back at me with a painful expression.

I had honestly thought he was meant to save him, not kill him! But he had been vague about it before. He had only admitted his mission was to prevent the clones from taking Daniel to the President's mansion to perform the surgery.

I realised he had never told me his mission was to actually save him. He had been economical with the truth.

"That was our one chance, you idiot!" Agape went on in anger while Siegfried's eyes got sadder while staring at me. "I've seen it all! Your teammates already know, by the way. All but Gabi. He's gonna know soon enough. They're furious! You swore that you were ready to take on this job! Did you lie to me?! Are you bailing?! If that's so, I don't wanna see you again! You hear me?!"

"I'm not bailing," he replied seriously.

His eyes were fixed back on hers, and they spoke volumes written in death and coldness. His pupils were small and deadly. I swallowed hard. It felt to me as if he was a dark angel leisurely walking out of hell. My blood felt like freezing.

"If you're not bailing, admit why you've failed this afternoon," she pressured him.

"You already know that," he whispered coldly. "You've seen it all on your screen thanks to my hacked chip."

"I want to hear it from your lips, honey," she said with an evil smirk on her face. "Now."

"Agape, please..." he begged with a softer voice.

She could tame him. I raised an eyebrow in amazement.

"Don't you dare say my name like this!" She abhorred his softer side. "I've had it! I didn't choose you to call my name with tenderness! Or to spare lives when I gave you a strict command! You knew what you had to do! You're my top mercenary! You've disappointed me... so fucking much! I'm the one in charge, Siegfried! Is that clear?! So, if you want to earn my trust back, I want you to admit your mistakes. Here. NOW!"

It made sense that she was a leader of a rebel, terrorist group. Only a tyrant would be able to fight a tyrant government.

"I'm an idiot," Siegfried replied with resignation but holding on to some dignity. "I lost focus. My target escaped. I failed. And I implicated a civilian."

"That's not exactly what I've seen on the screen, Sigi," she answered with a deviant kind of sarcasm. She was still pissed.

"What are you expecting me to say, word for word," he demanded seriously. "I'll say it."

"No buts?"

"No buts," he repeated firmly.

"Say she's to blame," she said pointing vaguely in my direction. "It's her fault you haven't shot the kid when you should've. Say you will never worry about anything or anyone else besides your target. No matter what."

What?! Wait! I wasn't even there when that was supposed to happen! How could it be my fault?! It didn't make sense at all! But I was way too scared to even utter a single word then.

"I will never worry about anything or anyone else besides my target from now on. No matter what," Siegfried said feeling tense, clenching his teeth and all the muscles in his well-built body like a wild animal. "It's her fault I haven't... shot... the kid..." he said, hesitating for a second, but carried on coldly, "... when I should've. She's to blame."

I swallowed hard when he had said those last hurtful words. I was so tense that my muscles hurt.

"Next time," she went on in a much more serene attitude, but she was still serious as cancer, "I want a flawless performance on your behalf. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he replied like a soldier on the battlefield.

"And you," she said as she turned back to address me in a much calmer attitude. "What should I do with you?"

She sighed as if she was getting a headache.

"I've scanned your chip's memory while you were coming here. You work in a cosmetic surgery clinic as part of the cleaning personnel. And a tame little sheep," she added with disdain. "You know how to mend stuff 'cos you wanna be a mechanic someday. It's something, but not much. But the police might still be looking for you. Not for long, I hope. I'm pretty sure the President will call it off soon. Maybe. The timing isn't good, anyway. I can't rely on maybes. I don't want you anywhere near the police now that you know who we are. Is that clear?"

"Yes," I replied, weakly.

Right after that, she sighed as if she was having regrets. Was she having second thoughts about me? Would she give Siegfried the command to kill me?

"What could I command you to do?" she asked herself.

"She hasn't got the right profile," Siegfried said then, coldly, with hard eyes. "She doesn't fit."

Would any negative comment on his behalf automatically mean my end? If he, Agape's top mercenary, claimed I didn't have the right profile to serve her purposes appropriately, what would happen to me? Was I dead as a dodo? Adrenaline was ruthlessly banging every nook and corner of my brain.

"I can see that already," she replied. "She's not like any of you. But now that her chip is functioning under my alternative network, I need to find a use for her. Daphne, right? Daphne... what else?"

"Daphne Peneus."

"Okay, Daphne Peneus. You're part of Amanita now." Her voice echoed harshly inside my brain. "Amanita is the right amount of poison to cure this sick world. Because both poison and medicine can be found in the same flower, as Shakespeare had put it. Virtue and vice share a home here. We are going to dignify our crimes soon enough, when we dethrone the clones and Apollo. So, no need to think of us as vile criminals who can't be trusted."

I swallowed hard.

"Yes, I have taken a glimpse at your thoughts on us," she added with genuine mistrust. "We have a just aim, and people will acclaim us for it. And now, you are going to help us, Daphne. Give me a good reason so that I don't have you killed right now for being either useless or an enemy to our beliefs," she pressured me.

"W-what?!" I exclaimed, thunderstruck.

"Slow and not imaginative." She looked tired of me. "Not even when your life hangs in the balance. Out. I don't want a useless member in my rebel group."

She signalled us to leave her alone as if she was simply ordering Siegfried to take out the garbage.

"Oh, and Daphne," she added, condescendingly, "do yourself a favour and kill yourself before the police find you, please. Thank you."

I felt colder and colder as seconds went by.

"Agape, a second, please," Siegfried said in a hurry. Then, he turned to me and added, full of concern: "Give her anything. Now."

"What can I give her?!" I asked, feeling terrified, with a hysterical voice that cracked by the end. "I haven't got anything on me! Besides, I'm poor. I don't own anything of value." Like most traditional humans.

"Information," he clarified, trying to boost my confidence and cheer my hopes up. "Or the promise to obtain it. Try to think of this as a chance. Now the clone government doesn't know you're out of the system, like me, like the rest of the group. They won't know what you think and what you do. You're free. What would you dare to do now that those bastards don't know they're not controlling you any longer?"

Good question. It left me thinking deeply. He had a point. I had been way too scared and sad until then to even realise the full scope of the situation I was in.

"You could do anything, Daphne," he insisted, tempting me into mentally exploring possibilities. "To help us, to help those you love – and yourself. To change the world."

He was right, but I doubted that any type of information I could gather would ever be good enough for such a tornado-like woman like Agape. She seemed to be the queen of dissatisfaction.

"I don't know," I replied, feeling unsure and afraid. "I've got no idea how to do it. And I don't think I want to get involved in such a group as yours. I don't even know you. I don't think I would dare to either murder anyone, or steal information, or..."

I realised I was signing my death sentence, even though I was speaking the truth. I would never fit.

"You're capable of a lot more than you know," he replied with vehemence, holding me by my arms to get me to look straight into his eyes. "Look, I get that you're scared, but right now you've got two options: either you help us –even just a little would be enough–, or you get out of here and expect to get shot any moment."

Would that be him, the one to pull the trigger? It was my fault he had failed. Part of me suspected he wasn't telling the truth when he had told me I could walk away when we still were at the crime scene.

"It's your choice, but I know you'll be wise enough to choose the former," he added whispering seriously, trying to convince me with a worried face and a mild pressure on my arms where his fingertips were. "Everybody in your shoes would."

"Look, girl," Agape suddenly said then, cutting into our private conversation with a funny face and a daring tone of voice, "I'm gonna give you twenty-four hours to show me you're worth something. I want to see you here before 4 p.m. tomorrow with an interesting present for me."

"But what? How? I..." I replied hesitating. "What am I required to do?"

"Wake up, girl," she simply replied while snapping her fingers at me. I was convinced that she saw me as a toddler trying to make her first steps, but she was unwilling to be patient enough to check on my progress. "Improvise. Amaze me."

I nodded while holding my breath.

"By the way, if the police eventually get you to ask you stuff about your brother," she added, "bear in mind that you have to lie. Like you've never lied before. They can't know about us and your involvement with us. You've never come to Amanita. You've never met us. In fact, we don't even exist as far as your knowledge is concerned. Do you hear me?"

"Yes," I replied as firmly as I could.

"And now, get out of here. I've got work to do. Besides, you can't afford to waste a single second, I'm afraid."

Hello, sugar cubes!

So, how's Daphne gonna handle this? Will she find a way to pass Agape's test?

Stay tuned to know more! 😊

XOXO

MS