"Are you kidding me?! K? One of us?! Not bloody likely!" Sigi didn't like the idea, probably because he might've hated K's guts. They were sworn enemies in the hockey court, but that didn't mean they should be so outside of it.

"Then, I don't think that Amanita's girls have got good intentions on the guy," I concluded trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together but failing at it.

"I don't like this one bit. Let's go outside."

We rushed outside to check whether we could still see them, but everybody was gone. We were alone.

"Damn!" Sigi exclaimed in a foul mood.

The soft, cool air of the night greeted us gently. His tense tendons were showing under his tight-fitting, white T-shirt.

"We should go to Amanita and tell Agape about all this, Sigi. Besides, you're due to open in a few minutes. I'm worried. What if they attack you tonight again?"

"I'll be ready to fight back." His defiance and resolution were visible in the fierceness of his eyes.

"Agape doesn't want to sell Amanita. They'll keep coming back until she does, won't they?" I asked with concern.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there," he replied in a hurry. "You need to focus, Daphne. Defending Amanita is my thing. Getting the group's cohesion back should be Agape's. And yours is learning to meditate. It seems that you're still gonna need it now that we know why Ray got caught. It's pretty lame if you ask me. Frustrating. He got caught only because he was the first employee to attend his check-up, and that way he'd give Amanita a bad name... it's..."

"I know. It's appalling and scornful."

"Shall we meet tomorrow at the cellar?" he asked trying to regain his composure. At least then he was no longer angry, just low-spirited.

"How about after lunch, right before hockey training?"

"Deal."

A few minutes later, Sigi and I were riding at an insane speed on his bike through Thalis' streets.

We needed to ride around the City Centre, taking a long detour through Dawn, Buenavista, and Mill neighbourhoods, since traditional humans weren't allowed to ride in it. Only some exceptions were made for bus drivers and the like. If we had ridden through it and got caught by one of those easily triggered police patrols, we could've got arrested.

To our surprise, we found some of those patrols in those three neighbourhoods, but they were too busy eating doughnuts and drinking coffee. The long arm of the law on one of its finest moments, I thought with sarcasm. 

To be honest, they were also ignoring a large group of masked individuals, clad in black from head to toe, the very same who vandalised Amanita, the rebels' home, and Mr Beaumont's butcher shop. They were letting them act as they willed. Clones had copied many things from us, traditional humans – including our lack of ethics.

Sigi simply turned off the bike's lights and the engine at given points during our route, just so we wouldn't get noticed by that angry mob.

Once in Spoon Street, he slowed down and stopped the engine when we reached our destination: my home. The Dam neighbourhood was an unwelcoming place in terms of sight, smells, and security. The stark humidity made summer nights unbearable, while the mould present in all the buildings smelt like rotten wood all year round. The residual waters in the sewage fermented and emanated vapours in the shape of mist that came from the gutters in every street and rose into the sky. That and the poor streetlights gave my neighbourhood an aura of dread, insalubrity, and a mystifying urban fantasy.

"I still don't understand why you won't let me come to Amanita with you," I complained as I got off his bike – Agape's bike, actually. We had argued about it before leaving the Sports Palace.

"One: I promised your father you wouldn't come home late tonight. Two: it's dangerous. You're the extra brains that Agape needs to steer this ship, Daphne. I'm not risking your well-being just because the fucking building might get attacked tonight. That's when the rest of the rebels and I come in."

I sighed in defeat. I took my keys out of my jeans' pocket.

"Are you angry at me?" he asked all of a sudden.

"No, it's just... I'm worried, that's all. I could help you think of something to stop them from coming, or..."

"It's best if you stay home, Prinzessin." That word blew all my fuses.

"I may not know many words in German, but I do recognise this one. How would you feel if I called you 'virgin wonder boy' like Gabi does, huh?" When he heard me say that, he was shocked. "Don't you ever call me that again, you hear me?"

"Why not?"

"Because I'm no princess, Sigi. I'm not a damsel in distress that needs saving. Well, I'm a woman, and I'm in distress more often than not, but that doesn't mean I can't do something about it!"

"OK, fine," he replied genuinely feeling remorse. "I didn't mean any harm by it. What pet name would you like instead?"

He got me thinking. I had never had a pet name before.

"I don't know," I asked and smiled at him with mild awkwardness.

All of a sudden, we heard male voices yelling angrily in the distance. We turned our heads to the corner of Spoon Street, and then we saw many individuals from that angry mob we had seen before running like mad. Something was off. One stopped right there on the corner, surrounded by the sewage mist, and then he turned his head to us out of the blue.

"Fuck," Sigi whispered madly.

Luckily, Spoon Street was barely lit. Many lightbulbs were broken. Besides that, the disgusting sewage mist shielded us partially from being seen. A colleague of his stopped right next to him, also looking our way.

"Hey! You there!" the first guy yelled, pointing at us.

"Quick. Come inside with the bike." I hurried to unlock and open the door. In less than three seconds, we were both inside my home's hall with the bike, and then I locked the door. The hall felt as small as a sardine tin with the bike parked there with us.

We remained in silence and the semi-darkness. Only the weak light of a distant streetlight filtered through a small window on my home's door.

"Do you think they're gonna...?" Sigi began to ask, whispering.

I simply requested him to be silent with my forefinger on my lips. My home's walls, windows, and doors weren't soundproof.

"Huh... I could've sworn there was somebody here," I heard that male voice say with dejection.

"Must've been the sewage mist, dude," his friend replied. "Let's go and beat more passers-by up and burn more shops. Besides, isn't this the home of that chick... the mechanics freak?" When I heard that, I turned extremely pale.

"Yeah, that prudish gal, Daphne." Venom coated his words. "Fucking bitch."

"You're still pissed 'cos she turned you down? Wow. I didn't take you for a resentful dude!"

"They know you?!" Sigi exclaimed whispering, appalled.

"Yes. One of them at least," I whispered back nervously in the lowest volume possible. "The pissed-off guy is Uriel. A friend of my former friends from high school. He's a perv. Tried to push me into hooking up with him one night."

"I'm gonna...!!!" Sigi whispered in ire.

He was already taking off his riding gloves, the ones I had given him as a present. He left them with anger on the bike's seat and wanted to go out the door, but I stopped him by standing defiantly between the closed door and him. Boy, did he look mouth-watering when his muscles were that tense and at such a close distance!

"You're not gonna do a thing, Sigi. You're not getting into a fight now that Amanita and the group need you," I whisper-shouted at him. My father must've been asleep – or not.

"One of these days..." Uriel said with a hurting pride, still standing in front of my home, "I'm gonna rape her."

That last comment had hurt like a bullet wound on my skull.

"Come on. Let's go," his friend said as if he was bored.

They ran away after that. I heard his footsteps fading away, and then a most welcome silence.

"I'm gonna kill him!!!" Sigi said in the lowest, scariest grunt I had ever heard from him. "But first, I'll chop off his dick and feed it to the dogs! And I'll make him watch!"

"You will do no such thing! He's just a fool. And a mere pawn in the game – and you know it. These guys are being used by the clone police. We don't even know whether they know about the property-buying plans! They might be involved or not. Maybe the police saw these attacks coming and thought of a plan to make the most of this situation, or maybe they fostered them from the beginning. Maybe they pay them! Who knows! But you need to focus on what's important right now: defending Amanita. You need to defend, not attack."

He was fighting it. His clenched teeth and fists didn't lie. Whenever he was mad like that, all I wanted to do was hug him tightly.

"Send me a text message when you arrive at Amanita. And if anything happens, call me or text me. I mean it. Anything."

"If they dare to come back to Amanita or our home to make a second attempt at destroying them, I swear I'm gonna kill every single one of these guys. Fucking traitors!"

"No, you will be the better person," I insisted with care. "You will capture them and make them talk. We need to know what they're up to, why, and whether the clone police are paying them to do this or not. If so, we could even use them to tell lies to the clone police who are trying to buy Amanita."

"Lies? Like what?" he asked with curiosity.

"Well, a lie like the fact that Amanita looks pretty well on the outside, but that inside everything has been destroyed. The most valuable thing that Amanita's got is the artistic interior design. Tell them you're pissed off because their Molotov cocktails had destroyed it all last night, and that you now need to find a job elsewhere. You don't need to show them proof. Just convince them with your anger. Or show them bits of a broken statue or something. It could work. And once they're out in the streets and meet with their greedy bosses, they shall re-tell this sad tale. They shall be most disappointed to know that the real value of Amanita is gone for good. That is, of course, if these psychos are working for the clone police. And if they're not, you'll be able to tell by their smug faces. They shall think they've won, succeeding at punishing the ones who live in the same home as a dead rebel."

"OK, a sad or nervous reaction means they work for the clone police; smug and pretentious, they don't," he replied with excitement. "Cool! I like this plan. I'm looking forward to executing it."

"Yeah, because poor anger management is your thing. We all know that," I replied with mild exhaustion.

"What would I do without you,... my Glühbirne?" he asked with renovated gentleness as he put both hands on either side of my face. His feathery touch on my cheeks made me blush.

"Your what?" I whispered with amazement.

"Glühbirne. German for a lightbulb," he explained in a kind whisper as his face got closer to mine. His smile was the rainbow at the end of a storm. "A compound word the particles of which are 'Glüh' -from the verb 'glühen', glow- and 'Birne', pear. Lightbulbs look like pears... and they glow."

I chuckled with amusement.

"So, let me guess. This is my pet name?" I asked whispering with a stupid smile on my face. "Why? Because my ideas glow over my head in that shape, like in the cartoons on TV?"

"You look like a pear, too," he said taking his head a bit back to take a good look at me from head to toe. One of his thumbs danced over my skin until it reached my lower lip when he got closer to me again. "You also taste as sweet."

I blushed wildly at that. Recent events kept piling up in my mind, both the dangerous and the hectic ones, making me live my life in the fast lane. Sigi's closeness and comments at that moment were the icing on the cake in that sense. My breathing got ragged as his nose got closer to mine and the tips touched.

Then, he held me tight in his arms. His face leaned on mine, and he softly kissed my lips slowly, taking his good time.

Hello, my sugar cubes!

I've survived being chairwoman for the latest elections in my region - COVID-free, safe and sound! YAY! :D I had never taken such an active role in any elections. It was a nice experience, but I'm exhausted. Anyway, THANKS FOR READING! It means a lot to me! :)

XOXO

MS