The Girl Who Dared to Stand (The Girl Who Dared #2)(2)

“Fine,” I breathed, fighting back my frustration. “How long do we have before the Knights show up?” Each word was punctuated by a slight pause, and I hoped that Scipio somehow managed to interpret those as periods, so he could have a double dose of my annoyance.

My mind was already introducing me to worst-case scenarios, the cruelest of which was being forced back into that tiny split room in the Citadel—where the Knights lived and worked—and being forced to watch my friends die one by one, drowning on the poisoned air that was pumped into the room. And me being helpless to stop it.

Then again, that was a nightmare I had been suffering ever since my mentor had first taken me to that room—and made me watch him kill a woman. Nothing could compare to standing helpless as a woman died, her hands clawing at her throat, her eyes begging for help, and being able to do nothing to stop it. Because the expectation was that I would go blindly along with it. Because Scipio decreed it. Because it was what was best for the Tower.

Suddenly a slight hum came up through the chair I was sitting on, and I looked around, searching for the source. But I found nothing in the dimly lit office space.

I waited for Scipio to reply, wondering if he was now just messing with me, and had gone offline in the hopes of keeping me here while the Knights got closer.

I should go—get out of this dusty secret office and back to the others, to warn them. The whole thing felt like a trap. One that Devon had set up just in case we escaped.

In that moment, I felt defeated by the sheer idea of Devon Alexander. He was the Champion of all the Knights. He had fought and defeated challenger after challenger in the Tourney—a month-long competition designed to find the person most capable of leading the Knights. He had thirty years of experience on me. He was fast and strong and had tracked me back to the Sanctum before killing Cali and Roark. So of course I had wandered into his delightful little trap.

I lurched up and moved toward the ventilation shaft, intent on leaving as quickly as possible, but Scipio’s voice brought me up short.

“I’ve searched my data banks for any records of a Knight, and it says here that they were lesser forms of nobility who served monarchs as warriors in the Middle Ages. So, unless we have somehow traveled back in time—a prospect that I would remind you is completely preposterous—then I imagine they aren’t coming, considering that feudal style of government went extinct over a thousand years ago.”

The tempestuous storm of emotions churning in my stomach suddenly grew very quiet, and I stilled, listening to not only his words, but the smug way in which he’d delivered them. Like he’d caught a child pretending, or in the midst of some poorly conceived lie.

He had, in a sense. But he wasn’t acting smug because of that. He was acting smug because he thought I was saying something stupid. I was certain Scipio held a certain amount of disdain for me; my failure as a productive citizen of the Tower became evident every time the number on my wrist tracked downward. But for him to be dismissive of my intelligence by pretending he had no idea what a Knight could be was beneath him. He knew I was smart, so why even pretend?

Something was off about him—and I needed to know what it was. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it beckoned to me. I had always had a desire to understand, to know things, and this time was no different. It held me fast, begging me to speak, to ask, and before I could stop myself, I did.

“You don’t know what a Knight is?”

The room practically bristled with irritation when he answered, his voice strong and rich. “I just told you. They are—”

“No,” I interrupted. His reaction had been automatic, with no time to manufacture a lie. Or, at least, I hoped so. In fact, I knew next to nothing about how fast the great computer could respond to things. But something inside me told me that it was genuine, which made me reconsider how I phrased the question. I restructured it into one I hoped would shed more light on the oddity of his behavior. “Let me try it like this: do you know what a Knight is, specifically in context of the Tower?”

“In context of the Tower? Um… No. Not really. Why? Should I? What are they? Who are they? Do they wear heavy metal armor?”

My eyes widened at the rapid-fire questions coming at me, and I found myself baffled by the curiosity and excitement in his voice. It sounded genuine. As genuine as an AI could get, I supposed—but still, it was there, and right behind it, a whole slew of other questions.

Which led to my own questions. Why would Scipio be curious about the Knights? How could he not know about them? He dispatched orders to them, for crying out loud. And also, what was he even doing down here? He was supposed to be contained inside the Core, able to directly interact with us through our nets, but with no direct way of interacting with departmental computers outside of it. Supposedly none of the other departmental computers could handle the massive load of data that made him up.

And then there was this office, hidden away underneath the Tower. The door that had once functioned was now welded shut, making the vents in the room the only way in or out. Dust covered everything in the room, from the flat surfaces, like the shelves and desk and small table, to the two large sofas, and even the carpets. My footprints on the blue fabric were the only sign that anyone had been down here in a very long time.

Why would Scipio be in an abandoned office? Why here, under Greenery 1, where there was nobody? Except for me and my friends. The answers suggested that this was a trap, but even that didn’t make any sense. How would Scipio or Devon have known we would be here? As far as I knew, this place didn’t even seem to exist in the eyes of the Tower. It had been sealed away.