"Ever feel completely hopeless? And that's why you want to fix everything around you? Yeah... that's me. All the time."

*

Wendy had always been my priority. Ensuring her safety, her care, was all that I'd cared about after a while. And seeing the tears in her eyes ripped through my center, disrupting the calm of my turning emotions. Without thinking, I reached down to lift her up in my arms. I held her close. And she cried.

"Javi..." Mary's hand slid down my back as I carried my sister out of the room and down the hall. I followed the path Will had come from, eyeing the dark rooms that were opened and empty.

Had the droids come from there? Did Rory let them all out?

"Look over here." Will hurried past me, leading me down the hall until we reached the end. The left side bore more rooms, but the right was exposed to dim light breaking through large windows. Wendy's face pressed into the nook of my neck as I approached them. Peering outside, I looked at the raindrops that slapped against the glass. Then down below, at the androids scattered throughout the road, just like he'd said.

Everywhere. Every inch. Every mile.

My breaths slowed as I looked at each of them. Their faces turned up towards the rain. Their mouths were open, catching water on their tongues. None of them gave off a signal, so I wasn't sure what they were feeling. But to me, in my eyes, it looked like... freedom.

"I wanted to shut everything down and save you." Mary came beside me and stroked Wendy's arm as I held her. "Wendy said you were hurt, that the bots were doing something horrible to you. I couldn't... I couldn't sit back and let that happen."

I glanced at her through strands of Wendy's red hair. Mary and I locked eyes as she continued, "So, we came back in. We snuck through. And I thought I had it down... because I know this place. But all the droids came running out, and we had to be safe. I feel like... I feel like I messed it up."

"You didn't," I said as Will stood on the opposite side of me. I looked at him before I looked down below once more. The androids never moved. "Shutting down the warehouse would not stop them, anyway."

"What?" Mary gasped, shaking her head. "But this building is what gives them power. The replicas... they don't have a core like you do, or like any of the commercial droids. They run off just one system and that's—"

"Rory." I held Wendy tight. She trembled in fear when I said his name. "They're each connected to Rory's core and do as he says."

"No..." Mary shook her head as she looked outside. "Rory wouldn't do that. It's against the laws built into his core."

I closed my eyes for a second, taking in a deep breath.

"And I... Rory hasn't been functioning, sure, but being broken only means—"

"He pretended to be, Mar," I said. "He's working just fine."

"—And... and... I personally ran his diagnostics to make sure he was! I just, I—"

I turned to look at her as Wendy's arms tightened around my neck. My shoulder leaned against the window's glass. "Mar." I looked Mary in the eye. "He's doing all of this. All because you forgot him."

The tears welled up in Mary's eyes so fast, their dark brown color almost glowed. Her hand covered her bottom lip. "I never forgot about Rory... he's my best friend. He's—"

"He's been neglected, hasn't he? Remember the plans you had for him? How they all..." I sighed. "How they all were suddenly my plans? Mar, he's pissed. And unstable."

He just wants to be seen.

Mary took a step back. She stumbled a bit, using the wall to keep balance. To see her suck in breaths as her cries hardened, as her body shook, should've bothered me. But a part of me felt like she knew, and this reaction was guilt. Because... "These replicas..." I pursed my lips before I glanced back outside. "They don't want to do anything. They can't. They're all being controlled. By him. And me."

Mary's eyes snapped up and went wide as she looked at me.

"You know about my replica, don't you, Mar?" As I spoke, Wendy lifted her head and turned her tearful eyes in Mary's direction. "You knew that creating me would make... something just like me."

"Javi... I..." Mary stood straight and tried to grab me. But I shook her away. Carrying Wendy was more important. "I couldn't live without you... I had to agree with it. Your parents did, too. We all knew the consequences of doing this because we loved you."

I scoffed and shook my head. "Loved. Past tense," I said. Wendy turned her head again, looking at me this time. With a weak smile, I brushed the tears off her face with my thumb. "It doesn't matter now. The damage has been done, to me, to him."

"I don't understand..." Mary cried, hands in her hair.

"You don't," I whispered, closing my eyes. "You made me, you found me convenient, but then once reality set in, you hated me. I became nothing but a bot to you. A bot with a face... you couldn't look at."

Mary's mouth opened and closed. Tears slid between her lips. "I did everything right. I did what I was supposed to do."

"You didn't." I pursed my lips as I placed Wendy back down on her feet. Yet, she didn't let me go. Her small hand slid into mine, her body against my leg. That was love, that was a need. For reality, for now...

Mary and my parents only loved a memory.

I know what you're feeling, Rory.

"I know what I have to do," I said as I placed my hand on Wendy's shoulder. Glancing out the window, I tried to spot a single change in the droids outside. But there was none. "And I can make this right..."

|||

If there was one thing I should've learned in my second life, it was the truth about darkness. It was more than shadows, more than night. Darkness was an emotion; pure evil. An entity, like a demon in storybooks.

Rory was that exact definition of darkness. And it wasn't his fault. Was I wrong to want to help him? No. Would it be wrong to shut him down? Yes, but to save the people that cared about me, I had to.

I had to save everyone.

Even if it meant losing me.

It didn't take me long to figure out what I needed to do. Rory was the cause of all of this, and I was the key. I could tell by looking at him, the way he reacted to Axe, this was more than just abandonment. It was an unstable obsession. He may see have seen it as desire, but that was figurative. The mind—his mind—was imbalanced. And in order to take him out, I needed to go out with him.

Like he'd said, we were alike. Without him, there was no me. And without me, there'd be no android attacks. This wasn't about Axe or the replicas. This was about me and him. And our mutual desire to be wanted in our world. I thought if I tried to love everyone, they'd accept me.

Rory... he thought if he inflicted pain, pushed hatred onto others, they had no choice but to acknowledge him. Axe was just his prize along the way... right?

Sitting on the floor with my arms on my legs, I made my plan. I'd find him and take out his core. But I wasn't dumb. An android's center was equivalent to a bomb. If he explodes, so would I.

"Communications." I made the verbal command to my internal computers as I looked up at Mary. She wouldn't talk to me after what I'd said. She couldn't face the truth. Leave it up to her emotions to block her from what's important. So human. I had to thank my processors for my ability to lose that guilt so quickly.

"Contact list retrieved," my internal device replied in my head.

I took in a deep breath. Turning my head, I looked down at Wendy. She sat beside me, head on my arm. She'd tied and untied her shoelaces at least ten times, humming a soft tune.

Faith. Trust. And pixie dust.

Peter's going to save the day, Wendy.

"Call Juan Morales." I watched the list scroll over my eyes until it settled on my father's name. Wendy flinched beside me, stopping her song. I looked down at her and ruffled her hair. "Keep singing, Lost Girl," I said to her.

"You're calling dad?" she whispered.

I nodded, forcing a small smile as ringing echoed in my ears. "I am," I said.

Ring, ring.

"I want him to know you're okay."

Ring, ring.

"And that I'm going to take care of everything..."

The ringing stopped, and static filled my ears. I kept my focus on Wendy's face to keep calm. Because the seconds that passed felt like minutes, like hours. And that tension, that rock, was on the ledge of my emotions, ready to fall and collide with my heart.

Then I heard him. His breathing. His quiet curses. It went on and on... until he said, "Mijo?"

I think a tear fell from my eye. "Dad?"