A R L O

It was music to my ears, the President giving in to my demands. Glad that my showcasing of the true depths of my insanity hadn't been pointless, I kept the smile plastered on my face.

"When he said that we wanted to hear everything, he meant everything," Finn warned him. "Don't leave anything out."

"If you do, you'll regret it," I said in a sing-song tone. I spun the knife around in one hand while resting the top of the blade on one of my fingers. The President's pouchy eyes watched a thin line of blood trail down my finger. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead.

Though it was meant to be a threat, I wasn't actually going to kill him. I glanced to my left, where Jake, Delphinium and Jaxon stood. I'd leave the killing to the more murderous people on the crew.

I'd finished my job.

So I patted the President's arm comfortingly. "Someone else is going to take care of you now. Don't worry, you're in good hands." Keeping my eyes on him, I walked backwards until I was enveloped in the darkness. Delphinium and Gigi took center stage.

"Speak," Delphinium ordered. "Tell us everything you know about Imperium."

"Okay," the President agreed quickly. He'd already been broken down through my tactics and now he had to face the wrath of Delphinium Tesla. She'd almost killed him once and it seemed that he wasn't eager for her to try again.

"Only after Imperium fell did the world governments become aware of it. It happened in my own country so they blamed Romania for its rise. Of course, its existence was not publicized for the common people; only a select few world leaders knew and decided to deal with the problem."

I suppressed a yawn. The torturing part of the interrogation had been exciting. The Romanian droning on like this, however, was not. Necessary as the information was, I was not good at sitting still and listening.

"They came over my country's borders and went to the place where the fortress had been. They explored and learned as much as they could about it. Once the investigators were through, they left my country and told me that I legally had control over the area."

"The ONNT counsel was right, after all," Finn muttered to himself next to me.

"The next few weeks were quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. After so much time had passed with the investigation, I had not been expecting for anything to happen."

"But something did happen," Gigi said, more of a statement than a question.

The President's eyes travelled hesitantly across all eight of us before answering. "Yes, something happened. Late one night I went back home after a long day of press conferences. I was alone. So I was startled to hear someone else in the house with me. I went to turn on the lights, but I heard a man's voice telling me to keep them off. I turned around and saw him standing there, half of his body illuminated by the outside light."

"Describe him," Delphinium commanded.

"Oh...I do not - All I remember was the weapons he carried: two guns. I thought that he was about to assassinate me."

"Did you see his face?" Gigi questioned, looking serious.

"No, I hardly even saw him. It all happened so fast."

"Was he wearing a mask of iron?" Delphinium asked gravely. The air in the room seemed to still.

The President frowned. "As a matter of fact, yes, he was." He looked into the assassin's face curiously. "How did you know?"

"We're asking the questions. Continue your story."

Reluctantly, he went on. "The man said that he came with a list of orders for me. He said that if I did not do them, he would...punish me.

I raised an eyebrow. Gigi's face contorted into a frown. "Punish you how?"

"He...he threatened me," the Romanian babbled, "With things that he would do to me, horrible things."

"Like what?" Her voice suddenly had a sharp edge to it, like Delphinium's knife that I held in my hand. I made a mental note to not make Gigi angry anytime soon. Ever since her dear old mom had died, she'd been slowly coming out of her shell. She was becoming a different, more bold person. Death tended to do funny things to the mind.

Dark eyes flicked between Delphinium and Gigi. He was hesitating again.

Delphinium spun around to glance at me. "Arlo, come back over here."

"Gladly." Were things about to get interesting again?

Once again, I stood before Huard. He watched he through magnified glasses with an expression of deep horror. I lived for the fear on their faces when they saw who I really was.

"Did you miss me?" I asked the older man.

He croaked out, "Not at all."

"Too bad," I remarked. "If you're not going to talk by yourself, I'll make you talk." I raised the knife up into the light where he could see it.

"No, no!" The president exclaimed loudly. "I will talk! Just...get away from me."

Delphinium nodded to me, saying, "You can go back."

I gave her a salute before taking a few steps back. "Whatever you say."

The two of them turned their attention back on the Romanian. "What did the masked man threaten you with?"

"He knew things that I had made sure to keep hidden." Huard's dark eyes flashed to me and then back again. "I made a few illegal dealings with international criminals and he threatened to expose me to the public if I did not do what he wanted."

"What were the illegal dealings?" Gigi asked and I knew that this was the point where I didn't care anymore. The President droned on and on about some political nonsense I didn't even try to understand. I tuned him out easily.

Looking down at my hands, I saw that the cut I'd made on my finger had begun to heal. I scratched at it with my fingernail until the fresh blood bubbled up again. The tiny spike of pain shot through my forefinger, but I was used to it. It was just another needle that had been pierced through my skin. Although this time, there'd been no liquid injected into my bloodstream.

I stared up into the single white light, the sounds of talking fading into the background. It reminded me of hours upon hours of laying on my back on the cold table, being blinded by the fluorescent lights. I was fully clothed now, of course, but I could almost still feel the chill that came from the lack of clothing during the observation periods in the laboratory. The bone-chilling air in the room was almost worse than all their eyes on me. I shivered.

Blinking, I snapped back to the present. Huard was still going on and on, to my dismay.

I leaned towards Finn. "What did he say in the last ten minutes?"

He gave me a dirty look. "You weren't listening?"

"Would I be asking if I had been?"

Huffing out an obnoxiously loud sigh, Finn quietly explained, "He was just telling us about how the masked man knew about all his illegal acts while in office. Delphinium got him to tell us everything he'd done."

"Anything interesting?"

"If you consider under-the-table weapon purchasing from criminals interesting, then yes."

"Hmm," I grunted, turning my attention back to Huard. I supposed that was worth hearing about.

"So the intruder knew everything wrong you'd done and was planning to hold it against you," Delphinium spoke slowly. "What was he trying to blackmail you to do?"

"He asked me if I knew about the fortress the world governments had uncovered in Transylvania. Of course, I did. He wanted me to tell the United Nations that I was taking the area over for Romanian governmental use. The man told me that he wanted the investigators gone and the government to stay away."

"What did you do?" Gigi asked when the President paused in his speech.

"At first, I resisted. I had no idea who the man was and what he wanted with the land. I told him no. When the threats he had already made against me were not enough, he said that he would hurt my family and members of my cabinet. I eventually gave in. He got what he wanted."

I watched as Delphinium took a few steps around the room, dragging a hand through her light hair. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" she asked, her voice a mixture of anger and frustration. "Are you aware of what you let into the world again?" I could hear her heart pounding in her chest, her blood racing with anger.

Gigi tried to reason calmly with her. "He was stupid, but with or without him, they would have gotten what they wanted. Delphinium, you know that. He was a middle man." She then eyed the President. "That doesn't make me dislike him any less, though."

"You're right," Delphinium said, turning back around. "That's why we're going to let him go back to his normal life." Taking a few steps forward until she was before the President, she leaned in close and said, "But I know them. They'll know that you ratted them out and they will come for you. You can do your best to protect yourself but trust me, they'll find you eventually."

Huard's expression morphed into one of even more wide-eyed fear, if that was possible. I almost felt bad for the guy, knowing that Imperium would have him dead in hours, before he could spill any more of their precious secrets.

"But before you leave, I have instructions for you," Jake added commandingly. Huard flinched as the tall boy stepped into the light. "As soon as you return to your place of residence, wherever that might be, you need to contact Damien Hunt of the American ONNT. Tell him everything you just said. If you don't, I will hunt you down before Imperium does. Do you want that to happen?"

Huard shook his head vigorously. My lips turned up at the ends; we'd thoroughly broken him.

"Good," Jake concluded. "Do exactly what I told you and with luck, you'll never have to see me again."

He dragged his knife across the ropes binding Huard to the chair. They broke with a snap and plopped to a heap on the concrete floor. Huard looked down at the frayed ropes and then back up at all of us.

"What are you waiting for?" Came Jaxon's deep voice from the corner. "Go."

The Romanian needed no further instruction. He gave me a wide berth as he made his way hurriedly out the back. I waved to him when he passed by. He pretended he didn't see me.

When the door had open and shut, we were alone again. "So," Riley dragged out the word, "We have everything we need to know now. Imperium is back for certain." Her dark eyes flicked to Kane, who hadn't believed they'd been back for sure.

"We need to get back to the ONNT," Finn said. "I have a feeling that we're going to have a lot of explaining to do."

"Home, sweet home," I muttered under my breath as we filed out the door and into the blinding sunlight.