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Jacob’s brows knitted together as he glanced back at our dad, then back at me. “Wait, what? No. No, I—”

“It’s all right, son. You’ve done your part well. You convinced her to betray her peers, just as we planned. Excellent work.”

My jaw dropped as tears flooded my vision. “How could you?”

Pain etched the lines of Jacob’s face. “Mara, I wouldneverbetray you. You know me! You know I would only ever protect you.”

Raúl chuckled softly. “There’s no need to keep up the charade, my boy. You’ve done what you needed to do. It’s difficult when the ones you love scheme against you, isn’t it, Mara?”

I wiped a tear from my cheek. This was too much…too much hurt and betrayal. “I trusted you, Jacob.”

He reached out, grabbing my shoulders and forced me to face him. “Don’t believe him, Mara. He’s lying. I would never betray you.”

“Such a shame,” Raúl cooed. “It’s all right, son. She had to learn the truth, eventually.”

Jacob whirled on our father. “You son of a bitch!” And then he lunged at him, racing across the room, prepared to take Raúl down.

Raúl didn’t so much as flinch. In less than five seconds, Jacob was dropping to his knees, screaming out in agony as he grabbed fistfuls of his hair and pulled.

“Jacob!” I screamed, falling to the floor next to him. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?” But he couldn’t reply. All he did was yell out. I looked at Raúl. “What did you do to him?”

Slowly, my father pulled out his left hand, holding a little black remote with several colorful buttons—red, blue, green, and yellow—and his thumb was pushing down on the blue one. He released it, and suddenly Jacob stopped screaming, and rolled onto his side, panting heavily. My mind put the pieces together,and the reality caused a deep sense of dread to fill my entire being.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” Raúl said softly as he took a step toward us. “It truly is such a shame.”

I stood up, curling my hands into fists. “How could you do that to him? He’s your son!”

Raúl’s gaze hardened. “That’sexactlywhy I did it. He left me little choice, and I refused to watch my son burn alive. But this way…this way he gets to live.”

Jacob groaned. “How? It wasn’t supposed to—”

“Be activated?” Raúl finished. “Yes, well, we decided it was time to advance the project. Sally was most helpful.”

“What are you talking about?” This was confusing me. What did Sally have to do with any of this?

“Oh? You haven’t put it all together yet?” Raúl chuckled condescendingly. “Such a pity. I took you to be brighter than that.” He sidestepped, slowly circling us. “There is no bigger pet peeve of mine than a villain who reveals his entire plot at the end of it all. Although, given my current position, I think I do understand why they do it.” He stopped walking, one hand clasping the wrist of the other. “I really don’t want to give away the big ending, but I suppose I’ll just say that she may have given Jacob the wrong deadline onpurpose.”

Jacob got to his feet, shaking, as I reached to help him up. “Sally never would have done that. She never would have betrayed me like that,” Jacob shot back. But I could hear it. I heard the pain and doubt in the timbre of his weakened voice.

Raúl sighed. “I am sorry, my dear boy. Losing faith in those we love is a hard lesson to learn…much like the lesson I had to learn when you both betrayed me,” he sneered.

I closed my eyes, feeling the defeat slowly consuming me. We lost. The stupid nanochips were active. There was nothing here to destroy. What were we going to do now?

Raúl took a deep breath. “Well, I suppose we’ve come to the end of it all.”

“You’re never going to get away with this,” Jacob shot back.

“Oh, I already have,” he replied confidently. “Today, the Dissenters will meet their end, and a new power will rise across this nation. They’re already losing on the battlefield as we speak. And after today, every prisoner of war will be retrofitted with NIT-V2, and my army will become more powerful than ever before. I will see the end of this stupid rebellion, and Telvia will finally be free of war.”

“But…but how?” I just couldn’t believe it. I didn’t understand. How did we not see any of this coming? How could Raúl have tricked us all so epically?

“My dear girl,” he tsked. And for once, I thought I saw true pity in his eyes for me. “I wanted things to be different. But we all make our choices, and then we have to live with the consequences of the choices we make.”

“Thereisa traitor, isn’t there? You wanted me to believe it was Jacob, but there is someone who’s feeding you information, isn’t there?” It was the only thing that made sense. The only way Raúl could have known we were coming, giving him time to move the entire lab and advance the project. It was the only reason why he would be sitting in this stupid lab right now…because he knew we would show up, and he wanted to see our faces personally when we realized he was several steps ahead of us.

“Allies are a fickle thing, my dear,” he said, the words falling from his lips gently. “It would seem they are easily bought by money and power.”

My eyes widened as Raúl confirmed my suspicions. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. There’s no way it was all going to end like this!