Sabrina and her boy were far from Soy.

"Look at you," Sabrina said, talking to the young Freeman inside the crib. "I love you, Ben Sam."

As warm sunlight entered the bedroom through the wide window, Sabrina kept her hands on the crib's railing.

It was against the wall, the crib. Neither Lock Tannis nor Don Ascend was in the bedroom Sabrina shared with her son, but she wanted to turn Lock into smoke and bury a dagger into Don's heart.

The Soynites and the Freemans were better than the humans. Soynites, like the Freemans, couldn't even become afflicted with tooth decay. Sabrina's people and Ben's people benefited from the same advantages, but most of the Soynite and most of the Freemans opposed each other.

Ben liked Sabrina.

The feeling was mutual. It had to be. If Ben had teeth and could speak, maybe he would tell his mom he loved her. Sabrina wanted to hear Ben say it. She had the power to let him know she loved him, and there was comfort in that.

Sabrina reached into the crib.

"Come on, baby," she said.

She grabbed the young Freeman, then lifted him out the crib. No harm came to Ben, not here, not now. Sabrina's son was safe. A pale warrior hadn't taken his life. A blonde girl hadn't shot him when he wailed in a crib.

Was sparing Ben's life the most important deed Sabrina had committed?

If it was, it wouldn't make her frown or punch a wall. Letting Ben live had been great. On the third of March, Sabrina had met a baby Freeman. After she had taken the pale boy out of her red backpack, Kevin had expressed his disapproval. He had failed to convince Sabrina to kill Ben.

The opportunity to murder the baby had dropped into Sabrina's life on March third. Instead of turning the young Freeman into smoke, Sabrina had held him and talked to him.

She hadn't killed her boy.

Ben hadn't come from Sabrina, but she had brought him from a Freeman place. Her ally Doug had died in that gray building. She hadn't. And she had earned a son. Sabrina and Ben were from two different species, but the boy was with his Soynite mom.

"My birth mother held me like this," Sabrina said. "But I can't remember it. Lilly Majestic is your grandmother, Ben. And Theo Majestic is your grandfather. I don't know where your grandparents are, but I hope they're okay. I hope I can see them again. They're the last parents I have left. My adoptive parents got murdered during the invasion. Your people did that. You're a Freeman, but you're also mine. Me, Jake, and Kevin are your people, Ben. What happened to your adoptive grandparents isn't going to happen to you."

Sabrina moved Ben until they faced each other. She gave her son a quick kiss on the lips.

"I love you, my sweet boy," Sabrina said. "Adopting you was the best thing I've ever done. I know that."

The girl cradled Ben, and turned.

Sabrina's cousin, her best friend, stepped into the room.

Frowning, Jake looked like someone who planned on ruining their friend's good mood. With reluctance, though. Ben looked like Ben.

"Sabrina," Jake said. "I was thinking. We should get Peter and Maggie's help. You want to kill Lock Tannis, and you're going to need help."

"No, Jake," Sabrina said. "The only help I need is you."

Sabrina and Jake would fight the Soynite with the most hatred for Hase Majestic and his descendants. The girl and her cousin had to kill Lock Tannis. They could. Sabrina's message for Lock had to reach the Freeman ruler. Had Don sent the message?

"If me and you fight Lock Tannis, just me and you, do you know what will happen?" Jake said. "I didn't want to spoil your good mood yesterday. But now..."

"If you don't have faith in me, just say that," Sabrina said.

"I just don't want a boy to lose his mom," Jake said. "And I don't want to lose my best friend."

Sabrina touched Ben's black hair. "You won't."

"There was one boy we met, and he got killed in that Freeman base," Jake said. "It was my fault. Doug won't be able to help us fight Lock, and it's because of me. I made a choice. And I decided to save you before I saved Doug. But I never saved him, right? That Freeman killed him with that Strife dagger, and now we have to find Doug's sister. Just like how we need to find more people to help us. If we don't want to become like Doug, we need friends. We need allies."

Friends and allies.

The Freemans had destroyed Soy's beauty, but Sabrina and Jake had become friends that night. They were so distantly related that they could refer to each other as lovers and Kevin wouldn't see it as something horrible. But Jake was like a brother to Sabrina. He was her friend. They were allies.

The only reinforcement Sabrina needed during her future fight with Lock was Jake. She believed that. The girl believed it as much as she believed she had made the right choice when she let Ben live.

"You like the people you have in your life, Sabrina," Jake said. "You have a son. You have an uncle. And you have a cousin. If you don't get more people you need, you won't be able to keep seeing the ones you already know and love. You need more friends than just me. I need them, too. Because me and you are a team, and we're planning on fighting Lock Tannis. Together."

"If me and you are a team, why do you always have to argue with me?" Sabrina said. She took a step toward Jake. She kept her hold on Ben. Sabrina wouldn't drop him. Lock Tannis needed to drop and die, not Ben. Not Sabrina's son. "You don't believe that I can kill Lock, Jake. Friends are supposed to support each other."

"I can't do that if you're dead," Jake said.

In the big bedroom, he took four steps closer to Sabrina. Two Highs were in the room, but not the other four. Maybe the other Soynite rulers hadn't reunited.

Lovely Windsore.

Kara Ascend.

Aris Upside.

Path Seekman.

If Sabrina saw Lovely again, the orange-haired girl wouldn't see her. Blind. That was what Lovely was. She had aimed scowls at Sabrina when they lived together.

Kara. If Sabrina was a lucky mom, the youngest High hadn't been influenced by her birth father. Boris Endman was dead. But the other former Highs, the ones who weren't Sabrina's biological father, supported Lock. They were willing to fight for him. That meant they would fight Sabrina and Jake if they had to.

Don Ascend. Sabrina had stopped him from murdering her best friend. That man wasn't the only former High Sabrina knew.

Theo Majestic.

Sabrina's birth father had made Aris and Path into Highs. Like Hailey's Watcher, a woman named Vera, Path could find anyone and any animal.

That Bloodhound was brown-haired.

Sabrina had met a Soynite boy. He had reminded her of an exiled Soynite's younger version.

As for Sabrina, she had lost her identity as an ordinary Soynite while Freemans made people find agony. On Soy, her birth father had put Hase Majestic's pendant on her forehead, and he had turned her into a High. He hadn't told her he was her first father.

Two dead parents. Two living parents. That was Sabrina's reality.

How long had she been Theo's child?

Always.

Still, Sabrina and Theo didn't stand in the same room. The girl held her son. Maybe Theo did the same to Anne. If he carried her now, did he know what she had become?

Sabrina and Anne had embraced. But that had been before the High had discovered her sister worshipped Lock Tannis.

Bane Sinister. He planned on seeing Sabrina pray to Lock Tannis one day. But she would rather yell at Anne than join the Lock Tannis Church. Regardless, Theo had a daughter who had gotten caught in a Lock-worshipping cult, and Sabrina needed to free her. She knew that, as much as she knew Jake was her best friend.

People, moronic ones, worshipped Lock.

Sabrina couldn't deny her youngest sibling was one of them. Anne. Her Watcher had stolen her from her real family, and they had met Bane. He wanted Theo to know a Lock Tannis worshipper raised his daughter.

Theo's ability to be with Anne had faded like an echo.

Regardless of what Bane and Summer believed, Anne wasn't their daughter. She belonged to Theo and Lilly. She was a Majestic.

Jake looked at the red backpack, which Sabrina had put Ben into the day before yesterday.

It, the backpack, rested on the desk. A baby Freeman wasn't inside it. Sabrina had hidden Ben when they were in that Freeman base, but Bane had seen him anyway. Soynite X-ray vision goggles had given him the power to see Sabrina's son. Bane had seen Ben. He hadn't murdered him. Neither had Sabrina.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings," Jake said. "Just like how I don't want to see you die. If your Save goes away when we fight Lock, there's a chance he'll kill you. When we were little, we saw that picture of him in that book. Lock was holding a Strife sword. Maybe he still has it. Maybe he'll use it to try to kill us. Maybe he will kill us with it."

Lock Tannis wouldn't slash a Strife sword through Sabrina. He wouldn't kill her hope.

No.

She could kill the mastermind behind Soy's invasion. Jake would help her. He had been born as a Majestic. Sabrina had been born as one as well, and they had to fight Lock. Sabrina needed to kill him. She would do to Lock what she would never do to Ben.

Lock had earned the right to turn into smoke. He had become a target. The man, with skin as pale as Ben's, was a true Soynite. He was a false Freeman.

For a long time, even before she had gained her Save, Sabrina had carried the wish to end Lock's life. She had lost two parents because of him.

Bowie Low.

Prim Low.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Sabrina hadn't come from them, but they had agreed to take care of her. Theo had given his first daughter to the Lows. They had loved Sabrina. Vale Lit had murdered them.

Their daughter had killed Vale.

After shooting that Freeman to death, Sabrina had killed Suntro Sink's parents. She had met the baby himself. The High could've brought three smoke clouds in that nursery, but she had spared the youngest Sink. She had changed his name.

Ben Sam.

"Lock Tannis isn't going to kill me, Jake," Sabrina said. "I killed Vale Lit. That Freeman murdered my parents, and I'm going to kill the fake Freeman who destroyed our planet and got most of our people killed. We're going to get rid of all of the Freemans. But we won't kill my little boy. A lot of people don't have moms anymore, but I'm going to make sure that Ben never loses me. Most Soynites die when they're one thousand years old. Freemans don't. I'm going to outlive Ben."

Sabrina had a gift for outliving people she loved.

And she had kissed Ben, a Freeman. She wouldn't give his ruler a kiss. No, she would rather give Lock the end to his reign.

"If it's just going to be me and you fighting Lock, you probably won't get your wish," Jake said. He gestured to Sabrina's baby. "Do you really want him to grow up without you? You love him. And I know that you want to keep loving him. I really doubt that you want to make Ben into an orphan on purpose. Instead of killing him, you took him out of that Freeman base, and you took care of him. You still do. You don't want to abandon the baby who has dead parents because of you. But Lock Tannis might make you leave him. Forever. Lock is good with a sword, and he's good with his Saves. He's strong. He's powerful, and we both know that. The Freemans hate weakness. Lock is far from being weak. If you don't become better than him, you'll turn Ben into an orphan. And there would be five Highs. Not six. There's only one High who doesn't deserve to be one, and she isn't you. You have to live for a long time, and you have to kill Lock. Someone has to. But it doesn't have to happen tomorrow. It doesn't even have to happen this week. Or this month. We don't have to kill Lock anytime soon."

Sabrina had found Ben the day before yesterday, and she had to uncover Lock Tannis's location.

For Bowie, Prim, Doug, and so many other Soynites, Sabrina had to kill Lock. She needed to do it as soon as possible.

"But we do," Sabrina said. "I don't want to kill Lock by the time Doug is nothing but bones, Jake. And Lock is Theo Majestic's former best friend, and Theo isn't here to kill Lock himself, so it has to be me. I'm the only one in this house who can become untouchable. I have the best chance at killing Lock. And he has to see a Majestic trying to kill him. Two Majestics, really. Me and you. Even if Lock has Strife with him during our fight, I'm still going to kill him. I'll do what Theo didn't do. When I kill him, all of his pale morons are going to kneel for me. They will. The only Freeman who likes me is Ben. It won't be that way forever. I'm going to be what Lock is now."

Jake looked at the lamp on the nightstand. No light left it. The boy looked at Sabrina again.

"I want you to be the next leader of the Freemans," Jake said. "Really, I do. If you kill Lock in a fair fight, the Freemans will respect you, a Majestic. And one of Hase Majestic's descendants will sit on the Red Throne. Wouldn't that be fitting? But you make it sound so easy, as if killing Lock will be as easy as picking up Ben."

Sabrina kissed Ben's forehead, giving him the affection he deserved.

Showing other Freemans love was not something Sabrina wanted to do. The Freeman she held was hers. The ones away from the mansion were her enemies.

"This little Freeman is going to be as big as Lock one day," Sabrina said. "By the time that happens, Lock will already be dead. He's going to turn into smoke. I'll make that happen. Soon. Very soon. Then I'm going to meet my birth family, and I'll love them. They'll love me, too. They already do."

Theo. Lilly. Nick. Hailey. Anne.

Sabrina had met Anne, but the High had never met Hailey. Nick was their oldest sibling. He had been inside the Soynite royal palace when Sabrina was born. She had to see him again.

"That's nice," Jake said. He walked toward the nightstand, then put a hand on it. "You can meet Theo and the rest of your family. One day. But you can't kill Lock. Not anytime soon, Sabrina. You have a dangerous way of thinking, and your optimism is..."

He ran a hand through his blond hair.

"Your optimism is something that might get you killed," he said.

Sabrina had survived two attacks on Freeman bases. Bane Sinister had decided to not fight or kill her. Her sister Anne was still alive, and there was a chance Sabrina could rescue her from the Lock Tannis Church. The High's baby had a beating heart.

Hope.

That hadn't drained from Sabrina.

Optimism.

It lived in her.

On the third of March, Sabrina had seen Doug's lifeless body, but no one would make her become like him. No one would turn Sabrina into a corpse.

"What's the alternative?" Sabrina said. "Should I just be like you? Should I keep thinking that my best friend won't kill Lock Tannis the first time she meets him? If we give up, if we give up really hard, we'll die. We'll kill ourselves. And if we do that, we can't get rid of Lock."

The girl had an uncle, a son, a younger sister to rescue, and a dictator to kill. Sabrina didn't plan on committing suicide.

"I'm right here," Jake said. "And I don't plan on killing myself. We have to be very careful, though, and only one of us is doing that."

Sabrina didn't scoff, but she knew what Jake had implied.

"You think that I can't do what I have to do," Sabrina said. "But I can. I can get rid of the Freeman ruler, and everything will be so much better when I finally do. I'm going to win this war. Don't you want me to?"

"I highly doubt that you're going to kill Lock soon, but I do want you to kill him," Jake said. "But..."

He sighed, then tapped the nightstand's wooden surface.

"You want to go on a suicide mission," he said. "Why won't you realize that we need more help? We have to be smart. But that's not what you're being. You don't want to turn Ben into an orphan, but you're also so ready to get yourself killed. You're acting like us fighting Lock one-on-two will reunite you with Theo and Lilly. Two people can't kill Lock by themselves."

Jake was the only help Sabrina needed. She was the girl who would end a dictator's reign, which had lasted for too long.

"Two weak people, Jake," Sabrina said. "That's not us. We've survived so much, and we're going to survive our fight with Lock. Think about it. After everything we had to suffer through, how cruel would it be for us to die fighting Lock for the first time? It's not going to happen."

"Even if we don't kill Lock, we'll still fail to kill him," Jake said. "That's how things are going to go. What happened to Doug is a clear example of what can easily happen to us. We're at war. Lock has his people, and we don't have enough of ours. We have me, you, a baby, and a Watcher. It's not even a great arsenal, and the Watcher can't come with us. Kevin has to watch Ben."

Sabrina. Jake. Ben. Kevin.

They didn't form a great army. They were four people, and only two of them planned on fighting Lock as soon as possible. Sabrina didn't want to bring her son into a Freeman base. She had taken him out of one, and he belonged in the mansion. His mother had to kill his ruler. Lock Tannis.

"It's just going to be me and you," Sabrina said. She looked at Ben. "And you're the cute boy who's going to stay with my uncle."

"We shouldn't try to kill Lock," Jake said. "Not yet, at least. We don't have the army that we need, and we also don't have Path. If he were here, he could lead us to the other Highs and their Watchers."

Path Seekman.

He was the oldest High, but that eighteen-year-old didn't stand in Sabrina's room. If he wanted to, he could find her. Like Vera, a woman Kevin had mentioned, Path was a Bloodhound. Those people could find anyone.

Kara Ascend. Like Sabrina, she was a High who was a former High's daughter. She was the youngest High.

"Kara probably can't even fight," Sabrina said. "She's young. And we also don't need her. Me and you. We're the people who are going to give Lock what he deserves. And wherever the former Highs are, the ones who aren't Theo, we're going to find them. They're going to regret what they've done."

Jake kept looking at the nightstand. "What's that?"

"They joined Lock," Sabrina said. "I wish I had that note that you found in that conference room. I really want to read it for myself. It said that every former High who isn't Theo joined Lock, and I'm going to make them regret it. Boris Endman is already dead. Theo isn't a traitor. That means that there are four former Highs I need to kill. No, five. Five. Lock Tannis is Reed Pisces. I have to kill him, too, and you're going to help me. Two Majestics are going to fight Lock, and it's going to be beautiful."

Many years ago, Theo had exiled Lock Tannis. In the present, did he know Lock and Reed Pisces were the same person?

Jake had told Sabrina the truth. He hadn't been able to do the same for Theo, and he hadn't reunited with the man. Sabrina hadn't, either.

Five words.

Sabrina couldn't whisper a dread-tainted sentence to Theo.

"It's not going to be beautiful," Jake said. "It's going to be awful. Lock is more powerful than the two of us, and we're not going to get what we want. You survived two attacks on Freeman bases, yeah, but you were fighting Freemans. They don't have the powers Lock has."

"I don't care what they have and don't have," Sabrina said. "I'm going to kill their leader. Also, I'm going to put my boy down."

Sabrina went near the crib, then she kissed Ben's forehead.

"I love you, baby," she said.

She moved Ben into his crib, then faced Jake. He sighed. Sabrina didn't. She believed she could kill Lock during her future fight with him. Jake didn't.

Sabrina moved. When she was near enough, she put a hand on Jake's shoulder.

"You keep doubting that I can do this," she said.

"I keep wanting you to live," Jake said. "If you do the dumb thing and not the smart one, you'll die. Believing that you're going to kill Lock soon, it's a dumb thing. It might get you killed."

Sabrina moved her shoulder.

"If you think Lock will kill me, maybe you shouldn't help me fight him," she said. "You can stay here."

"No," Jake said. "I would rather help you do something stupid. You're still my best friend, Sabrina."

He hugged her. She embraced him back. With a best friend and a son in her life, Sabrina closed her blue eyes.

She hugged her best friend. And death needed to take hold of Lock, wherever he was.

"I'm going to help you fight whoever you want to fight," Jake said. "You want to fight Lock and I'm going to help you. I have to."

"You're going to help me kill him," Sabrina said. "It won't just be a fight. It will be a killing."

The hug died.

"I'm really hoping that Lock Tannis won't be the one doing the killing," Jake said.

"When the time comes, we're going to go to the base me and Kevin attacked," Sabrina said. "Maybe we'll find Lock there."

"Maybe."

Sabrina smiled.

Jake did not.

"Anyway," he said. "You mentioned Anne not too long ago. Do you really think that you can save her from that cult?"

"I'm going to save her," Sabrina said. "She's my sister. Family is important to her, and it's important to me, too. I won't let Bane and Summer keep Anne forever. That cult of theirs is going to be gone. But Anne won't be. I'll save her, and she'll love her parents again. Her real parents. Anne doesn't want me to die. She doesn't want you to die, either. The feeling is mutual. Anne wants us to join the Lock Tannis Church and pray to Lock, but I'm never planning on doing that. I will get my sister away from that cult, though. I'll make it happen. One day."

Sabrina. Theo. Lilly. Nick. Hailey. Anne. They deserved to be together, and Anne didn't belong in Bane's cult.

"Family deserves to be together," Sabrina said. She gestured to the room around her, a safe place. "I have family in this room, and I have family outside of it. Kevin is here. And outside of this place is my birth family. I need to reunite with them. I've never even met Hailey, but I need to. Kevin told me that she used to go with Theo to see me. All they did was look. Lilly and Nick would do the same, too. They would all be invisible. They could see me, but I couldn't see them. I wish I could have, though. In those days, I had my adoptive parents and my uncle. I didn't even know that's what Kevin was to me. If I knew he was my uncle years ago, I would've loved him even more."

"Years ago, if you knew me and you were cousins, would you have done the same?" Jake said. "Would you have loved me even more?"

"Is Lovely Windsore blind?"

Yes.

Jake smiled. "I wish that we hadn't been separated for so long."

Sabrina had been separated from Jake, and she was still away from Lovely. Unbeknownst to the High girl, Lena was her adoptive sister.

"I know," Sabrina said. "I feel the same way. And I'm going to hurt the one who made us have to separate."

"If it weren't for Lock, me and you probably wouldn't have met," Jake said. "Still, he got most of our people killed and we have to get rid of him."

"We will."

Sabrina sat on her bed. She shared it with no one. The High putting Ben on it was a common occurrence, but that great boy had his crib.

Years ago, Sabrina's sister Anne had slept in a crib. The teenage mom knew this because Kevin knew this. Eleven years ago, Summer had kidnapped Anne. It had happened. People had failed to stop it, and Anne was now with the Lock Tannis Church.

Sabrina's allies were her cousin, her uncle, and her son. Her youngest sibling had a cult leader, a disgraced Watcher, and other Lock Tannis worshippers on her side.

What a shame.

"I'm still glad you're here," Sabrina said, sitting as Jake stood. "I wonder if any of the other Highs met up with each other."

"If they're lucky, they won't see Lovely again," Jake said.

"She definitely won't see them."

Jake laughed. So did Sabrina.

"Anyway, it's great to be here," Jake said. "Peter and Maggie aren't here, but you are. I like you. You're not like Lovely."

"You love me," Sabrina said. She stood. "Best friends need each other, Jake."

"I know."

After Jake left the room, Sabrina stood. She went near the crib.

Ben was the size of the average Soynite baby. The average Soynite baby was the size of the average human one.

The average Freeman adult was bigger than the typical Soynite adult. During their teenage years, the Freemans grew taller, larger, and more muscular than the average Soynite adult. Ben should grow into a seven-foot tall man. The infant was harmless. Young and defenseless, Sabrina's precious boy wasn't like the mature and ruthless Freemans his mother had fought.

The sunlight moving past the gaps between the blinds touched the room. Did Californian sunlight greet Lock Tannis?

Sabrina put her finger into the crib. Ben held it, his pale skin touching his mom. His ruler of a mother. Far away from Sabrina and Ben was a different leader, a brutal one.

"I'm never going to hurt you, Ben," Sabrina said. "But I will hurt your leader, Lock Tannis. He used to be your grandfather's best friend. But he changed. Jake doesn't think I'm going to do what I have to do, but I can. I really can. And I'm going to. When I kill Lock, I'll be the new owner of the Red Throne. I'm going to become Great Leader Sabrina Sam. Whatever happens, I'll always be your mother, though. I love you. I love you more than anything on this planet."

Earth.

Jake, like Sabrina, was on that planet. Neither of them had confronted Lock, but both of them would. Jake. Pessimistic, but Lock-hating and Sabrina-loving. Good.

And the girl's love for Ben would grow much bigger. So would he.

Lock Tannis's authority had grown. Long before Sabrina's birth, he had been exiled from Soy. He had lost his authority as a High. Because of Theo. Regardless, Lock had murdered Vice Reaper, and he had gained power over the Freemans. Lock had too much authority, too many Saves, and too many warriors. Still, Sabrina would face him.

She would do what had to be done.