Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 85: Find My Own Way

"Is that a gift for me?" he asked with a mild smile sketched on his face.

I had my lips sealed due to fear and shock. I had no words for him anyway, though. I hated him and his job, and most of all I hated that his current agreeable attitude had been fostered by Agape's promise that I'd deliver what both of them wanted, and that I'd do it regardless.

"Agape said you'd be back with this for me."

He showed me what he was talking about then. He lifted the back of his right hand to me, pointing at it with the forefinger of his left hand. An intricate tattoo of the sun over the sea bearing a viral corona greeted my eyes, triggering in me an undelayable urge to come clean.

"I've heard you parking your bike and saw you with a box. This one, right? I assume it's for me."

He extended his right arm, with his empty palm facing me.

"I'll take it from here," he added. I felt the weight of fate on my shoulders.

Then, I spotted Sigi and Gabi walking side by side down the promenade while talking merrily and smiling. They were headed our way.

Sigi's wet hair was proof that he had just taken a shower. I could die watching his dishevelled fringe dancing over his eyes.

Those deep, chocolate-brown eyes of his, in which I would love to drown every time he stared at me like he was doing at that moment, with genuine happiness and desire.

However, they lost all traces of joy when they noticed something was wrong with me. Next, he aimed them at Taro's back with fury and started to run towards me. Gabi did the same.

I turned my face to the sea once more. I opened the wooden box and stared at the vials. I frowned and grimaced with both anger and repulsion. I swiftly shut the box close again, stood up in a hurry, and threw the bloody box far away into the sea.

It soon plunged, making a loud splash.

"What the fuck, Daphne?!" Taro cursed while I heard Sigi's and Gabi's hurried footsteps coming closer behind me.

"Why have you thrown the viruses into the sea, Daphne?!" Gabi exclaimed with bewilderment when he stopped running.

"The what?!" Sigi shouted, appalled.

I turned around to face the three of them. Gabi and Sigi were standing right beside Taro.

"I am not doing it." My voice sounded wounded yet more assertive than I thought I was capable of. "Let me tell you something, Taro. I hate that you're friendly towards me right now only because you're interested in what I had brought with me. Nothing more. That's not friendship, that's pure interest."

"Who said I want to be friends with you?" Taro replied with disgust.

"I was hoping to make peace with you, the rebels who hate me," I answered. "But handing over those palaeoviruses to you, Taro, would mean more harm than good. Why do you wish for so much death and destruction? Clones might've murdered all your beloved ones, but why are you willing to taint your soul with the weight of mass murder by spreading those viruses? It would destroy you. Clones want hate to corrode us inside-out. That's exactly what they want – and you're giving it to them."

"You don't know what you're talking about, idiot." Taro's words stung, but nothing could hurt me more than Sigi's look of worry.

"I don't think your family and friends would ever wish those nasty feelings for you, Taro. Didn't they love you? I'm sure they did. They wouldn't wish you blindly accepting such a fate as a mass murderer. Because hate blinds us. It's a malevolent lighthouse. Violence only triggers more violence."