Chapter 58: Asset (2)
Scar’s expression hardened into a serious, calculating stare. He processed and understood Alicia’s emotional breakdown, but his response remained strictly rooted in objective fact. "First, I didn’t kill him," he said coldly, "He was already dead before we got reincarnated into this body. Second, I didn’t fool anyone. Henry did. The other consciousness. He’s the one who pretended to have memory loss. He’s the one who fooled you, not me."
Alicia swiped angrily at her face, scoffing through her tears. "That doesn’t change the fact that you’re a despicable human being. You tried to kill Emily! I mean, what kind of psycho are you? You were going to murder her without a single moment of hesitation. Don’t you have any humanity at all?"
Scar grew completely quiet. He sat there, his face an unreadable mask, silent as the accusation hung between them.
Seeing his silence, Alicia hugged her arms around herself, defensively. "I only acted the way I did because of what I heard... because of what I saw you do. I wasn’t there that day but... I saw the footage of what happened. Emily hurt you, and you wanted revenge. But you didn’t have to take it that far... yet you did." She looked into his eyes. "It was in that moment I knew the kind of person... the kind of alter ego you were. A cold, ruthless, and merciless state who couldn’t be reasoned with by words alone. I knew you weren’t someone to be taken lightly. So I had to act tough. I had to use the only languages you understood; force, dominance and violence. Do you honestly think I wanted to do the things I did?" She said, her voice dripping with genuine remorse. "I am a scientist for heaven’s sake, not a third rate villain who blackmails and threatens to hurt people. I only did all that so you wouldn’t kill me. I mean, look at me. I barely know how to fight and I haven’t even taken a life before... but I did for the first time on the day of the Plaza attack. I killed that beast. To save you!"
"Correction," Scar said, his voice quiet but sharp as a scalpel. "You didn’t kill for me. You killed for the Henry you knew since childhood. Not me. And not for the new Henry, either." He looked directly into her eyes, dismantling her argument with ruthless logic. "You only discovered that your Henry was gone after the attack. Which means if you had known his body had been inhabited by two new consciousnesses beforehand... you wouldn’t have saved us that day."
"I would have!" Alicia shot back fiercely. "Because unlike you, I’m not an heartless bastard with no sense of virtue."
Scar scoffed, a dark, cynical sound. "Virtue? How can you speak of virtue when you threatened to expose me to Triad?"
"I wasn’t really going to tell them!" Alicia yelled, her voice echoing into the empty stadium. She was feeling an intense amount of pain and bitterness. "Don’t you get it?! It was just a bluff! I only told you that so you would take me seriously." She shook her head, looking at him with a mixture of pity and exhaustion. "I know how people like you are. You don’t listen to anyone but yourselves. You don’t see anyone as superior to you, even when it’s blatantly obvious. And you only ever respect people who pose a threat to you."
Scar’s eyes went entirely cold. "You don’t know anything about me."
"Maybe," Alicia said softly, the fight finally draining out of her. "But I know what you are. You’re an arrogant, sociopathic maniac who’s way in over his head and thinks he can survive in this world alone. I don’t know why Felicity lets you live in her home and pretend to be her son, but if you think for a second that she or I can’t get what we want without you... then you are delusional. I don’t need you. Not anymore." She turned her back to him, taking a few steps toward the edge of the grandstands before pausing. She didn’t look back over her shoulder as she spoke one last time, her voice quiet but steady.
"I am truly sorry for blackmailing you, for threatening you, and for bossing you around. I really am. I should have just asked you nicely. But I am not sorry for trying to help you. Because believe it or not, Scar... all I wanted, was for you to get stronger."
Without waiting for a response, Alicia walked out onto the ruined grass of the stadium field. With a tap of her storage ring, a sleek, silver jetpack materialized and locked onto her back. The thrusters ignited with a burst of blue plasma, and she shot into the sky, disappearing over the towering walls of the stadium.
Scar was left alone in the empty grandstands. He sat on the concrete bench, the cold wind blowing through the stadium. For the first time since he had awakened in this world, his mind was completely quiet. There were no calculations, no strategies, no angles to exploit. Just the lingering echo of a grieving girl who he might have misjudged.
What the hell just happened? Scar thought.
He sat there in the grandstands for a few minutes, processing the data of the his conversation with Alicia. He let the words she had spoken replay in his mind. For a brief, fleeting millisecond, a shadow of pity crossed his thoughts—but it was immediately crushed by a much larger, colder realization.
If she wasn’t going to expose him to Triad, then the leverage she held over him was gone. He was basically free. Even after witnessing her complete emotional breakdown, all Scar could think about was the tactical advantage he had just regained. He didn’t feel bad for her. He felt a profound sense of relief. He wouldn’t be compelled to do her bidding anymore.
But could he trust what she said?
Did she actually mean it, or was it just another layer of manipulation?
But either way, time would tell. If she reached out to him later with an order, he would refuse it outright and see what happened. But judging by how hurt and broken she seemed when she flew away, he doubted she would ever speak to him again. And he didn’t care. He was just happy to have gotten faster and finally removed one of his biggest liabilities from the board.