He takes the last step towards me, enveloping me in a gentle embrace. “I never gave up hope that you would come back. I know I was angry, but—“

The sickening crunch of metal going through flesh and bone cuts off his sentence. He pushes slightly away from me and looks down. Between us glistens a metal arm, its barbed head buried deep in my father’s gut. The mechanism for the arm extends from a bloody hole in my own abdomen. My father raises his eyes from the ghastly sight to stare at me in astonishment. Tears pour down my face and I sob, “I’m sorry, Father. I had to. This has to stop.” He begins to fall, taking me down with him. We end sprawled on the ground, his cloak spread over the top of us. I bury my face in the crook of his neck and weep.

Both of us are dying. The spring loaded arm, implanted inside my abdominal cavity by Draykell doctors, had been programmed to attack as soon as General Tykus was within striking distance. Once the bladed head made contact with his blood, it released a toxin designed to kill in thirty seconds or less. The thrust of the metal arm had opened a fatal wound in me as well, a necessary sacrifice.

My father stares into my eyes, shock giving way to a strange look of pride. “That’s my girl,” he gasps just before his eyes dim and his body goes slack.

I continue to sob weakly as my blood ebbs through the gaping hole. The soldiers came toward us, but nothing they did now could bring back their general. They take hold of my shoulders and try to pry us apart, but the barbed head clings to my father. They would have to extract the device to separate us. The two soldiers holding me let my body slump back to the ground. I hear them shouting obscenities, but it has become a dull roar in the background of the moment.

All I see is my father’s face. All I hear is his voice. That’s my girl.

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