Kairo slides Emmy's heart, lungs, and kidneys out of her body and over a few feet to the left. It's like he's playing some bizarre touch-screen game where he can add or remove organs from his victims as he sees fit. Emmy's eyes are open but she seems frozen.

Moments later, Kairo puts all her organs back inside her body and she falls to the floor. I rush to her side.

"How did you know the answer was 'no one'?" he asks her again.

Then Emmy does something so strange, at first I thought my girl had truly lost her mind. She starts laughing at the son of all things evil. Her laughter is hysterical and filled with delight.

"You dare laugh at me? I will break you human!" Kairo vows.

She laughs harder and whispers to me to get ready. I nod although I'm not really sure what's going on.

"How did I guess your stupid little riddle?" she asks in a small, cracked voice.

"Tell me!" Kairo orders.

"Marcus told me to think about the person telling the riddle. That's when I remembered that this is all about you. You're nothing but a mama's boy," she laughs again.

He walks even closer towards us. And now I understand what Emmy is trying to do: lure Kairo closer so I can use my powers on him.

"What did you say to me, human?" Kairo asks venomously.

"You're a mama's boy. All this is about you missing your mommy. You called the castle 'abandon.' I thought you were talking about leaving hope behind. But that's not it at all. You call it that because Lucy made you then discarded you like trash. She abandoned you."

"She only sent me away because the Council forced her to."

"Please, she's the source of all evil. She could have fought for you but she didn't and you want to know why?"

"I am going to kill you. It will be slower than I have ever killed anyone. You will beg me to end your life!"

"Blah,blah. Do you what human trait Lucy created you with?"

"Know one knows what the human factor was."

"I do - Love. She knew you'd be powerful. She created you, so that was a given. But she didn't want you to ever overthrow her. That's why she gave you something she doesn't have: The ability to desire love. That way she would always be able to defeat you."

"I will break every bone inside you and feed it to you," he promises her.

"That's why the answer to the riddle is "no one." Because the mother in the story loved her children so much, she would rather the beast kill all of them than abandon any of them. That is unlike your mother. Wow, how much do you have to suck for your own mom to give you away?"

"I'm going to cut inside you and display your remains on my wall."

"Here's what you and you're your dumba.s.s mother don't understand: While love destroys you, it'll keep humanity going forever."

"ARGH!!!" He runs into the force field with Loop in hand.

He's so focused on killing Emmy he doesn't even see me coming toward him. By the time he does, it's too late. I grab hold of his neck and bash his head into the floor. The Loop falls beside him. Before he can counterattack, I look him in the eyes and reflect his fear back to him.

It is much more difficult to penetrate Kairo's fears than a normal Demon. It requires more concentration. He's trying to block me out of his mind. I call out to Emmy and tell her she has to get out in case Kairo breaks free.

"I can't, the force field is still up. Anyone can get in but getting out, I need the Loop. And only Kairo's hand can use it," she protests.

"Find a way, quickly," I warn her, as it gets harder and harder to control my reflecting powers.

Emmy looks around and spots the stick she was forced to bite on. She goes over to it and without the slightest hesitation, sinks the sharp edge into Kairo's wrist.

Kairo screams so loud, it echoes back to us endlessly. Emmy looks like she's about to throw up as she severs Kairo's hand from the rest of his body with the crude instrument. Unable to completely take it apart, she stomps on it with her foot until the hand is no longer attached.

As Kairo yells and curses, black oil-like blood seeps from his b.l.o.o.d.y stub. He's lost focus so reflecting his fear back at him is getting much easier now. I enjoy going further and further into the abyss of his psyche. I will render him no more threatening than a newborn.

Emmy bends down, grabs the hand and picks up the Loop with it. She holds it out in front of her. She finds the other piece of the stick and hurls it across the room to see if the force field is gone. The stick lands on the throne: The force field has broken.

There is nothing Kairo can do now because I am in control. As he struggles under the weight of my power, Emmy calmly climbs to the top of the throne and reaches for one of Kairo's knives.

"Marcus, you are forbidden to kill him," Emmy reminds me.

Kairo is gasping for his last breath but even then he manages a sneaky little smile, knowing I can't kill him without incurring the wrath of the Council.

Emmy bends down on the floor and addresses Lucy's son.

"I have a riddle for you," she says.

He looks up at her with disgust. She leans in real close and smiles.

"What has one hand, two legs and won't ever finish?"

"I don't kn-"

She sinks the knife into his chest.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS.

After I pull the Amulet off Kairo's neck, we make our way outside the Castle. The team is approaching and Ameana is among them. Seeing the state Emmy is in, Tony goes into his knapsack and tries to find something that will help her.

She is still shaking, badly bruised and very weak. So weak in fact, she pa.s.ses out as Tony examines her. Isabelle advises us to let Emmy rest while they extract various plant mixtures to treat her.

In the meantime, I recount the events to the team. I leave out the part about Emmy urinating because I know she'd want me to, although I'm sure the team figured it out. The Fire Swans are now flying over to the castle. Apparently the force field over the lake is down as well.

When it's time to go, I ask Rio to carry Emmy as I have yet to gain back my full strength. A few hours later, we stop at a hotel where Emmy takes a hot shower. Miku insists that Emmy goes shopping as well.

"No, let's just grab a maid's uniform from the cart in the lobby. We don't have time to shop," I remind Miku.

"There is always time to shop," Miku, Ameana, and Isabelle all correct me.

I look to Rio for his help but he agrees with the girls.

"It'll take fifteen minutes," he says.

The guys wait while the girls go inside a small shop and pick out a few items. What was supposed to be fifteen minutes is actually an hour and a half. But I didn't complain because well, when you get electrocuted repeatedly, the least your boyfriend can do is wait while you shop.

When Emmy comes out of the store she has on new clothes, smells like spring flowers and the color is slowly coming back to her face. I hold her close and ask how she is feeling.

"The way any girl would feel after taking down a super Demon-hungry," she says.

I hold her tighter than I should given what she's just been through.

"That was...close," I whisper to her.

"Very."

Next, we drop off Tony and Isabelle before we head to Adam City. Although Tony doesn't say it out loud, I can read the relief on his face when he lands safely on the ground.

"Hey, thank you for helping us," Rio says to him.

"You showed a lot of courage for a Seller," Ameana agrees.

"It was nothing. I was never scared."

We all look at each other and agree to let Tony think what ever he wanted. After all, he was instrumental in us getting the Amulet. He saved us with his mixtures and his knowledge of the market.

"You guys wanna stick around for a little while?" he asks eagerly.

"We have one other matter to see to," I respond.

"Oh yeah, the secret part of the mission," he replies.

"Yeah, kind of," Emmy replies.

We turn to leave when he calls us back.

"Hey, you remember the story I told you guys earlier?" he asks.

"You mean about your best friend?"

"Yeah, could we keep that just between us?"

We all agree to do as he asks.

"I don't feel bad about it or anything. I mean it was a long time ago. Who really remembers their human lives anymore, right?" he says mostly himself.

Then Emmy walks up to him and hugs him. He's surprised by her affection but returns it nonetheless.

"You were closed for days. You lost a lot of business," Isabelle observes.

"Oh well," he says.

The team exchanges a glance and decides to help Tony out. The Twins buy mixtures and Holders they don't really need. Ameana buys Samson string, Jay and Isabelle look for something to purchase as well. Emmy takes my hand and we quietly sneak out of the shop and into the alley.

"Are you sure you're alright?" I ask her again.

"I think I need to sleep for a year but yeah, I'm fine."

"We survived it."

She bursts into tears so suddenly, it startles me.

"Emmy, what is it?"

"Nothing. I'm just so happy we made it. For a second there, I wasn't so sure."

"So these are tears of happiness?"

"Yeah."

"Good, but I'm still not a fan of seeing you in tears. Happy or not."

"Sorry."

She wipes her face and holds on to me tightly.

She asks me what caused her to end up on the side of the cliff. I fill her in on the flower and its effect. She scolds herself for doing something so reckless.

"It's okay, you were just trying to find something good in the middle of all the darkness that surrounded us. I can't blame you for that," I tell her.

"Still, I'm done smelling flowers."

"Who did you see in your hallucination?"

"Reese."

"Oh, but you looked sad. I would have thought seeing Reese again would have made you happy."

"Yeah, it did. But he started telling me stuff..."

"What stuff?" I ask.

"He told me how he kind of liked me."

"So Reese saw you as the girl that got away."

"I guess."