"Is there anything else you'd like Mrs Trusk ?"

Mariam watched Anna as she rubbed her forehead while she glared at her desk. She was having a headache and the thought of what had happened earlier clouded her head. She still couldn't believe it, she couldn't believe Patricia had been the one that had made her experience one of the worst moments in her life and what she couldn't believe even more, was how she had reacted to it.

But she didn't regret it, and if she could take it back, she was never going to. Patricia had brought out the worst in her, but it needed to happen.

"Mrs Trusk?"
Anna exhaled.

"Honestly, I just don't care Mariam, do whatever you want."

"Anna!"

Anna rolled her eyes. She really didn't need to watch Angelo storm right into her office looking at disappointed and upset as he did. He was the last person she needed to see and he knew that. Anna got up quickly and headed to the window just in time to back him.

"Good day Mr Trusk." Mariam greeted

"Could you give me a moment with my wife alone please?" Angelo didn't bother to look at Mariam. His eyes were right on Anna

"Sure sir."

No one noticed her walk right out of the office.

"So now I'm your wife." Anna turned to look at him "it sure didn't look like that minutes ago."

"Anna," Angelo took a deep breath to calm himself. "what has come over you?"

She scoffed.

"Me?" She had to ask him. "What has come over you Angelo?" She walked back to the table "why did you take her side?"

"Take her side? I wasn't taking her side Anna, I was trying to protect you."

She rolled her eyes, he was at it again, talking about how her protection was the only thing that mattered to him. 

"I know you're upset and hurt-"

"Do you?" She asked him, walking back to the table and pretending to reach for her notebook.

"What you did out there, it wasn't the best thing to do. Do you have any idea what would happen if people start talking about this?"

"Then let them talk-"

"What about the NSS huh? What do you think is going to happen if Patricia presses charges?"

" I honestly don't care Angelo!" Anna raised her voice again and raised her head to look at him, throwing all the notebooks she had picked up earlier on the table so they made a loud bang noise. Her vision had become blurry all of a sudden, what Angelo said was a trigger. She hated it, she hated being at the mercy of all of them, she hated how she had to hide it all in, how she had to always do what she wanted because if she didn't, they were going to make her suffer and pay for it. Damn the humans.

"You have no idea what they did to me." her voice broke. She inhaled sharply trying to catch her breath.  "how much they hurt me at that base, and she did it, she was the reason, she gave them those tapes."

Angelo exhaled.

He really hated to see Anna cry. As a matter of fact, he had never seen her that way before. It melted his heart.

"Anna?" He took a step towards her.

"And you knew that. You knew exactly what she did and you did nothing about it."

"What was I supposed to do Anna?" He asked her  "was I supposed to jump her and try to strangle her to death just like you did?"

"Yes! If it was all it had to take to make things okay, to get justice for what they did to the woman that you claim to love then that was exactly what you needed to have done, what you should have done."

"Don't do that Anna"

She scoffed and looked away, cleaning the tears that had fallen down her eyes off.

"And what about you? Did doing all that make you feel okay? Did it make any of this go away? The anger and pain you feel? Do you think you'd have felt better if you tried to kill her?"

"You think this is just about me?" She sobbed and turned back to look at him. He didn't know, if only he knew that she wasn't the one she was trying to protect. She was doing it for her, or him, for their child, whose life almost got destroyed because of Patricia's jealousy. Anna was breaking down in tears and she couldn't even control herself.

"Do you have any idea what I almost lost? How much I almost lost at that base? I begged them, to go easy on me but they didn't stop, they didn't care . To them I was just some monster they had to keep in check. They watched me bleed out and then started all over again. Do you have any idea how- God,"

She placed a hand on her forehead. She needed a minute to catch her breath.

"Do you know how it feels to feel responsible for not just your life but every one in your community? For your entire race? How frustrating it is to realize you might be making a mistake by not letting a part of you go while you still can? Do you?" She yelled at him while he just watched .

"Of course you don't. None of you understand! All you humans do is judge people like me, treat us like we are monsters."

"That's not fair. Anna, we've both had our own equal share of losses to both our kinds."

"Have we?"

"You know I don't see you the way they see you. I don't see you like that."

"What about the rest of me? The rest of my people. We are the victims Angelo. Not you, not the rest of your kind. So what? An Atian killed your mum, humans killed my entire family. I watched my father and my brother die trying to stop the NSS from taking me. My mum died years later because she was too weak and sick to get over it. Your people killed my people. Old and weak, children and they did that without any remorse. They raped us, they raped me times and times without care and somehow you still think you guys are the victims? You're not the ones trapped behind a wall. You don't have to worry about being injected to death once you're sixty something years old because some people are scared to let the population of your kind expand. You don't have to worry if it's right to even bring life into this world with everything that's going on. You are not the victims. None of you are!"

She sniffed cleaning her eyes.

"So I'm sorry Angelo, if you don't understand that, if you don't see my people, then you don't see me and maybe none of this is worth it-"

She sniffed and turned around. It was the only way to be in control. She could feel her heart breaking apart just by looking at him. She knew if she kept looking at him any longer, she was going to not care what happened out there. Angelo was dying to say something. He really wanted to but he was short of words. He didn't know exactly what to say.

He had never really thought about any of it until then. He just wanted to hold her. He just wanted to say something to her, to show her how he really felt.

"Mr Trusk!" Tim rushed in as fast as he could. Anna  hurriedly cleaned her eyes just as Mariam rushed in too. The last thing she needed was any of them noticing the tears in her eyes.

"Not now Timothy."

"I'm really sorry Mr Trusk but there's an emergency." Timothy just had to come clean .

Anna turned, just as Angelo furrowed his brows.

"It's a mob." Mariam announced. "There's an angry mob outside and everyone is panicking including the board."

"What?"

Angelo asked walking as fast as he could to the first window he could find. Anna was confused too. What did they mean by that? Why was a mob outside Trusk?

He looked out. They were right. Angelo could notice the crowd surrounding the building, they had a lot of banners up, anti-Atian banners.

"For some reason, there was an information from the NSS office that leaked this morning on the news about Mrs Trusk's recent arrest and it has got everyone scared. They are going on a march to ask the government to stop the integration program because they believe mrs Trusk isn't the only Atian who still has access to her powers.

Angelo walked back to them

"So what do they want? Why are they here?"

"Sir," Mariam started "the people are not satisfied with the verdict. They believe Mrs Trusk deserves less than her freedom. They are asking that she gives herself up to be used as an example to other Atians that might plan to deactivate their bracelet in the future."

"What?"

Angelo placed his hands on his hips. He didn't understand what he just heard.

"That's insane. She didn't do anything wrong. She didn't break any laws."

"We know that sir but the people don't care. They are quite persistent and they are forcing their way into Trusk. The security is trying to hold them off but I'm scared they won't be able to for long."

"The board has also called for an emergency meeting."

Anna turned outside the window. She could see the mob. They were quite a lot and they looked really angry. Did they really want her? What were they going to do to her?

"Tim, Have the security place the company on lockdown." Angelo ordered "no one is getting in or out of this building until this is sorted out do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

Tim turned and walked away as fast as he could.

"Mariah, I need you to update Sam about this and fix a meeting with the board in thirty minutes."

She nodded

"Yes sir " She walked away.

Angelo exhaled. He slowly turned to Anna. He could read the look in her eyes, she was terrified but still managed to act tough. He could imagine all the thoughts that went through her head.

I told you so

This was the point she was trying to prove. The point she needed him to understand. She rubbed her arms. Everywhere felt so cold all of a sudden.

She exhaled

Was it ever going to end?