MARCH 4, 2022

It was a new day.

Ben Sam had assaulted Jake's hearing with his wails. The baby's mother cared for him, and it was her responsibility to. Sabrina Sam's duty.

Jake's ears had been Ben's victims.

It had been like living in that spaceship with baby Kara again. Still, Ben did what he had to.

Babies wail.

Freemans had killed.

Jake had spent so long trying to keep Free's natives a safe distance from him. Now, though, he lived in a home with a baby Freeman.

Maybe Ben liked his Soynite mother. The majority of the Freemans, however, hated the girl's people. Jake's people.

Sabrina had found the baby Freeman yesterday.

She had shot and killed the boy's birth parents. The girl had killed them before adopting their child.

The irony wasn't lost on Jake.

He had even read the information about Ben, which was written on a sheet of paper Sabrina had taken.

Name: Suntro Sink

Gender: Male

Birthday: March 3, 2022

Birthplace: Free

Father: Forman Sink

Mother: Honda Sink

Now, alive, Jake was dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans. No shoes. White socks covered his feet. Sabrina wore a blue shirt and blue jeans. No shoes. No socks. Her feet were bare. The two Highs wore their Soynite pendants.

A new day.

Jake hadn't forgotten yesterday.

March 3, 2022. So much had happened on that day. Bad and good. Jake and Sabrina had reunited yesterday, at least. They had hugged.

Freemans had dropped. The scarred Doug Scape had fallen. Jake had to find and help the boy's twin.

Allison Scape.

Sabrina had met her own sister. One of them, anyway. The Lock Tannis Church kept Anne stuck in it, and that cult wouldn't free the girl. Bane Sinister planned on making Jake and Sabrina become Lock worshippers.

The cult leader had to die.

Jake's hatred for him was thick. Bane had changed Anne into a girl who believed killing innocent Soynites was the right thing to do.

The cult leader had corrupted Anne. He had done the same to her Watcher.

Bane hadn't succeeded in convincing Jake to worship Lock. However, Sabrina had taken a certain baby from a Freeman base in Washington.

"Look at you," Sabrina said, speaking English to someone who was younger than Jake. "Look at my wonderful boy."

Sabrina(Theo Majestic's second child) sat cross-legged on the bed, her bed. She held a bottle. The girl held Ben while he took in milk. Sabrina was a girl Jake had hugged more times than he could remember, and he hadn't expected she would become the first Soynite in history to adopt a Freeman. He assumed Sabrina was the first Soynite to adopt a Freeman, anyway.

It was strange. Weird. But not awful.

The girls Kevin had talked about, Hailey and Anne, they were the baby's aunts.

Ben was thirty-three inches long. Two-foot nine. The average Freeman was bigger than the typical Soynite. It made sense that Ben was larger than the average Soynite baby. He should grow into a seven-foot tall man. The infant was harmless. Young and defenseless, he wasn't like the mature and ruthless Freemans his mother had fought yesterday.

Sabrina had measured Ben. That had happened yesterday, and it was how she and Jake knew how tall their youngest housemate was.

Warm sunlight came into the room through wide windows. A red backpack sat on the desk, idle. Sabrina had put Ben inside it after meeting him yesterday.

The blonde girl had wrapped a red blanket around her pale son. She had taken it from the Freeman base in Washington, and its warmth covered Ben. His Soynite mother had him.

Soynites favored blue.

Freemans favored red, black, gray.

"I didn't love you yesterday," Sabrina said, her voice as sweet as a kiss. "I love you now, though."

She had spoken to Ben.

The teen mom had killed her son's birth parents. She had been forced to do it, but Ben wasn't an orphan, because Sabrina had done something strange and wonderful.

She had adopted a newborn Freeman.

If Sabrina managed to help the boy reach adulthood, he might stay on his Soynite mother's side. He wouldn't remember his original parents. No, he wouldn't forget Sabrina and what she had done for him.

Ben's birth parents had died.

Sabrina's status as a mother had been born.

Birth and death. Jake would die, but he had to make sure the period between his birth and his death brought Lock Tannis's demise.

Even though he had never seen the Freeman ruler, the boy would love to turn him into smoke.

People had died because of Lock.

Doug Scape. Jalen Majestic. Lizzie Majestic. So many other great Soynites had fallen and never stood again.

Jake blamed Lock.

He assumed the Freemans' ruler was Reed Pisces, the Soynite Theo had exiled because he had desired the Freeman race's destruction.

Lock Tannis ruled the species he had wanted to destroy.

Ironic.

Sabrina. Her Watcher was her birth mother's younger brother. Theo had selected his daughter's uncle to be her Watcher. Despite the Freemans' existence, Sabrina was such a fortunate girl.

Were there Soynites luckier than Jake's best friend?

If a sixth cousin could be considered family, then Jake was with family each time he shared a moment with Sabrina. They were the first Soynite's descendants. Distant from Soy but alive. Away from the other Majestics but not lifeless.

No matter what had happened before, Sabrina parented. She had become a mother. Jake was still Jake, as usual, and his death hadn't come.

Yet.

A terrible demise hadn't killed him.

Considering all the horrors he had seen, Jake wouldn't gape his mouth in shock if a future seer told him Lock would make his heart stop. The boy couldn't expect too much good.

And Sabrina might have doomed Jake and so many others.

Why?

Because she had told Don Ascend to do her one favor. A dreadful favor.

Sabrina was a mother, and Jake was a boy with no son. Maybe Lock would take his life before he could have a kid. The average life expectancy of a Soynite was one thousand years. Maybe it had become shorter. Shorter by too much. Because of the Freemans. Because of Lock Tannis.

It wasn't too late to kill the Freeman ruler and bring an end to the war. That could happen.

Would Jake live to see it?

Lock commanded the Freemans, and they did what he wanted them to do. If someone killed Lock, they would kneel for them. Maybe that person would be the thirteen-year-old Hailey. If a Soynite killed Lock, Jake hoped the pale race's hatred for Soynites wouldn't kill their desire to kneel for that hero.

Voy Nail.

That original Freeman had decided whoever killed the current Freeman ruler would become planet Free's new leader. Regardless of if they were Soynite or Freeman.

What would happen if Lock's too-pale minions discovered his secret? Would they love him anyway?

If Jake had learned Sabrina were a Freeman, he wouldn't stop loving her. But the Freemans weren't Jake. Their spite for the Soynite species was brutal, extreme, rampant.

"They follow power." Sabrina had said.

Freemans followed power, but they might try killing Sabrina if she assassinated Lock. The guarantee Freemans would kneel for her if she murdered their leader didn't exist.

Right now, as Sabrina sat cross-legged on her big bed, the only Freeman who liked her didn't have teeth.

That was the reality.

"Hey, Ben," Sabrina said. She smiled. "Maybe you'll meet your aunt Hailey. One day. Maybe I'll meet her, too. I never have. My uncle, your great uncle, told me about her. She's probably still wonderful. I really hope she is."

The girl had never met her younger sister. Kevin, a man with deep information about Theo's family, had talked about Hailey with high respect in his voice. She was his niece. Kevin was her uncle, and he was Sabrina's as well. But she and Jake hadn't known that the day before yesterday.

The young mother had lived under the same roof as her uncle and hadn't been aware.

"Probably," Jake said. A heavy exhale came from him. "Probably is the keyword. Don't get your hopes up, Sabrina. Hailey might not be as wonderful as you hope."

In the Freeman base, Jake had been with Peter. The man had left with Maggie and returned to his mansion in Seattle. Before that, though, Jake and Peter had learned something bad. Almost all the former Highs had joined Lock. He was possibly a former High.

Don Ascend. He had stopped being the good man Jake had believed he was.

Boris Endman, too.

He was deceased. In an event Jake didn't know about, Lock had killed Boris.

Wonderful Soynites had become bad. What if Hailey was a bad Soynite? After all, her youngest sister had become terrible. What could stop Hailey from turning into someone like Anne?

"Jeez, Jake," Sabrina said. "Try to be more hopeful, please. Before we found each other again, you weren't like this. Lock is a Soynite. I know. But we can't let that information get us so down. Don Ascend probably sent my message to Lock. Lock is going to come to Earth. I'm going to kill him. Trust me. Good things always come to me, Jake. You know that. Even before we came to this planet, I was lucky. My Watcher has been my uncle this entire time. When I was little, I didn't get killed in New York City. I survived two Freeman base attacks. I reunited with you in Washington, and I even met my baby boy. Luck is on my side. I'm going to kill Lock Tannis."

The girl didn't elaborate on what had happened to her in New York City, but Jake didn't want her to. Not now, at least.

Sabrina. Jake's friend, his best ally, his sixth cousin.

No one had killed her in New York City. Regardless, someone could murder her in the future. Lock Tannis could.

Jake had never traveled to New York City. Back on Soy, he had lived in a great city. Majestic City. It had been the largest city on the boy's home planet. The Freemans had destroyed it.

What hadn't they demolished on Soy?

Would Sabrina kill Lock Tannis?

"I doubt it," Jake said. "You're always so sure that everything will work out for the best. It's a dangerous belief. You saw what happened to Doug. He got killed. He died because I decided to save you first. I wanted to help both of you, really, but that's not what happened. Doug wanted to see his sister again. It didn't happen. They're never going to reunite, because one of them is gone forever. Doug had a goal. It died when he did. You have a goal, too, but it's possible that you won't complete it. Killing Lock is going to be too hard for you. We need people. We have to get allies and all kinds of powerful Soynites to help us. That probably won't even be enough. Don't expect too much good out of life. Doing that is only going to disappoint you, Sabrina. It's the truth."

At some point, the girl had taken the bottle away from Ben's mouth. It sat on the bed, Sabrina holding it as the brown nipple pointed at the big ceiling. In this mansion, a lavish home Jake stood in, a girl believed she would kill the mastermind behind Soy's invasion.

Ben's mother was too stubborn to agree with her best friend.

Jake closed in on the desk. He tapped his fingers against hard wood, no longer facing Sabrina. Would the girl see Lock?

"Theo should've killed him," Sabrina said. "That's another truth. My biological father let Lock Tannis live, but he shouldn't have. I'm not going to make that same mistake. I need your support. There has to be someone who will tell me that I made the right choice. If I don't do what I have to, how many more Soynites will die? Ten? One hundred? One thousand? Are there even one thousand of us left?"

Jake tapped the desk harder.

"There are way too many Freemans," Sabrina said. "There aren't enough of us. For the Soynites who are still alive, I'm going to do something amazing."

"Like what?" Jake said. "You're going to turn Ben into an orphan?"

"I'm going to stop Soynite orphans from being made."

The invasion had orphaned Jake. No father. No mother. No parents. He was his family's leftover. The boy's friend had two dead parents and two living ones. An uncle. Three siblings.

Who did Jake have?

"When the misery gets here, it isn't going to go away," Jake said. "We're just going to make space for it."

Pessimism stalked him like a shadow.

"Jake, please stop," Sabrina said. "Where's your faith? Are you really going to let one sentence from Maggie ruin your life?"

The mysterious Maggie had opened a gap between Jake and hope. A space so huge the boy couldn't cross it.

"Are you going to let your optimism take your life?" Jake said.

"It's going to save lives," Sabrina said. "Lock Tannis is out there and someone will kill him. I'll do it. After that, I'm going to sit on that red throne and my son's people will kneel for me. Theo's daughter is going to lead the Freemans."

The Freemans' current ruler could kill all of Theo's daughters.

"You don't know that," Jake said. He kept his blue eyes trained forward, looking at a wall. The High didn't move his gaze, as if what he saw would teach him how to destroy his frustrations. "They follow power. That's what you told me. Right now, Lock has power and you don't. We don't."

And yet.

Sabrina held dangerous optimism like she held Ben. Her hope was a venomous danger to her, but the girl saw it as a helpful assistant.

Maggie had sent Jake's optimism crumbling. She hadn't done the same to his friend's.

Sabrina kept the house of hope standing. The female High kept it strong as she kept her baby close.

Too stubborn. Too hopeful.

There were six Highs, six of their Watchers, and one Freeman ruler whose heart had to stop.

The invasion had produced six child rulers. Many years ago, after his exile and before Soy's destruction, Lock Tannis had committed murder, then sat on a red throne.

He had created the invasion's blueprint. The Freemans' attack on Soy hadn't been an accident.

Sabrina planned on killing Lock on purpose. She preferred to take the man's life, but her love for hope's house wouldn't guarantee her victory.

The more Freemans Jake and Sabrina killed, the higher the chance the uncorrupted Soynites would win.

They had a terrible Soynite to end.

"When I see Lock, I'm going to have what I need to kill him," Sabrina said. "He won't be able to touch me. After I stab him in the heart, he's going to fall. He'll turn into smoke. Then authority over the Freemans is what I'll have. They follow power. They're going to follow me. I'll be the new Great Leader. Great Leader Sabrina Sam."

Reed Pisces had taken over as Great Leader. Reed hadn't only morphed into a Freeman, but he had changed his name to Lock Tannis.

Well, Jake assumed Reed and Lock were the same man. If they weren't, new questions would emerge.

"It does sound like a nice title," Jake said. "Nice things don't always come, though. Someone with a name other than Sabrina Sam might become the Freemans' next leader."

He turned to face his friend.

"It's going to be me," Sabrina said. "The Freemans will kneel for Great Leader Sabrina Sam. They'll have me as their ruler for..."

Sabrina furrowed her brow.

"I'm sixteen," she said. "The average Soynite lifespan is one thousand years. So..."

Jake waited as the girl High did the math.

"Nine-hundred and eighty-four," Sabrina said. "Nine-hundred and eighty-four years. That's how long the Freemans will have me as their ruler. Lock has been in power for millions of years. I'm going to change that. The Freeman ruler is going to get killed by a sixteen-year-old girl."

Would he?

If the answer was yes, there was a possibility that sixteen-year-old girl wouldn't be Sabrina.

Lock had made a massacre happen and carried on living. Sabrina loved to play her role as his false would-be killer, the girl so sure she would kill the corrupt Soynite.

Her hope thrived.

Jake's optimism had bid farewell. It had fled after Maggie's hushed sentence.

Five words had been enough.

How many more dreadful truths would Jake learn? How many of them would make him run?

Secrets.

Truths.

Kevin had kept a secret. He had hid it, which wasn't what Sabrina did with her love for a pale baby. Originally known as Nova Majestic, Sabrina loved Kevin and the man loved her. He had decided to disobey Theo.

The Watcher had revealed the truth.

Theo would never be able to let Sabrina learn she was Nova, because the information was already in her. How furious would Kevin's act make Theo?

Disregarding Theo's wish, Kevin had told Sabrina the big secret.

The girl was Nova.

During the invasion, Theo hadn't told her the truth when he stood in front of Sabrina. His daughter. He had made her into a royal, but he hadn't revealed the big secret.

Theo and Sabrina, father and daughter.

Jake and Sabrina.

The two shared the same last name. Majestic. But they weren't siblings. The blond Highs were sixth cousins, and they lived with that sweet awareness. Nice knowledge.

Sixth cousins had become best friends. They had been distant relatives and hadn't known.

Jake and Sabrina were in partnership against one powerful ruler and his pale minions.

Jake walked toward the window. When he was close enough, he stopped. Grass swayed, green and dancing.

The trees outside wouldn't become people and join the fight against the Freemans. A telekinesis used could break off a branch and launch at a Freeman, but Jake didn't have telekinesis. The boy had no Saves.

Lock Tannis had multiple powers.

He didn't want Jake and Sabrina alive, but he hadn't murdered them yet. Theo's kid lived and stayed hopeful. Jake wasn't dead, but he had lost his optimism. Appropriate cynicism. It had taken up residence in the High. It had engaged Sabrina's hopeful nature in a fight.

Jake had picked his current nature when he had possessed the luxury of being an idealist.

He had made the right choice. It satisfied him.

They follow power.

"Someone new has to lead the Freemans," Jake said. "I know that. But can that really happen soon? I doubt it. Yeah, we can fight Lock Tannis. Sure. That doesn't mean we'll win. Not now, at least. Even if Peter and Maggie were with us, we would still have a hard time. Killing all the Freemans inside that base in Washington wasn't easy. Well, we killed almost all of them. You spared Ben. Lock has a huge military to help him. We don't. Trying to beat Lock Tannis will be the hardest thing we've ever done."

Jake's friend Sabrina was sixteen, a girl with warriors who had destroyed a planet in one night as her enemies.

Sabrina should be more willing to believe Lock Tannis would kill her with ease, Jake knew.

Turning the average Freeman into smoke was one thing, but fighting a battle against a Soynite who had powers and many Freeman minions would be something else.

"Plus, there's Strife," Jake said. "You saw what happened when it got too close to you. It turned your Save off. Doug got killed. What if we fight Lock Tannis and Strife is there? It most likely will be. The Freemans love their Strife. It already caused us enough trouble, and I don't doubt that it's going to make things dangerous for us again. If Strife didn't exist, it would be so much easier for us to get rid of Lock. That isn't our reality, though. Strife is real and it can take away your power. It already has. Lock isn't a Killian, so that means he won't be able to take away your intangibility without using Strife."

If Strife weren't real, Sabrina would have a better chance at killing Lock Tannis.

Much to Jake's bad luck, Strife, which came from a massive mountain on planet Free, was real. It wasn't a lie. A green substance that made powered Soynites powerless was as true as Jake and his best friend.

"Basically, you're saying that me and you are most likely going to fail," Sabrina said. Jake ran a hand through his blond hair. "Right? We have to try, Jake. This is something that we have to do. You know that. It's my responsibility to kill Lock. It's my duty. My birth father is the one who let him live. I have to fix this. I'm going to kill Lock and sit on his throne. The next ruler of the Freemans has to be called Great Leader Sabrina Sam. For every Soynite who died because of Lock, I'm going to stab him in the heart. It has to be me. If I don't do that, so many more lives will keep being ruined. I can't let that happen. Someone has to take out Lock. I have to do what Theo didn't. Isn't it obvious?"

Jake put his hands on his hips as a red bird landed on the front lawn. Sunlight covered it with warmth.

Red.

A sword matching that color slithered into Jake's mind. If Sabrina failed to kill Lock, how many more Soynites would a Freeman sword kill?

"I have to see you alive, Sabrina," Jake said. "I have to see you that way for a long time. Now, I can't do that if you're dead. I don't think you're ready to fight Lock. You're not prepared. We're not prepared. You can turn intangible and fight well. But Lock is immune to Strife. He should be a great fighter, too. If he brings a Strife weapon to a fight with you, that's going to be bad. It's going to be dangerous for his enemy. You. Us. Think about it. We need a few more years to train, prepare. We have to get more allies and they have to train, too. If you're lucky, you'll kill Lock when you're eighteen."

Here in Sabrina's bedroom, Jake tried yanking dumb optimism from his closest friend, his sixth cousin.

The High boy turned away from the window.

"I can't wait that long!" Sabrina said, her voice rising. "That's two years away from now! I have to be ready at this very moment!"

The baby wailed.

A Soynite had frightened him. His mother had made him afraid. If Ben were a Freeman warrior who supported Lock, his fear might make his mother's friend smile.

Ben was only a baby.

Jake had lived in a spaceship with a different baby. Years ago. The boy hadn't seen Kara Ascend in almost eleven years, and he remembered how it hadn't been a rare sight to see her wrapped in a blue blanket.

What was Kara's location? What was her name now? As Jake stood in Sabrina's room, did a Freeman put a sword into the eleven-year-old girl's heart?

As for Ben, he had been adopted by Sabrina, but she had wrapped him in Freeman-favored red.

Jake hoped he would survive to see adulthood. The teenager himself had to be alive years from now. His good friend Sabrina, too. Many people had to live.

When Jake stood beside his sixth cousin during the invasion, government agents had guarded their to-be Highs. They had protected them. Sabrina now protected a young Freeman, the youngest Freeman Jake had seen with his own eyes.

The girl Jake had stood next to on an airstrip sat on the bed, with her pale boy, the baby whose birth parents had been murdered by his new mother.

Life was strange.

Ben. He was smaller than the Soynite Lock Tannis, smaller than any other Freeman Jake had seen. Would Ben grow up and stay on Sabrina's side? Would he get older and side with his kind?

Even though Lock had hated the Freemans, they supported him, praised him. The pale minions didn't know the truth, did they?

Lock Tannis is a Soynite.

Five words.

Lock Tannis was one of the universe's most powerful Soynites. He had become Soy's doom.

Maggie had come in contact with Lock. Some time after learning that, Jake had listened to the girl's whispered words.

"Lock Tannis is a Soynite." Maggie had said, her tone hushed, as if Soy would've exploded if Peter had heard the words.

Jake couldn't match Sabrina's optimism. Maybe he never would.

It had taken them two months to arrive on Earth. Now, sixteen and still blond, Jake and Sabrina were together. They had been apart for ten years, but that time period had died. It was gone.

Jake's friend had tried snatching his pessimism. She hadn't succeeded. The boy had tried forcing hard cynicism into Sabrina. He had failed.

Sabrina rocked the Freeman, the mansion's youngest resident, her son.

A blue comforter stayed underneath her butt as she cared for the youngest Freeman she had ever met.

"It's okay," the girl said, speaking in a soft tone. She kept her close to him. "Your mom has you. I love you, Ben."

Happiness washed over Jake. He smiled.

Sabrina pressed her lips against Ben, kissing his pale forehead. She stroked the boy's black hair.

"Anyway, Jake," Sabrina said. "Everything is going to be okay. You have to know that. I wouldn't be so determined to kill Lock if I didn't think I could do it."

"I know," Jake said, speaking in a soft tone, as if Sabrina would shatter if he didn't. "You're my best friend and you're planning on fighting Lock Tannis. I have to try stopping you."

He had to try. If he didn't, Sabrina might be lifeless in two years.

"And I know why you want to," Sabrina said. She extended her hand, which the bottle had been in. "Come here."

Jake moved.

With intent, he walked as his white socks moved against the carpet. He held Sabrina's hand. Warmth mixed. Sweet.

"I don't care how distantly related we are," Sabrina said, seated on the bed. "You're my cousin. No matter what happens, I love you."

"I love you too," Jake said, sincere.

They stopped holding hands.

Great Leader Sabrina Sam. The title did sound nice, but not everything the future held would be great.

Blood didn't pour from a wound in Sabrina's head. For now, while she held a baby she had fed and nurtured, Theo's daughter wasn't like Doug. He had died. Sabrina hadn't. It was as true as the dark hair Ben sported.

His people had attacked Soy. They had slaughtered its natives.

But the invasion hadn't been Jake's end.

The High and five other children had boarded a spacecraft, boys and girls together. Child rulers. Each of those kids was a young leader. They had a ruined planet, awful memories, and no home on Soy.

They lived.

There in the bedroom, near his friend and her son, Jake continued surviving. He had turned a Freeman into smoke yesterday, because the too-white enemy had tried killing him. That Lock Tannis supporter hadn't been Jake's only victim. He had ended more than one Freeman. Sabrina knew. Kevin knew. They had approved.

Could Jake bring another Freeman death? What about his friend? Could she kill Lock Tannis? Would she take his life?

No matter what would happen tomorrow or the day after that, Sabrina did not sit near people she didn't recognize.

She had met Jake on the airstrip. Eleven years ago. Jake was the first High of the latest generation of Highs. That meant Theo had turned him into a royal before making Sabrina, Kara, Lovely, Path, and Aris into royals. Jake had been called Cape Majestic.

His name was Jake.

Jake Wayne.

After escaping Soy, he and Sabrina had become good friends. Their bond, it seemed as natural as walking.

But what Sabrina did better than Jake was be more idealistic. Good hope had sped away from the boy, and he couldn't find it. It didn't return to him. Like how his parents didn't come back into his life.

They had been great.

Jalen Majestic. He was Jake's dead father. Thanks to him, Majestic genes flowed through the High.

Lizzie Majestic. She was Jake's dead mother, and the woman had never seen her son become a ruler. She would never see it.

"You know what else?" Sabrina said. "We're going to see the other Highs again. Aris. Path. Kara. We're even going to see... Lovely. We need her. Me and you are going to need as many Soynites as possible. Fighters. That what we have to get. Friends. Lovely wasn't like the rest of us. She was a rude moron. I think she should be with us, though. We're fighting in a war and we have to gather the others. We need to reunite with them."

Lovely Windsore.

Being in the same room with her was almost as bad as being trapped inside a Freeman prison cell.

"Do we have to get Lovely?" Jake said, his voice thick with venom. "She didn't even act like we were her equals. She treated us like trash, Sabrina."

"If we're trash, we're great trash," Sabrina said. "The other Highs are out there. Even Lovely. At some point, before or after I kill Lock Tannis, we need to reunite with Lovely and the others."

Lovely. She was pretty far from being lovely.

"I'm confused," Jake said. Sabrina tapped her fingers against the bottle. "I thought you believed we didn't need the other Highs to help us kill Lock."

"Lock Tannis isn't our only enemy," Sabrina said. "There are too many others. Also, some Freemans probably won't kneel for me after I kill Lock. There's a chance a bunch of them won't support me. Freemans did that when Lock was their leader, and they might do it again. Plus, you remember Bane Sinister. He leads the Lock Tannis Church. That's a cult that needs to be taken out."

Jake ran a hand through his hair.

"Maybe you'll kill Lock and Bane," he said. "After that, you're just going to find more monsters."