DNA Valkyrie - Vol. 5 - Chapter 24: No Compromise

Chapter 24: No Compromise

The sunset on their faces after their escape. 

It warmed them both. 

This had sure been a long night 

This was the frontier between life and death. Cynthia thought for sure that she was a goner, but Quentin came out of nowhere and saved her right before it was too late. It was not even an exaggeration because Cynthia ultimately couldn’t side with Richard and Amber, so she had truly been seconds away from her demise. It was supposed to be simple—if she wished to survive, she simply had to side with them and that would have been it, but she could never do it because she couldn’t see herself lying for them and covering for their horrible crimes. 

“You okay?” Quentin asked her after they stopped near the entrance of the small town. Quentin was out of breath, but Cynthia was surprisingly not and that was not because she was in shape. This was all thanks to the recent activation of her DNA Valkyrie device and her wild dinosaur persona. She was still under the effects of that persona. She could still feel her eyes itching because her eyes were replaced by her animalistic dinosaur eyes.    

“I’m fine. How are you?”

“A little out of breath, but you know? I’m fine… I’ll survive…” he let her know. 

“I feel like we should head back there…” Cynthia was toying with the idea of going back there and simply confronting Richard and Amber now that she was no longer alone. This might have been the dinosaur DNA surging through her mind and body since the DNA Valkyrie device had been activated.

“We just got out of there. There’s no way we’re going back there. It’s too dangerous,” Quentin turned his back on the idea right away.  

“Why not?”

“We must go back to HQ. This operation you conducted was not a success and it didn’t go as it planned to go. The logical thing to do is to retreat and refocus,” the Saurius desperately tried reasoning with her and this might have been one of the hardest things ever for her since she was a pretty unreasonable person, generally speaking. When Widdowfield set her mind on something, it was almost impossible for her not to move forward with her original plans. In this case, her original plans were to solve this case and to stop the Amber Murderer, but now everything had become a lot more complicated and she didn’t know what to do anymore…   

“It’s not too late to solve this case,” Detective Widdowfield said to him. 

“For now, it is,” he replied to her. 

“So, what are you suggesting now? We go back home and we give up?”   

“That’s not what I said, but I do think we need backup,” Quentin let her know. 

She hated to admit it, but Quentin wasn’t wrong. With backup, there was certain to have a little more chance on their side to deal with Richard and Amber. Cynthia lowered her head. She agreed to go with her friend’s idea…

She turned her back and she was just about to leave town and return to Capital City until… 

“I’m glad you’re alright…” 

It was Protea’s voice.

The plant lady returned. 

“Protea?” Cynthia turned to her, eyes and mouth wide open. She was shocked to see her. 

“She’s the criminal! What is she doing here?” Quentin readied himself for the worse.   

“Calm down. I need to speak with her,” Widdowfield told him to back down for a little while… 

“Alright.”

“So, did you set me up?” Cynthia interrogated Protea after turning back to her. This was the first question that came to her mind. 

“I didn’t…” 

“What do you mean, you didn’t? You said that you were working for Richard after he paid to bail you out of prison!” it seemed quite obvious to her. Cynthia legitimately didn’t need to be a detective to figure that one out. She didn’t need any more clues to that. Everything was right there. Everything made complete sense.

“He yanked me out of jail, yes. But I didn’t need to help him because I wanted to—I had to. He threatened me. If I didn’t do what he wanted me to do, he would have arranged it so I would have gone back to jail and with his connections, I knew for sure that something bad would have happened to me there… And think about it, why would I come here to tell you all of this if I was still working for him,  huh? If anything, I’m more scared that he’s going to punish me for talking to you and trying to help you…” What Protea said seemed to be the truth.    

“Oh, my God… Then, you have to come with us…” Cynthia quickly changed her mind about her… 

“Come with us!” Quentin seemed to agree with her. 

“Do you want to come with us?” Widdowfield asked her when she suspected that Protea seemed to be hesitating about going with them and turning her back on Richard and Amber… “What do you think?” Cynthia smiled at her as she offered her hand to her…    

***

It was a tough pill to swallow for her to fall the way she did, but she agreed to do it. 

Cynthia agreed to fall back and to return to the city and she did not go back alone. She was with Quentin and Protea, who had also agreed to come with them. It wasn’t the fastest return since the city was pretty far away and the only way to voyage was aboard a train, the same train she originally took for the original trip. 

The three of them shared a wagon. 

Protea sat next to Cynthia and Quentin was sitting in front of them.       

“So, are you still a dangerous criminal or something?” Quentin awkwardly asked the plant lady during the trip, breaking the embarrassing silence in their section of the train. 

“Quentin!” Cynthia couldn’t believe that he said that.

“Something like that…” This still didn’t prevent Protea from answering his question and she did it with a wry smile and with satisfied eyes, almost as if she was amused by his question and happy with the answer she gave him.