The Starling Saviour

Chapter 84

'Malcolm!' I screamed up through Merlyn Global as I bolted to his penthouse, not caring about anything else but getting to Malcolm and foiling his evil plan. 'Malcolm!'

I found him soon enough, he standing proudly next to his desk, as if he was expecting me. His eyes had that dark, foreboding look that always used to tell me he was going to do something bad, something of a wicked nature, especially when he had first involved me in his life, when he had been killing the most. Not that he didn't still kill; I felt like I didn't even know him anymore, not know, not after the events I was in the wake of.

'You're going to kill hundreds, thousands of people, Malcolm!' I screeched, not able to comprehend what I had found out. 'The Glades, it's where the club is, where Roy lives, where Laurel works. Everyone is in danger, and they won't all be able to get out of the area in time. They'll come back to a rip in the middle of their neighbourhood, and their homes will be destroyed. They will have nothing.'

'That's the intention,' Malcolm informed me sinisterly. 'The Glades is to be wiped off the map.'

'And you won't feel anything?' I questioned him, tears starting to form in my eyes. 'I trusted you, Malcolm. I fell out with people, people who were my friends, all for this awful Undertaking. You turned me against them all, just like you did in Central City; Oliver is just like the next Eddie, and Laurel the next Anna, while you are the only person who's stuck around, always there to torment me and ruin my life time and time again. I vowed to protect this city, but now I'm on the wrong side, associated with the wrong people. Why did I ever think that I could trust you?'

'Even if you can't trust me, at least I'm not the one who's going to set the Markov device off,' Malcolm smirked with evil intent. 'You know what the Markov device is, don't you? You nearly found out what it was, right before all your research on Unidac Industries was mysteriously destroyed in an explosion in your sister's hideout.'

'That was you?' I questioned him rather rhetorically, rolling my eyes at the predictability of the whole affair. 'Of course it was. And I know what it was, I found out just before you decided to blow the whole place up.'

After taking a breather upon trying to calm myself down in this impossible situation, I started to wonder who was setting the device off; if it wasn't Malcolm, then who?

'If you're not going to set it off, who is? You planned all this, you ordered for the device to be built.'

'Dr Markov wouldn't let the device be controlled by a single person,' Malcolm explained, keeping his head up to avoid looking upset by his inconvenient deal. 'He said it was too dangerous for one man to control, so he made it so two fingerprints had to turn on the machine. And, of course, I chose the girl who I thought would help me save this city - you, Aria. You are going to complete the Undertaking. It was your destiny.'

'That's why you... You didn't kill me, after I nearly killed you,' I realised slowly, my heart sinking way, way down. 'You needed me, and you still do. But I didn't give you my fingerprint, and I'm guessing that you needed my signature to have my permission to use anything remotely connected to me in this project. So, Malcolm, how did you do it?'

'Your signature was easy to scroll on paperwork, but obtaining your fingerprint was slightly harder,' Malcolm really did start explaining what he had done. 'It's a good job you always leave your empty SC Jitters cup in your office every morning.'

'I knew you were insane, but not this psychopathic,' I shook my head at the man I should have shot a few months ago, trying to hide my tears in the rage that had come over me. 'I thought you were bluffing, but you really managed to get me involved. How could you do this, to me, who've you already taken so much from?'