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A Return to the Office Desk

Downstairs in his office, Aaron dropped the sack of components on the floor, collapsed at his desk, and buried his face in his hands He felt like his gut was being torn to shreds He didn’t even understand what had just happened What was so wrong about Aaron wanting to rule over the entire island, including Arti to do it from the nicest location in the land? Just because the ical, and just because it happened to be created by Unwanted trash, and just because it was surrounded by wickedly awful creative people, did not make Aaron sympathetic to the Unwanteds, or worse, sohtfully his, but not because Aaron deserved to be Unwanted--no one knew about his infractions but he and his brother, who had taken the blame when they were ten in order to save him And no one knehat Aaron’s life would be like now if he’d taken responsibility for his own creativity Alex’s sacrifice had been a gift that any intelligent person wouldn’t think twice about accepting! For that hat Aaron was Intelligent Strong Wanted Period

And none of this changed the fact that so with General Blair Aaron didn’t trust hi

He lifted his head and stared across the bare, gray rooain He didn’t have the Quillitary after all He was on his own, and undoubtedly about to fail once more It was the story of his life

At least he could let General Blair do the hard work of conquering Arti to happen whether Aaron wanted it to or not And of course he wanted it to happen The impossible part would come after that, when Aaron would have to take over the mansion fro Aaron, did that et rid of hiroaned into his sleeve The uncertainty and the anxiety were killing him, he was sure of that

His rew one, and he wished her back in this roo her back from the panther’s jaws

The panther--just one of his many failures There had been so le and its creatures were useless to Aaron now He couldn’t trust theh they seemed like they wanted to

Aaron ed his tele ani the panther what he wanted her to do Could that have saved Eva? He was always so impatient And noould never know

Three days left until General Blair attacked Artieneral’s takeover, and not really sure he had a place in the angry man’s future plans Perhaps a takeover of the palace was next Maybe that hy General Blair wanted him to lock himself inside--to make his own capture thatdown on the desk in despair

"Yes, you really are," came a woman’s voice from the hall

It was the elusive Gondoleery Rattrapp

Aaron lifted his head and frowned "What do you want?"