Heart or Brain

I curled my hands around his strong arms and felt small again, "What do we do…" I could only stare, my brain completely halting. Adrien's mind however was racing. 

The last time he had seen an Inexa was back when he got eaten by it in the game. Now he was facing it again, one of his biggest enemies, and that scared him to the bone. 'But could it hurt the humans?' he thought and waited to see what the creature would do.

We both stared at it grow bigger and step forward. A few people were too slow to escape its big snake like feet and the snakes came and crashed down upon them. They were supposed to be squashed but when the snake legs lifted again, they were perfectly fine. Taking this as a lucky sign, they ran as fast as their legs allowed them to.

I breathed in relief, "Ha! It can't hurt us…I mean, it can't hurt the humans," I corrected, not wanting to offend him but not wanting to get the facts wrong either. He tossed my hesitation to the side. His face didn't show the same relief as on mine. 

He stared at the Inexa as it realized that it wasn't able to crush the humans. Its snake legs curled around a few people and it tried to throw them into its mouth but they just fell through it and collided with the road, definitely breaking some bones, but not dying. 

The Inexa screeched in annoyance and caught a sniff in the air as it turned its head around to deadlock its gaze at Adrien. Catching a familiar face, it gave out a low rumble, like a smirk. It was happy now, finally someone who wasn't human. Someone it could feast on.

Adrien understood that and pushed me away, "Go, go, go Ashe. Stay away from this."

I looked at him in disbelief, "Are you serious right now? You should be the one to go away, not me. Let's run away, Adrien!"

He looked at me in surprise, "You care for me?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then why did you leave me to die?" he asked and the temperature around us dropped to a freezing absolute zero. There he was again, the cold Adrien. If there was on thing I knew, it was that he was the most bipolar person I had ever met. 

I stuttered and glanced back and forth at the Inexa coming toward us, "Adrien, this isn't the time to…"

"I'm not running away until you tell me why," he crossed his arms and stood as if he was relaxed. But his eyes showed that he was concentrated in the Inexa too which was coming for him fast. 

I gulped. So…if the Inexa ate him, Adrien would disappear right? And the company will be saved? Everything will be back to normal…

This was my chance! No more planning or plotting, just let this Inexa eat him and all the worry could come to an end…Darren wouldn't have to worry anymore. The company my dad worked so hard to build would be out of danger. 

I can go visit Rumi and Fiyona. 

It'll all be over once and for all. 

The Inexa took another step towards us and my mind finally started to race. 

"You are the one, Ashe!" he had said when he found out that I fit into the shoe. 

The way he had looked at me on the bed when he bit me. 

How I had felt things I had never felt before when I was next to him. These few days, I felt more things than I had felt in the past few years of my life. Adrien had made me frustrated, angry but also taught me patience and calmed me down at times. 

"Found it," his words echoed in my head. I bored deep into his green eyes as I felt the whole world melt away until it was just us two. Oh how nice it would have been if it was always this way? 

I closed my eyes and tried to think logically. My head would choose to let the Inexa devour him, of course.

My heart would do exactly the opposite.

What would Saye do? I don't know…I should think about what I should do now. I have always depended on others all my life. For once, I needed to stand up for myself, for what I loved.

But I loved both my family and Adrien both! What am I supposed to do when those two clashed so painfully? 

Adrien waited patiently for my answer. I saw his fists clench and unclench from the frustration building up inside him. The Inexa screeched and my head whipped as I saw the fire engines trying to hit it. The water must have fused its Vislate wiring or something because electricity started buzzing all around it. 

Oh good, I had more time to think.

But the Inexa got up soon enough and curled its snake like legs around a lamp post and dislodged it from the ground before impaling the fire engine like an arrow. 

The water stopped and the Inexa continued on its way towards us. It howled and called the other Inexas and informed them about the food in front of them. During all this, Adrien still hadn't taken his eyes off me. 

What was he thinking right now? Was it 'Answer me Ashe, I want to live?'

I was half wrong…what was inside his mind wasn't that. Instead it was,

"Answer me Ashe, I want to live with you by my side. I want to live so that I can protect you from whatever danger that wants to come and hurt you. And I still haven't said the thing which I've been wanting to say for a long time yet. So answer me Ashe, and let me do all those things which no one else has ever done for you. Let me wipe away the tears on your face and turn them into stars so that we can cherish both the good and bad memories as we live more years together, no matter what fate has in store for us. Please, answer me."

And sure enough, little tears were starting to streak down my cheek as I opened my eyes and met his gaze. Why didn't you just stay the plain old robot I thought you were? Then this would have been much easier. 

I can't…I can't let him die. He's not a folder. He was a soul with legitimate feelings, memories and not a part of the code. In a way, he was the unlucky angel who got caught in my dad's experiment.

I broke out into more tears and I saw his face flinch as he saw me do that.

"I wish I weren't forcing you to say it, but it's important. So just say it and I'll run like you told me to," he assured me. 

Just tell him, Ashe! Let him live! My heart screamed. 

Don't tell him, keep silent, little one. The entire future of the world's biggest company is at stake. Economies will fall if you make a stupid mistake that is ruled by your love hormones. My brain shot back at me.

Love...I did say love was meaningless before, didn't I? That it was just a result of the processes within our body. A mechanism explained by Charles Darwin that would drive evolution. Thousands of scientists spent their whole life and energy to confirm this and they even teach it in textbooks. It's supposed to be the universal truth.

Then how did just one look from this boy in front of me tilt everything I ever believed? What is this feeling? This isn't hormones, something this huge can't be just some chemical substances. It was something more. 

I knew that my heart and brain were both right in their own ways. This wasn't a decision between right and wrong, but rather a decision of who was going to win. 

The Inexa screeched as it got closer and my hair flew at the gust of air that escaped its mouth. Everything depended on my words now. 

My heart was pounding.

And so was Adrien's. 

Finally, as the Inexa dipped down with its mouth wide open and saliva dripping from its horrendous mouth, I parted my lips to speak.