Disclaimer: The characters, much of the dialogue, and sadly, even the plot are not mine; they all belong to Eoin Colfer.

Pages: 181 – 185, 189 – 190

Chapter 10: Just Punishment

Holly couldn't honestly say this was the angriest she had ever been. After all, her mother had died because of the idiocy of a few Mud Men, and her commander Julius Root had been murdered by a vindictive, homicidal pixie. But this had to come close.

"You didn't infect my mother. I did it. It was me. I had a few sparks left over from the tunnel, and I made my parents forget I'd been missing for three years."

The fact that Artemis did appear to be really sorry did absolutely nothing to quell her wrath. Of course, Artemis Fowl could make himself appear as sorry as he wanted if it suited his purpose – a piece of knowledge that, for obvious reasons, did not particularly help her current mood as the two stayed frozen on the stolen car, very suddenly in a decidedly different atmosphere.

Despite Artemis's pleas for her to try to understand what he had done, his lying to her and fooling her into believing that she perhaps may be the one to have started a second Spelltropy epidemic, that she may be responsible for his mother's death if Angeline really wound up dying, Holly had absolutely no desire to listen to any of his logical explanations, his cold reasoning.

How terrible she had felt, wondering how Artemis could even stand to look at her or be in her presence after what she had done – ha! It was himself he shouldn't be able to stand to look at. And at the moment she hoped he could never bear to look at that pale, thin, vampire face in a mirror again.

Artemis soon ceased his futile attempts to speak with her and the conversation lapsed into total silence.

Holly for one said nothing, certain that if she opened her mouth now she would probably start shouting and not be able to stop, just as when she had discovered her mother's omnitool among Mulch's stolen goods. And considering where she and Artemis were, it would probably be a bad idea for her to go drawing attention just now. They weren't exactly well-concealed out here; an old McGraney farmer might come out even in the early morning hours and start beating them over the head with a hoe before he realized one of them was an alien or a supernatural being of some kind.

But at the moment, Holly didn't expect this was the kind of anger that could be appeased by shouting or punching something anyway. It would probably be akin to trying to put out a raging bush fire with a sprinkle of water from a half-empty canteen, so she might as well save herself the trouble.

So instead Holly sat there, perfectly still, concentrating on getting a reign on the raging storm inside her. They still had a mission to complete, she told herself, whether she had entered into it on false pretenses or not.

"If there had been another way, Holly, believe me," said Artemis quietly after a long silence, breaking into her thoughts, but Holly refused to give him the satisfaction of a response.

"Please, Holly. Say something," he said, and his voice contained an unusual note of desperation. Almost begging.

Holly didn't look at him. She found herself thinking with a sort of spiteful pleasure that he seemed a bit pathetic, really. The great Artemis Fowl, pleading for forgiveness for acting the way he usually did, like people were all pawns in his elaborate game of chess. Though even now he wasn't really apologizing.

Holly was not the least bit tempted to respond to his pleas. Instead, she simply got off the car, feet coming down to reconnect forcefully with the hard ground beneath her. When she did finally speak, her voice was flat and cold. "Fifteen minutes are up. Time to move out."

As she made her way through the thick grasses of the McGraney farm toward Mulch's secret entrance and she heard Artemis coming along reluctantly behind her, it occurred to her that for once she was the one setting the pace, not the other way around. For so long she had trailed behind the boy and his genius, always looking to him for leadership, ever working to fall into step to accommodate his way of doing things.

But now, in a certain sense, she was the one holding all the cards, and it was his turn to play by her rules. While her rules were probably a good deal more civilized and forthright than his, she still fervently hoped he would find them about as pleasant.

After a few minutes of the initial violent fire that had exploded to life in her gut, Holly began to have a thought that, perhaps if she had in fact allowed herself one good explosion and she expended this building energy in one furious, railing blast, maybe all that anger would have been derailed after all, even if at the moment she was finding it hard to imagine.

Either way, she wouldn't get a chance to test the theory out, because, even if everything around her seemed to have acquired a dangerous red tint about it, she still had just enough clear thought to know she was going to have to hold it back for the sake of the mission.

Instead, Holly could do little more than just continue to think on the whole thing, thoughts as sharp and hard as flint whirling in a circle inside her head, the emotions building, pressing out against the confines of her small form. Her head pounded and, though her eyes were open, she was almost unaware of her surroundings as they moved. She wondered just how long the tiny remaining thread of her self-control would stay in one piece.

As they made their way out of the glittering light of the rising sun, descending down into the dark tunnel Mulch had left for them still in heavy, oppressive silence, the pressure at the front of her forehead continued to pulse. She would have preferred all thought to be whited out with fury right now, for pure emotion to overtake her and shut out even her ability to think, but on the contrary, her thoughts continued to speed through her mind like bullets, only adding further fuel to the rising blaze.

"I don't hate you, Holly," he had said right after he had lied to her, in such a gentle, comforting tone. Oh really, what a sacrifice.

From the very start, he had been lying to her, playing her like such an ignorant fool. And to top it all off, while he was doing that all along, she had basically told him she –

Holly's fingers curled into a fist in the Mud Boy's suit pocket, tightening so hard her fingernails dug into her own palm.

Though her expression remained impassive, her forehead felt hot as her face burned with angry humiliation. How had she let this happen? She had exposed a part of herself to the one person against whom she should have put up every barrier she could manage, and he had proceeded to degrade her further by rubbing her face in their lack of equality. He was the genius who would manipulate her for his own ends, and she was the puppet.

And I kissed him! she thought. The corners of her lips tightened, as though the mere memory had left a bitingly bitter aftertaste there. To think, I actually persuaded myself that I – while all the time, he was –

Despite herself, Holly felt her rational side sneaking back into her thoughts. But you know, it said quietly, even if he was lying to you, it's not as though Artemis could have tricked you into doing that. You can't blame that part on him.

Oh shut up, she snapped back. She felt almost ill with shame and mortification. He had planned all this. Somehow, this had all been part of his plan from the beginning.

Oh really? He planned for you to act like a lovesick fool? That doesn't seem like it would help the mission much.

Holly set her jaw in obstinate defiance. However, though it twisted hatefully in her gut to admit it, a part of her knew it was true. Artemis, whatever else he had done, had really been doing absolutely nothing different than he usually did, besides expressing his anxiousness over his mother's life with a little more vigor than was usual for him. Not to mention, it wasn't as though purposely working to engender these thoughts would be in any way helpful to their goal.

In other words, that particular part of the screwup was indeed entirely her own.

The rational side of her mind continued on, regardless of the wrenching feelings in her stomach. But it must have thrown him completely off-guard, it mused. He probably never intended to let the truth be known, to do anything other than take the secret that he knew from the start it wasn't you to the grave. But the way you were acting must have been so unanticipated; the guilt must have become unbearable. You were so pathetic that how could he not feel sorry for you?

That thought made her feel more ill than all the others before. The last thing she wanted was his high-handed pity. Every bit of it had been an error in judgment on her part, that was all. It wasn't as though she had really meant it.

Besides, the very notion of Artemis Fowl feeling guilty about something, especially guilty enough to change his game plan midway was ridiculous anyway. No, even this development of his telling her the actual truth must all be part of the strategy, as usual. It would be in his best interest to inform her of something that would be sure to turn her off him, so she would concentrate on the mission like she was supposed to, like a good little useful underworld contact. And even the sad attempt at reconciliation – He probably couldn't care less about what he had made her feel like, or that he had probably damaged their friendship beyond all hope of repair. Geniuses didn't worry about things like that. All that mattered in the world to him was the mission, the mission, the mission!

Holly knew even as she was thinking these things, about Artemis diabolically having planned all of this to the last detail and his sorrow over what he had felt he had to do to her being just pretense was preposterous and she didn't really believe a word of it. But for the moment, she was understandably in the mood to be as vicious as possible.

Holly also knew she would probably never have acted like she was acting now as an adult back in their own time during a mission, at least not to this extent. Refusing to communicate properly with Artemis could threaten their chances of success, and there were a lot of lives on the line. She could already feel her professional side's disapproval, though that same part of her was also admittedly relieved not to be pining away after her human accomplice anymore.

This volatile reaction was another consequence of her being made an adolescent again she knew; she was having more trouble controlling emotions of all kinds, not just those that she now found relatively more undesirable – which may turn out to be a serious problem.

Still, Holly somehow doubted Artemis was going to drop a comment. Not even he had that kind of nerve. And it was just as well – Because whether the Mud Boy genius found this professional behavior on her part or not, she realized as she made her way through the dark underground passage, its dirt walls reinforced with spit closing in about her, she honestly couldn't care less what he thought anyway.

When they met up with Mulch, the dwarf was pleased to inform them that he'd already gotten the shuttleport's main door open, which was a relief to Holly considering it was going to be a pain for her to have to do it herself and then reset the record to erase the evidence of her having been there. This was the first bit of good news in what seemed like forever since the conversation with Artemis, though in reality it probably had been less than twenty minutes.

"Perhaps our luck is finally turning," said Artemis once Mulch was done, almost as though the Mud Boy were intentionally trying to pick the exact comment that would irritate her most. It was a bit too close to what she was thinking, and having thoughts that coincided with his of all people was aggravating beyond belief.

Holly found she was surprisingly glad to see the pungent dwarf. It was good to be with a friend, or future friend anyway, who wasn't inclined to lie to and blackmail her. Well, at least not in a way that she wouldn't be able to see through from a mile off.

When Mulch mentioned a shuttle, Artemis seemed to feel compelled to ask her about whether they could use it to get to the trade-off point where little Artemis would be handing over the lemur, possibly before his younger self even got there. Artemis used his normal information-gathering tone, as though he thought that by sounding as though nothing at all had happened, it would make the earlier conversation disappear. Yet Holly definitely detected a trace of apprehension in the boy's pale face, which gave her immense satisfaction.

Holly had been giving the Mud Boy the silent treatment until now, but since he was forcing her to speak to him, she adopted a dead monotone as a means of imparting information. "It's possible," she said. "It depends on how long it takes me to cover our tracks." She supposed the mission was important enough to warrant this sacrifice on her part.

They all trooped in to where the shuttle was kept, and as Artemis looked up at the thoroughly weathered and beaten metal, he muttered something about the Stone Age, and laughed a little to himself, though his eyes were still troubled.

Holly couldn't resist. She wasn't sure what he had to laugh about right now, but she really wished he would be quiet. "Another joke, Mud Boy?" she asked, voice like razor wire. "You're really in fine form today. What is it this time? Did you tell some poor trusting fool that they caused a plague?"

She didn't feel bad in the slightest as, when she strode on past him, she noticed his expression sober and his head fall slightly, looking suddenly exhausted.

Ironically, as she headed for the shuttle entrance, she could feel all the while her adult, professional side continuously chiding her for her immaturity, but she ignored the voice. Artemis deserved at least this much, and a lot worse.

They all piled into the shuttle, an old tunnel scraper which was on the block to be refitted with replacement parts. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, Holly tore off her silver wig and discarded it violently to the side, as though imagining it was a certain Mud Boy's head.

Artemis trailed along a little ways behind. Once they were all in, Holly reluctantly volunteered, without looking at the recipient of the information, what she was doing to keep the authorities from realizing, at least initially, that they would likely never lay eyes on this particular vehicle again. She hoped this would be enough to prevent him saying anything else to her.

Her plan didn't work though as he asked, though with seeming trepidation, "Will that work?"

Irritated that he was still talking to her, Holly replied, "I doubt it. There's probably a smart missile waiting for us on the other side of that door."

Though he probably knew where this was going, he took the bait anyway. "Really?"

"No," she said, eyes on the front screen, tone almost bored. "I'm lying. Not nice, is it?"

Meanwhile, it didn't taken Mulch long to figure out his two partners in crime from the future weren't quite as chummy as they had been just a bit ago. His black eyes glittered as they flickered back and forth between the pair of time-travelers curiously.

Perhaps Mulch was glad to get a break from being double-teamed as far as snide comments were concerned. He seemed only too eager to join in on Holly's cold war against the LEP elf's Mud Boy accomplice, and when Artemis asked next if they could fly the scraper without a paddle, the two of them laughed hard at him, shutting the human out by turning to each other and speaking their disparaging comments in rapid Gnommish.

"Yes, Mud Boy, we can fly without a paddle," said Holly, feeling suddenly triumphant for some reason. The boy genius who thought he knew everything, and here she got to hear proof he obviously didn't. And it was so good to have another fairy here to share it. "Unless you're planning to scrape some residue from the tunnel walls. Usually we leave that to the robots."

Holly was grinning, and didn't care to stop even when she imagined how vindictive she probably looked at the moment.

Mulch seemed nothing short of delighted with this turn of events. His eyes on her face, he spontaneously broke out into some retro Mud Man song and sung off-key in his gravelly tones, pretending to hold a microphone to his mouth, "You've lost that lovin' feeling, whoa, that lovin' feeling – "

Of course, Mulch had no way of knowing that at that moment Holly's current mood was on a hair-trigger and poking fun at such a sensitive area in Holly's presence was akin to poking a sleeping tiger in the eye. Even more so in Captain Short's case, as most LEP personnel go through a highly specialized martial arts training that involves the mimicking of various predatory animals.

Losing all affinity she'd been feeling for the fairy dwarf in an instant, Holly said, voice very calm, "You're about to lose all feeling in your legs, Diggums, if you don't shut it."

There was an awkward pause. Not unlike the reaction one would get in pulling out a gun at a dinner party. The sense of imminent, immediate danger from an individual that does not seem particularly stable tends to have that effect.

Holly did not begin to calm down until she started the shuttle moving and headed into the tunnels.

She soon found, much to the chagrin of her passengers, she was able to sort of channel her frustration by piloting the craft like a maniac. With every insane, dangerously close turn, Holly felt just a little more of the red haze clouding her vision clear. She resisted it at first – a part of her wanted to stay angry over the affair indefinitely, to make sure she would never let him forget it – but as she sped the shuttle through the underground tunnel system on the way toward Morocco, the location of the trade-off according to Artemis, bit by bit she felt rational thought returning to the cockpit of her brain.

Consequently, in light of this return to the world of discernment and judicious thinking, Holly had to admit that it was hard to really blame Artemis for what he had done. This wasn't like when he had kidnapped her and ransomed her for gold before; back then he had been motivated by selfish personal gain. This time he had acted because he wanted to save his mother.

"He's desperate. He would do anything." So Foaly had said. Here was the ultimate proof that he had been right. Artemis Fowl, child prodigy, had even gone so far as to deceive his own friend who had trusted him to tell her the truth.

Yet how could she judge the boy, she wondered. How could she judge him, when she knew without a doubt she would have done exactly what he had done given the option? The hollow place in her chest even now testified to the fact that, whether her own mother had approved of it or not, Holly would have clawed and fought and blackmailed anyone she had to if it meant she could have had a chance to save her.

But even in reaching a calmer state, the pain of what had transpired still lingered. What hurt even more than having been made to believe she had been responsible for causing a ghastly plague, or being essentially betrayed by someone she had come to regard as a close friend, was the feeling that it had happened at all because they apparently weren't the friends Holly had come to believe they were. He hadn't needed to go that far, she was certain. She would have come to his aid anyway eventually, but he hadn't trusted her to make that choice without his blackmailing her first. Of course he hadn't – Artemis Fowl didn't trust anyone.

Would you, though? asked a small voice in the back of her mind. Would you really, if Artemis hadn't forced your hand? Maybe Artemis chose not to trust you, because he already knew you couldn't be trusted.

For a moment, an image of his eyes, ever piercing right through her to her innermost thoughts flashed across her mind, but Holly forced it aside. She was still too irritated to think on that line of reasoning. She would have without a doubt, she thought forcefully to herself. Artemis had just been wrong, that was all. What right had he had to make that decision for her? Even Artemis Fowl couldn't possibly know everything, even if he thought he did.

Instead, what Holly really needed to do was concentrate on how to proceed from here. She was still upset, but she knew that the emotion wouldn't last. She had to speak with him and work with him right now even if she didn't particularly feel like it, and she would probably have to continue to do so even once they got out of this particular mess here in the past. They had gotten to know one another a little too well to just go their separate ways at the end of this. She would probably even forgive him eventually.

Forgive, but never forget. As Holly powered the shuttle through the dark underground tunnels, with little more than the third-perspective view of the ship on one of the readout screens and the dimmest lighting outside to guide her, she silently vowed that she would never allow this human to get so far inside her guard again. Humans – Some of them may be better than others, but deep down they were all the same. They couldn't help it, like the ones who had caused her mother to perish so prematurely, when the she had still had so much more to give. There was no need to be 'friends' to get done what needed to be done, and as Foaly had once said, there was no being friends with a viper anyway.

Yes, that was the only logical response, she thought. Artemis of all people should be able to appreciate that. It was a just punishment – Or it would be, if only she could be sure Artemis Fowl would even consider losing a friendship a 'punishment' at all.

A/N: Another hard chapter for me... I'm starting to get the feeling that all the chapters from here are going to be labor-intensive to edit to get them where I want them, lol.

Anyway, if you're reading this, hope to hear from you! No strings attached, really. (;

Posted 11/4/11