It was true, Amandla was trying to protect Lazar, she was doing exactly the same thing she had condemned in his behavior towards her, and instead of taking this into account to avoid being as hypocrite as she thought Lazar was, she stuck to her stance, even though it was likely to make things worse.
She frowned at Lazar, this time even the fact that she wanted to have a good relationship with him wouldn't prevent her from saying what she was thinking, "You're in no position to tell me that after what you did earlier." She said to him in a harsh tone.
Lazar knew that she wasn't going to like his overprotectivity during the meeting, but he also knew that she would have enough objectivity to understand why he was like this when he would explained it to her.
"That was an act, I know very well that you can protect yourself, the goal was just for Andrew to see that I care about you." He told Amandla, choosing his words carefully so as not to offend her and to avoid her misunderstanding him.
'What?!' Amandla was even more confused, she was staring at Lazar with an air of disbelief while wondering how he couldn't realize that what he was saying made things even weirder, "For what purpose?"
'Oh, I'm idiot.' Seeing that he had created more misunderstandings than he had cleared up, Lazar hurried to explain himself, "I think we haven't seen Buren and Andrew's true faces yet, they were passive during the meeting only because they think they desperately need our help. In fact, that might be innacurate for Buren but I know enough about Andrew to know that's how it is for him..."
Amandla didn't understand where Lazar wanted to go, but what he was saying was quite in line with what she herself thought, so she continued to listen to him more and more attentively thinking that he was maybe getting close to a conclusion that would teach her something.
"... Buren is thoughtful, but from what we have seen, he is under the influence of Andrew, who is impulsive lunatic. What do you think will happen to you if we manage to save Andrew's daughter?" Lazar's question was greeted by Amandla's disbelief.
She started fiddling one of the braids on the side of her head anxiously, then abruptly stopped doing so when a disturbing thought came to her mind, "If this moron is unstable enough to want to kill me for his brat's crush, then why did you draw more attention on me?" She asked Lazar while looking deeply into his eyes.
"It's the Apocalypse, he don't have the same limitations now. Currently, the only woman for whom it wouldn't occur to him to kill her seeing her less than 2 meters away from me would have been my adoptive mother. No matter what I would have done, the result would have been the same, he would want to kill you. Provoking him was the best thing to do because knowing him he will lose control and make mistakes that we will not miss." Lazar answered Amandla without batting an eyelid.
Amandla understood the meaning behind Lazar's maneuver, she wasn't really mad at him although it bothered her to know that her life was no longer threatened only by monsters, 'But that doesn't change anything, I can't let him leave tonight.'
Lazar didn't want to talk about it, but feeling that Amandla was still disapproving his decision, he thought he had no choice, "Amandla, I think you're forgetting something here. I'm doing this for my adoptive mother, this story is between her and me, you don't have a say in it." He told her in an increasingly angry tone, "You can disagree with me, but don't get in my way thinking you're doing me a favor."
Amandla remained silent and held Lazar's gaze with determination, he then understood that she wouldn't only disapprove his decision but that if necessary, she would indeed get in his way, 'What is about to happen was avoidable Amandla.' Lazar thought to himself as he returned to a calm expression.
"I hope one day will come when our roles will be reversed..." Lazar said with a light smile to Amandla, "Then you'll understand why I'm reacting like this."
Amandla noticed too late that Lazar was slowly reaching for his seatbelt with his hand.
When he saw that she had noticed his movement, he no longer bothered to be discreet and hastily unbuckled it.
Amandla then hurried to unbuckle her belt too, but without success, it was stuck, "Damn!"
As she continued to squirm while trying to unbuckle her seatbelt, Lazar was rushing to the back doors, managing to keep his balance even though the truck was moving.
When Amandla finally managed to unbuckle her belt Lazar had managed to open the doors and before she could even rush towards him he had already jumped out of the truck.
Amandla approached the back doors which were still open, it was too dark for her to see Lazar but she felt his presence, which made her hesitate to jump as well.
"Is there a problem?!" Amandla recognized the driver's voice, he had opened his window and shouted just loud enough to make himself understood.
Paying close attention to their surroundings and therefore kept his eyes on his mirrors at all times, he had noticed that Lazar had jumped out of the truck but didn't mention it clearly.
Not having any information about what had happened, he was preferring to avoid all the scenarios involving a possibility to make Amandla angry.
Amandla remained silent for a moment while staring at the spot where she located Lazar's presence.
"There's no problem!" She shouted before going back inside the back of the truck closing the doors behind her.
...
Lazar finally stopped rolling on the asphalt of the road where he was.
Going from a lit place to complete darkness, about 2 seconds had been necessary for his eyes to adapt after he got up to see what was around him with his nocturn vision.
Lazar looked directly in the truck's direction to verify if Amandla had followed him. He was relieved to see that she hadn't, but was uneasy during a short instant because he had the impression of feeling her gaze on him, 'I'll worry about that later.' He thought before checking the time on his watch.
Seeing that it was barely midnight, Lazar was relieved that he wouldn't have to worry about daybreak.
Before checking he thought it was at least 2 am but now realized that it was a distortion of time that had been caused by the fact that he had found the meeting interminable when it had been in fact rather short.
Lazar then looked around him, he immediately recognized the neighborhood he was in and started running towards the west.
His objective was 4 kilometers far.