His tone chilled her.“Do you regret marrying me?”
“No.But I need to find a way to drive it home through that thick, beautiful skull of yours that you’re part of a team now.You and me.Equal partners.You can’t ‘lone wolf’ your way through life anymore.”He paused.“And how do we finally stop these fuckers for good?How do we stop all of them so we don’t have to keep going through this shit?”
“We do what we’re doing,” she quietly replied.“Hopefully we don’t face another serious threat for a long time.This was by far the worst in my lifetime.Hell, I think it was easily the worst in Trent and Peyton’s lives, not counting losing Dad and Mom.”
“Let’s assume it’s not the last existential threat.Then what?”
She carefully thought about her response before answering.“I don’t know,” she admitted.“We have to prepare as best we can while still living a relatively normal life.We can’t exist as if we’re perpetually under siege.For starters, it’s not realistic.Second, it’s not sustainable in anything resembling a healthy way.And third, it could paradoxically lead to the packnotbeing ready when a real threat hits, because we won’t recognize it.If we’re hypervigilant all the time, and everything’s a threat, then nothing’s a threat until it lands on top of us.By then, it’s too late.”
“Doesn’t answer my question, Dewi.”
She sat up but didn’t move to touch him.“I can’t answer your question,” she said.“Badger and Beck taught me to stay flexible and think on my feet.That not every situation has a ready or easy answer, but my focus needs to be on the pack first when making those decisions.After saving lives, what’s best for the pack?Unfortunately, what was best this time was what I did.If we hadn’t just gone through the lab raid and all that bullshit, I might have made a different choice.Maybe come up with something like Peyton said and kidnap her, reprogram her, and then turn her loose to take out Abundio and get herself thrown in jail.But those are a lot of maybes and what-ifs to take into consideration.A lot of moving parts that all have to align perfectly to work.I decided to go for the lowest-risk option, the simplest plan with the fewest parts, that also ultimately gave her the choice.”
“Where does the line get drawn?”he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Do we go in guns blazing and kill people in a compound even if there are kids present?Do we down an aircraft to kill one person who makes Hitler look like an angel while ignoring collateral damage?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” she said.“I wish I could promise you there will never be collateral damage.But I can’t.We do our best to prevent it.And no, I wouldn’t take down an entire airplane of innocent people just to kill one.I wouldn’t even take out a car full of innocent people just to kill one.”
“So, it’s black and white?”
“Never,” she said.“If it were, I would’ve walked into that office, Primed her with a command, and had her go on a rampage and scream something that squarely placed the blame on Abundio for her actions before she killed herself.Or intercepted her when she arrived at work, took her and the driver somewhere, and killed both of them.Or any other number of options.I know I have a rep for tearing through china shops without hesitation, but you of all people should know that’s not who I am.Not all the time, anyway.Not unless the situation calls for it.”
He finally turned, changing position so he could look at her.“I don’tknowwho you are, and that’s mypoint.Just when I think I do, you do something like this that completely challenges my worldview.If you’ll recall, on the night we met, youkilleda guy.”
She again weighed her words before answering.“I know.And I regret how that happened.I scented you and tried to come up with a plan to neutralize the target and not lose you or put you at risk.”
“Neutralize the target.”He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, where the light making its way through the open blinds cast shadows across it.“Do you even hear yourself?”
“I couldn’t walk away from my mission when children’s lives were at stake.”
“No, but you could’ve used your Prime on me to remember your name and number, for me to give you mine, and then sent me out the back door to get me out of there before you did it and have me call you later.Or pick me up out back with the car.”
“That wasn’t what I thought at the time.Yes, I realize I should’ve handled that differently.I am not perfect, and I’ve never claimed to be.”
“But do you understand what I’m saying?After this stunt I’m paranoid to even give you any information, unless Peyton tells me to, for fear you’ll go off and take action on it without consulting anyone first.”
Heat filled her face.“I’m sorry.”
“How many ‘I’m sorrys’ will there be before this finally clicks for you?Wehaveto be a team, Dewi.I have to count on you, and you have to learn to count on me.More than that, you need to respect me.”
She felt even worse because he was one hundred percent correct.“I don’t have a good answer.I fucked up, I admit it, and I promise never to do it again.I’ll run things past you.But there will also be times I have to overrule you, or get Peyton involved to overrule you.”
“I’m not looking for you to be a tradwife or a robot,” he said.“And I get it that sometimes you will need to make split-second decisions.Butthiswasn’t that.You planned this over, what, a couple ofweeks?Andnowherein that time did you so much as hint to Peyton or me what was going on.Worse, you deliberately misled me and assured me that you were just going on routine visits.That’s unacceptable.I need to be treated like a respected partner.”
“You had a whopper of a secret for quite a while,” she responded.“You and Peyton kept secrets from me.How’s that any different?”
He didn’t respond at first.“You’re right.It’s not much different.And it was also wrong.”
It finally spewed free from her.“Ihatethat he dragged you into all of this without so much as talking to me first!Ihatethat even if you didn’t remember or know it at the time, you held all that information.Iknow what you held, because Isawthat information.Badger showed me.Peyton hadnoright to do that without talking to me first.”
“You have every right to feel like that,” he said.“I will tell him that, going forward, I can’t agree to certain things without talking to you first.I know it doesn’t help, but I didn’t enjoy doing it.Also, it was for work.Except I wasn’t killing anyone.He basically used me as a meat hard drive.Like you said, there may be times he asks things of me for work that you don’t want me to do, and I’ll let him overrule you.”
“That makes it worse,” she said.“Because it makes me mad at him for asking those kinds of things of you in the first place!”
“He didn’t force me,” he said.“I agreed.And it shouldn’t make you any angrier than I am for him asking things of you.”
