She leans over the sink. “Shit just got real.”
I stare ahead, seeing only that man’s profile in my mind’s eye. “I killed him.”
“You saved my life.”
I glare at my hands. Murderer’s hands.
Tekqua bends over to take a deep breath, dropping her forehead to the sink’s edge. “We’re soldiers now.”
Yeah. Soldiers on the front line, afraid and unprepared, hoping those taking aim at us would miss.
We allow ourselves five minutes of panic time before rejoining the others to help organize the families. Mahmoud’s group has already arrived with their charges, and they’re dividing up rooms in this large house. Rodrigo is last to arrive, speckles of blood marring his face like some morbid Jackson Pollock painting.
“We lost three men,” is all he says before disappearing into the bathroom.
A woman from one of the houses we’d vacated rushes forward, a frantic gleam in her eye. “Jeremy? Did Jeremy make it back?”
One of the combat soldiers takes her aside.
In seconds, her wail fills the home.
It’s like the fine edge of glass, that howl—so sharp I don’t realize I’m bleeding until much, much later. Her agony oozes into my soul and haunts my thoughts. I’m not even sure how I make it back to headquarters, but somehow, I’m sitting on my bed, Dad perched beside me.
I won’t look at him.
I can’t look at him.
I killed someone.
“How was your first mission?” he asks.
I shrug. “How was yours?”
“Successful,” he says. Nothing further.
I stay quiet for a time, contemplating that.
He strokes my hair. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”
“No,” I say.
“Alright. Then just listen.”
I shift on the bed so I can see his face.
“Sometimes we reach a point in our lives where we’re faced with a choice between two terrible options. Neither choice is good. Today, you chose between taking a life or letting a life be taken. When you make a choice like that, it changes you, Sophia.”
I say nothing. Tears swell in my throat.
“Remorse is a symptom of a healthy mind,” he says.
“It feels awful,” I choke out, unable to hold back the sobs.
“Yes, but it’s proof that you understand your decisions are not just black or white. There is subtext and nuance in every choice we make. When you decided to kill that man, you saved an innocent life.”
“Or maybe he could have gone on to solve world hunger.” My tears soak the pillow beneath me, but he continues to stroke my hair, the same way he had when I was still little, and my tears spilled over innocuous things like bad grades or mean girls.
“Exactly,” he says. “It’s healthy to have remorse. It keeps you human. The day you stop feeling remorse over taking life is the day you no longer have a heart.”
