His unblinking gaze was so intense, I fought the urge to look away.
“I volunteered,” he murmured.
My heart skipped a few beats. “What? Wh-why?”
“Because there was a kid.”
I froze.
“A boy. Thirteen.” His hard expression turned curious. “Didn’t you see him?”
Too busy watching Lucas, I hadn’t paid attention to the prisoners lined up to be executed. In truth, I hated looking at them. It engendered too much pain.
“You killed akid?” I whispered. Not only killed him, butrequestedto do it. How could the NAO possibly have justified the execution of a child? A myriad of emotions sped my heart—disbelief, disgust, horror, sadness, fear.
He studied my face carefully, and his voice lowered. “Still want to absolve me?”
There had to be a reason. Maybe I didn’t understand it, maybe I wouldneverunderstand it, but there had to be a reason.
Still, a poisonous wave of anger washed over me, hot enough to make me reckless. My feet moved before I knew what I was doing, flying toward him. My palm connected with his face in a vicious smack, the sound like the recoil of a rubber band. Scarlet bloomed over his cheek, not unlike the patch he wore on his shoulder when he’d committed those murders.
Wrath exploded inside me.
I attacked, using all the training he’d bestowed upon me. My fingernails clawed at his face, scraped gouges into his skin. I tightened my hand into a fist and slammed it into his jaw, flinching at the pain that bloomed in my knuckles. Still, I kicked, punched, screamed.
He could’ve gotten away. Stronger, bigger, faster—if he’d wanted to hurt me, to kill me, he could have done it. But he didn’t fight, not even like when we sparred.
I hit him as hard as I could, ignoring the throb in my pinky as a gash opened at his mouth. I grabbed his neck and hair, trying to cause as much pain as possible, to leave marks others would see. His lip bled freely, staining my skin. It fueled a blind fury inside me.
How dare he bleed? As if he were human enough to do it. As if he possessed a heart.
I shoved his shoulders. He slammed into the wall beside the brick fireplace. At his throat in a flash, I didn’t fumble when I wrested the weapon he’d given me from my pocket. The sharp points of the knuckles balanced atop his carotid.
He lifted his hands to either side, slow and submissive, and we stared at each other. My chest heaved, but his barely moved. Something in his eyes screwed confusing tendrils of ice into my chest. Something like…a plea.
A breath escaped him, and with it, I thought I heard a single word.
Please.
Was he pleading for leniency or begging me to kill him? Maybe the greatest mercy I could give him was ending his miserable life.
Did it matter which it was?
He’d surrendered to me. Tome. This predator stared at me with no plan to attack, no recourse for escape. If I desired, I could end his life, and he’d let it happen.
Do it, I told myself.Just do it!
But I couldn’t.
The rage inside me buckled and broke. Sparks exploded in my head, showering over every preconceived notion, burning them to ash. He wasn’t the man I’d originally thought, but he also wasn’t the man I thought I’d begun to understand.
He was an enigma.
One thing I knew for certain. Hidden beneath layers of mystery and snark, there was areasonhe’d turned traitor. A profound one.
A reason he killed like a robot.
A reason he volunteered for executions.
